On their first visit with Pope Benedict XVI, Costa Rican bishops took instruction to keep Catholicism alive in their changing society. The Pontiff called on the seven bishops, who comprise the Episcopal Conference of Costa Rica, to “constantly revitalize their ancient and deep Christian roots” and beware of their compatriots' faith becoming “lethargic and superficial,” the Catholic News Agency (CNA) and the daily La Nación reported Friday.

The bishops were fulfilling their obligatory quinquennial ad limina visit to the Vatican that began last Monday (TT, Jan. 25).

Benedict, elected in April 2005, said that in Costa Rica's developing society, the Church must seek “new ways to announce Christ” emphasizing “the missionary character of all pastoral activity,” according to CNA.

The agency is a news source with global coverage of the Catholic Church.

Its report said the Pope also noted a tendency taking root throughout Latin America that is the rise of Evangelical and Protestant factions.

Here 76.3% of the population professes to be Roman Catholic, while 13.7% are Evangelical, 1.3% Jehovah's Witness, 0.7% Protestant and 4.8% belong to other groups, according to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency's “World Factbook.”

The remaining 3.2%, the factbook says, claims no religious faith.

Within this country's transforming society, people with “lethargic and superficial faith” risk falling into “the multiple promises of easy and immediate well being … or the spread of ideologies which, while claiming to exalt human beings, actually debase them,” the Pope said according to the Catholic agency.

Recent reports have suggested that an increasing number of Costa Rican couples are moving in together before marriage and choosing to either hold off on children or to forego having kids altogether – tendencies that do not reflect the portrait of the traditional Catholic Central American family of past generations.

The Pope spoke to the Episcopal Conference's fears raised by this phenomenon. “You are right to be concerned at the increasing deterioration of the institution of the family, which has such grave repercussions on the fabric of society and on ecclesial life,” he said.