Religious education in Brazil can be conveniently divided into four phases or periods:

I. 1553-1759
II. 1759-1891
III. 1891-1931
IV. 1931 to the present.

During this early period religious education in Brazil was, practically speaking, in the hands of the Society of Jesus.

The movement known as the Counter-Reformation attached great importance to cultural formation. Three great personalities of the sixteenth century dominate this intellectual renascence which can rightly be called Catholic humanism. They are St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, in Spain; Thomas More, the excellent Hellenist and sociologist, in England; and St. Angela Merici in Italy, who founded the Congregation of the Ursulines, dedicated especially to the education of women.