Pope Benedict XVI Visits Brazil

Pope Benedict XVI has arrived in the Brazilian city of Sao Paulo and is expected to spend five days touring Brazil, the most populous Roman Catholic country in the world.

Keeping the Catholic faithful in line is not as easy as it used to be. It seems that in the past 10 years, there has been a 10% drop in the number of Catholics in Brazil, while the upstart evangelical church has seen a nice, sizeable increase during that same period.

Not-long-on-the-job Pope Benedict XVI is in Brazil to see what's what and who's where and why is someone where he ought not to be and then probe the why and the wherefore regarding the declining numbers of Catholics in Brazil.

The Pope will perform several open-air Masses and also attend a conference of big-shot Latin American bishops, who will decide on the region's church policy for the next few years.

Meanwhile, the Pope has already begun speaking out against abortion in Sao Paulo, which is just the sort of non-modern, hot-potato issue that has caused the Catholic church to lose so many followers in recent years.