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Church and Politics in Brazil: The Genesis of Change*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2009
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The Catholic Church in Brazil has undergone a fundamental transformation in its role in state and society during the past decade and a half, making it probably the most progressive Church in Latin America, if not the world. Based on theological innovations since the Second Vatican Council (1962–5) and the CELAM meeting in Medellín, Colombia (1968), the Church in Brazil has made a ‘preferential option for the poor’.
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References
1 For my analyses, see The Political Transformation of the Brazilian Catholic Church (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1974),Google Scholar and The Church in Brazil: The Politics of Religion (Austin, The University of Texas Press, 1982).Google Scholar For documentation, see Luiz Gonzaga de, Souza Lima, Evolução política dos católicos e da igreja no Brasil (Petrópolis, Vozes, 1979).Google Scholar For a very useful review of the activities, see Cândido Procópio Ferreira de Camargo, Beatriz Muniz de Souza, and Antíonio Flávio de Oliveira Pierucci, ‘La Iglesia católica en el Brasil: 1945–1970’, Revista Mexicana de Sociologiâ No. xliii (1981). For a recent review, see Dom, Aloisio Lorscheider, ‘Informe para o CELAM pelo delegado da CNBB’, SEDOC, Vol. 16 (07–08, 1983), pp. 86–97.Google Scholar Other relevant books include: Marcio, Moreira Alves, A igreja e a politica no Brasil (Rio de Janeiro, Civilização Brasileira, 1979),Google ScholarRoberto, Romano, Brasil: igreja contra estado (São Paulo, Kairos, 1979),Google Scholar and Helena, Salem (ed.), Brasil: A igreja dos oprimidos (São Paulo, Brasil Debates, 1981).Google Scholar
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3 ‘Comunicaçao Pastoral ao Povo de Deus’, November, 1976.
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10 In addition to chapter 8 in my 1982 book, and the bibliography cited there, see CEBRAP, ‘Comunidades eclesiais de base’, 1979. Mimeo.
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20 See my Political Transformation, p. 240.Google Scholar
21 Classes populares e igreja nos caminbos da bistória (Petrépolis, Vozes, 1982).Google Scholar
22 ‘Igreja e Sociedade’, p. 25.
23 Classes populares, p. 240.Google Scholar
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29 Ibid., p. 225.
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31 Carlos Rodrigues, Brandão, Os deuses do povo (São Paulo, Brasiliense, 1980). One of the most impressive of the bottom to the top approaches, by an anthropologist whose sympathy for the lower classes he is studying is obvious, reaches conclusions very similar to my own on the Church changing to adopt to different circumstances in order to maintain influence in society.Google Scholar
32 Scott, Mainwaring, ‘Igreja e política: anatoçóes teóricas’, Síntese, No. 27 (01–04, 1983), pp. 35–56,Google Scholar and his thesis, ‘The Catholic Church and Politics in Brazil, 1916–1982, Stanford University, Department of Political Science (1982), to be published by Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
33 Ibid., pp. 38–9.
34 Ibid., p. 38.
35 See, for example of this awareness, CNBB, Diretrizes gerais da açāo pastoral da igreja no Brasil, 1975/1978 (Sã Paulo, Paulinas, 1975).Google Scholar
36 Mainwaring, ‘Igreja e Política’.
37 See Bruneau, , Political Transformation, 1974, p. 4 for a discussion of this.Google Scholar
38 Avery, Dulles S.J., A Church to Believe In (New York, Crossroads, 1982), Chapter 2, ‘Institution and Charism in the Church’.Google Scholar
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