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Catholicism and Society in Twentieth-Century Brazil

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2022

Ralph Della Cava
Ralph Della Cava*
Affiliation:
Queens College, City University of New York
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During the 1960s, social scientists optimistically predicated a significant role for Roman Catholicism in the promotion of social reform throughout Latin America. But political developments during the 1970s, notably in Chile and Brazil, implicitly challenged that view and the theoretical foundations on which it rested. Not surprisingly, one recent and knowledgeable reassessment of the Church's role contends that Catholicism—for reasons that went unaccentuated in earlier scholarship—is both institutionally and ideologically incapable of legitimating and implementing reforms basic to a new egalitarian order.

Type
Research Article
Information
Latin American Research Review , Volume 11 , Issue 2 , 1976 , pp. 7 - 50
Copyright
Copyright © 1976 by the University of Texas Press

Footnotes

*

A preliminary version of this article appeared in Portuguese in the Brazilian journal CEBRAP—ESTUDOS 12(abril, maio, junho 1975):5-52, as “Igreja e Estado no Brasil do Século XX: Sete Monografias recentes sobre o Catolicismo Brasileiro, 1916/64.” I gratefully acknowledge: The support of the City University Research Foundation, the Social Science Research Council, and the American Philosophical Society; the invaluable encouragement of Albert Fried, Herbert S. Klein, and Brady Tyson; the useful comments of Thales de Azevedo, Margaret Crahan, Octávio Ianni, Rowan Ireland, Richard Morse, Thomas Sanders, Alfred Stepan, Luíz Eduardo Wanderley, and Alex Wilde; and the stimulating criticisms of Duglas Teixeira Monteiro and Gilberto Velho and their graduate students at the University of São Paulo and the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, respectively.

References

Notes

1. The most total disavowal of the Church as an agent of social reform is found in the article by the exiled Chilean Jesuit and founder of the Christians for Socialism movement, Gonzalo Arroyo, “Nota sobre la Iglesia y los cristianos de izquierda a la hora del putsch en Chile,” Latin American Perspectives 2, no. 1 (Spring 1975), issue 4, pp. 89-99. Rowan Ireland, “The Catholic Church and Social Change in Brazil: An Evaluation,” Brazil in the Sixties, ed. by Riordan Roett (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 1972), pp. 345-71, concludes that while some churchmen—and presumably social scientists, too—are now free from illusions of the early 1960s, others—including some of the most important bishops—openly prefer security to change (pp. 368-69). Frederick C. Turner, Catholicism and Political Development in Latin America (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1971) underscores many of the constraints upon Catholicism's political role in Latin America despite his overall characterization of the Church as a “‘cautiously progressive‘” force.

2. Useful surveys of this literature are: Gerhard Drekonja, “Religion and Social Change in Latin America,” LARR 6, no. 1 (Spring 1971): 53-72; Thomas C. Bruneau, “Power and Influence: Analysis of the Church in Latin America and the Case of Brazil,” LARR 8, no. 2 (Summer 1973): 25-51; and the excellent study by Brian H. Smith, S.J., “Religion and Social Change: Classical Theories and New Formulations in the Context of Recent Developments in Latin America,” LARR 10, no. 2 (Summer 1975): 3-34.

3. Ivan Vallier, Catholicism, Social Control, and Modernization in Latin America (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1970), pp. 76-77; 114-19; 158-59; and “Religious Elites: Differentiation and Developments in Roman Catholicsm,” Elites in Latin America, ed. by S. M. Lipset and A. Solari (New York: Oxford University Press, 1967), pp. 190-232, see esp. pp. 190-91.

4. Thomas Sanders, “The Church in Latin America,” Foreign Affairs 48, no. 2 (January 1970): 285-99.

5. Luigi Einaudi, M. Fleet, R. Maulin, and A. Stepan, “The Changing Catholic Church” in Beyond Cuba: Latin America Takes Charge of Its Future, ed. by L. Einaudi (New York: Crane Russack & Co., 1974), pp. 75-96; esp. p. 91.

6. Ibid., pp. 91-92.

7. Márcio Moreira Alves, “L'Église et le politique au Brésil,” (Paris: Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques, 1973), mimeo; subsequently published under the same title in Paris by Les Editions du Cerf in 1974 (however, all references here are to the original 1973 thesis). Thomas C. Bruneau, The Political Transformation of the Brazilian Catholic Church (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1974); a Portuguese version was published the same year in São Paulo by Edições Loiola; all references are to the original English edition. Emmanuel deKadt, Catholic Radicals in Brazil (London and New York: Oxford University Press, 1970). Margaret Patrice Todaro, “Pastors, Prophets, and Politicians: A Study of the Brazilian Catholic Church, 1916-1945” (Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University, New York, 1971). Subsequently, under the married name of Margaret Todaro Williams, chapters of the above were published as articles in the Hispanic American Historical Review and the Journal of InterAmerican Studies and World Affairs, August 1974. All citations are from the original dissertation unless otherwise specified.

8. deKadt, pp. 54-55; Todaro, p. 28; Bruneau, p. 36, n. 70 and p. 74.

9. Bruneau, p. 36; Todaro, pp. 28-32.

10. “Romanization” is discussed in the classic article of Roger Bastide, “Religion and the Church in Brazil,” in Brazil: Portrait of Haif a Continent, eds., T. Lynn Smith and Alexander Marchant (New York: Dryden Press, 1951), pp. 334-55. David Mutchler, The Church as a Political Factor in Latin America: With Particular Reference to Colombia and Chile (New York: Praeger, 1971) discusses dependence of the Church in the two countries cited in the title. The only account I know of regarding Brazil is the still unpublished study by the Australian sociologist, Rowan Ireland, “Catholic Clergy in the Northeast: An Elite for Modernization?” (1974).

11. deKadt, p. 56; Todaro, pp. 63-143 and, on the social origins of members of the Centro Dom Vital, pp. 252-54.

12. Bruneau, pp. 38-39.

13. Irmã Maria Regina do Santo Rosario, O.C.D. (Laurita Pessôa Raja Gabaglia), O Cardeal Leme, Coleção Documentos Brasileiros 113 (Rio de Janeiro: José Olympio Editôra, 1962), esp. pp. 216-26.

14. Ibid., p. 228. Italics mine.

15. Ibid., p. 227.

16. Leme's speech is quoted in full in Todaro. Bruneau cites Oswaldo Aranha's remark: “When we arrived from the south [Rio Grande do Sul] we tended to the Left! But after we saw the popular religious movements, in honor of Our Lady of Aparecida and of Christ the Redeemer, we understood we could not go against the sentiments of the people!”, p. 40. Originally cited in Regina do Santo Rosario, p. 289.

17. Pe. Geraldo Fernandes, C.M.F., “A Religião nas Constituições Republicanas do Brasil,” Revista Eclesiástica Brasileira 8, no. 4 (Dezembro 1948): 830-57.

18. Bruneau, pp. 41-45; Todaro, passim.; Howard J. Wiarda, The Brazilian Catholic Labor Movement (Amherst, Mass.: University of Massachusetts Labor Relations Research Center, 1969), p. 15; and Reivindicações Católicas (Rio de Janeiro: Edição do Centro Dom Vital, 1932).

19. Gianfranco Poggi, Catholic Action in Italy: The Sociology of a Sponsored Organization (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1967), p. 239.

20. Alves, p. 43.

21. Regina do Santo Rosario, p. 310; Bruneau, p. 46.

22. Poggi, pp. 18-24.

23. Bruneau, p. 29; Wiarda, pp. 14-15; Todaro Williams, “Integralism and the Brazilian Catholic Church,” Hispanic American Historical Review 54, no. 3 (August 1974). See the impressive study of Hélgio Trindade, Integralismo (o fascismo brasileiro na década de 30), (DIFEL-URGS: São Paulo, 1974). Corpo e Alma 40, p. 155, n. 16.

24. Octavio Ianni, Crisis in Brazil (New York: Columbia University Press, 1970). See Bruneau. The quotation in the text is from the title of chap. 7. Other dimensions of global change are: Political democratization, decolonization, the cold war, polycentrism in the socialist camp, realignment of corporative structures such as the armed forces, and organized religion of the churches.

25. See Bruneau, passim, for statistics, esp. pp. 242-47. Ivan Illich, “The Vanishing Clergyman,” in Celebration of Awareness (New York: Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1970), pp. 69-94. In 1971 Turner contended the “vocation crisis” had been exaggerated and that in the case of Brazil vocations had kept apace reasonably even though population had exploded, pp. 182-92, esp. p. 188. In 1974, my clerical informants in Brazil suggested the sharp drop in European vocations, whose missionaries account for half the total of Brazil's clergy, was seriously affecting the country while Brazilian vocations were not holding their own. Since 1970, the focus has shifted from expanding clerical ranks to creating autonomous, lay-directed grass-roots ecclesial communities. See A. Gregory, org., Comunidades Eclesiais de Base: Utopia ou Realidade and M. Baraglia, Evolução das Comunidades Eclesiais de Base, both edited by Vozes (Petropolis: 1973 and 1974, respectively).

26. Alfred Stepan, The Military in Politics: Changing Patterns in Military Civilian Relations in Brazil (Princeton N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1971), p. 131. Observations on the Brazilian College are those of several seminarians who studied there in the 1950s. See the pioneering institutional comparison by Alexander W. Wilde, “Understanding Corporate Institutions in Politics: The Military and the Church in Latin America” (Paper prepared for the Workshop in Latin American Studies, Yale University, 6 October 1973).

27. Peter Master Dunne, S.J., A Padre Views South America (Milwaukee: Bruce Publishing Co., 1945). On the role and background of the Italian clergy in Brazil, see La Società italiana di fronte alle prime migrazioni di massa (Numero speciale), Studi Emigrazione 5: 11-12 (Febb.-Giugno 1968), (Centro Studi Emigrazione, Roma, Morcelliana, Brescia), entire volume.

28. John J. Considine, Call for Forty Thousand (New York: Longmans, Green and Co., 1946); see chap. 3, “The State of the Faith.”

29. Ibid., pp. 305-306. Also see William J. Coelman, M.M., Latin American Catholicism: A Self-Evaluation (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Maryknoll Press, 1958), World Horizons Report No. 23, pp. 46-55.

30. See Illich and Mutchler. On Caritas, see Bruneau, p. 69 n. 4.

31. Thales de Azevedo's writings take up the debate about whether the indices of “practising Catholic” developed by the French school of pastoral sociology are really applicable to Brazil. See his Catolicismo no Brasil (Rio de Janeiro: Ministerio de Educação e Cultura, 1955). The concept of the layman as a “client” is developed in the recent unpublished study by the São Paulo sociologist Duglas Teixeira Monteiro, “Sertão e Civilização: Compassos e Descompassos” (dezembro 1974).

32. Alves, p. 46; Ralph Della Cava, Miracle at Joaseiro (New York: Columbia University Press, 1970), passim.

33. deKadt, pp. 9-33; Teixeira Monteiro, passim; and Shepard Forman, “Disunity and Discontent: A Study of Peasant Political Movements in Brazil,” Journal of Latin American Studies 3, no. 1 (May 1971): 3-24. An important discussion of “religiosity,” slightly at variance with the sense in which it is herein employed, is found in Thales de Azevedo, “Catolicismo no Brasil?,” Vozes. Revista de Cultura 63, no. 2 (fevereiro 1969): 117-24, esp. pp. 120, and 124, n. 11. Also see Pedro A. R. de Oliveira, “Religiosidade Popular na America Latina,” Revista Eclesiástica Brasileira 32, no. 126 (junho 1972): 354-64.

34. Emilio Willems, The Followers of the New Faith (Nashville, Tenn.: Vanderbilt University Press, 1969). On Protestantism in general, see Waldo A César, Para Uma Sociologia do Protestantismo Brasileiro (Petropolis: Vozes, 1973). Trilhas, no. 2. On Pentacostalism, see Francisco Cartaxo Rolim, O.P., “Expansão protestante em Nova Iguaçu,” and “Pentecostalismo,” both in Revista Eclesiástica Brasileira 33, no. 131 (setembro 1973): 660-75, and 33, no. 132 (dezembro 1973): 950-64, respectively.

35. Paulo Friere, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, translated by Myra Bergman Ramos (New York: Herder and Herder, 1969). The operativeness of the contradiction “Catholic-Pentacostal” appears with considerable certitude at the level of worship: Catholic cults all but eliminate Christ, a “distant” figure outranked by the Virgin, the saints, and such popular “miracle-workers” as Padre Cicero; in absolutely stark contrast, Pentacostalism exclusively affirms Christ to the exclusion of the Virgin, saints, and miracle-workers. On this score, see J. C. Maraschin, “A Imagen do Christo nas Camadas Populares,” and João Dias de Araújo, “Imagens de Jesus Christo na Literatura de Cordel,” both in Vozes: Revista de Cultura 68, no. 7 (setembro 1974): 33-39 and 41-48, respectively. For another dimension of this dialectic, viz. urban-rural, that ought to be seen as the dramatic, spatial transformation that makes a radical “conversion” jump possible, see the excellent article by Waldo A. César, “Urbanização e Religiosidade Popular: Um Estudo da Doutrina Pentecostal na Sociedade Urbana,” Vozes: Revista de Cultura 68, no. 7 (setembro 1974): 19-28.

36. Bruneau, pp. 62-63.

37. Ibid., pp. 61, 66, 69; and Alves, pp. 56-58; See Ronald Chilcote, The Brazilian Communist Party, Conflict and Integration 1922-1972 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1974) and Robert Levine, The Vargas Regime: The Critical Years, 1934-1938 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1970).

38. Ulisse Alessio Floridi, Radicalismo Cattolico Brasiliano (Roma: Instituto Editoriale del Mediterraneo, 1968), pp. 178-83; Bruneau, p. 65.

39. Bruneau, pp. 46-47, 101; Wiarda, pp. 14-21, deKadt, p. 58. For a thorough account of Dom Eugenio Sales's Movimento da Natal, see Candido Procôpio Ferreira de Camargo, Igreja e Desenvolvimento (São Paulo: Edições CEBRAP, 1971), pp. 65-77.

40. Data on PDC culled from Bruneau, pp. 100-102 and Alceu Amoroso Lima, Memórias Improvisados (Diálogos com Medeiros, Lima), (Petropolis: Vozes, 1973), pp. 308-309.

41. A useful but aesopian and at times frankly bad biography is José De Broucker, Dom Helder Câmara-The Violence of the Peacemaker, translated by Herma Brifficault (New York: Orbis Books, 1969); Patrick J. Leonard, C.S.Sp., “Bibliography of Helder Câmara,” LARR 10, no. 2 (Summer 1975): 147-66.

42. Interview of Cecilia Monteiro, Dom Helder's long-time private secretary, in Jornal do Brazil 14 (October 1972), cited in Alves, p. 80.

43. Alves, p. 80.

44. Bruneau, p. 117.

45. Alves, p. 85; his lengthy analysis of CNBB and of the CRB—the Council of Religious of Brazil, founded in 1954—is the finest account anywhere, pp. 85-95.

46. Márcio Moreira Alves, “L'Extreme Droite Catholique et La Politique Brasilienne” (Paper for “Minicolloque” on Les Organisations Religieuses entant que Forces Politiques de Substitution, Centre d'Étude des Relations Internationales, Paris, 20 September 1972), mimeo; and Thomas Niehaus and Brady Tyson, “The Catholic Right in Contemporary Brazil: The Case of the Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property (TFP)” (Paper presented at the Southwest Council on Latin American Studies, Waco, Texas, 22 February 1974), mimeo.

47. Charles Antoine, Church and Power in Brazil (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1973); Niehaus and Tyson, p. 6.

48. Alves, “L'Extreme Droite Catholique,” p. 7.

49. Alves, pp. 100-101.

50. Bruneau, pp. 112-14; Alves, pp. 80-82.

51. There are almost no studies of Catholic practises and structures of the “pious fifties.” Some references are contained in Hélio Damante, “Cem Anos de Religião no Brasil,” O Estado de São Paulo 30 VIII (1974), Suplemento do Centenário, no. 35.

52. On the Cold War, see the fascinating account by Julian K. Prescott, A History of the Modern Age (New York: Doubleday, 1972), pp. 3-78; Thomas Skidmore, Politics in Brazil, 1930-1964 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1967), p. 199.

53. Alves, as cited in Bruneau, p. 115, italics mine.

54. Bruneau, p. 117.

55. Alves relies on Pe. Godefredo Deelen's “O Episcopado Brasileiro,” Revista Eclesiástica Brasileira 27 (junho 1967): 310-32.

56. Ivan Illich, “The Seamy Side of Charity,” America (January 1967).

57. Mutchler; R. Ireland's study, cited in n. 10, notes disparities between Northeastern and Center-South dioceses in regard to reliance on outside funds, pp. 25-26; Bruneau suggests that one reason Dom José Gonçalves was elected secretary general of the CNBB was because “he knew German, which was important because the German bishops through Adveniat and Miserior were to finance the CNBB for the next five years,” pp. 124, 141, and 141, n. 9.

58. Bruneau, p. 119.

59. The Chilean views on subsidiarity are quoted in the original in Mutchler, p. 379. For a general discussion of the principle, see Jean-Yves Calvez, Igreja e Sociedade Económica: O Ensino Social dos Papas Leão XIII a Pio XII (1878-1958), tradução de Agostinho Veloso (Porto: Tavares Martins, 1960), passim.

60. Fr. Fernando Bastos de Ávila, S.J., Neo-Capitalismo, Socialismo, e Solidarismo (Rio de Janeiro: Livraria Agir Editôra, 1963).

61. In addition to published materials by deKadt, and Candido Mendes, Memento dos Vivos: A Esquerda Católica no Brasil (Rio de Janeiro: Tempo Brasileiro, 1966), see José Oscar Beozzo, “Les Mouvements des Universitaires Catholiques au Brésil: Aperçu historique et essai d'interpretation” (Thesis in Sociology, Université Catholique de Louvain, Fevrier 1968), mimeo; and José Luiz Sigrist, “Fenomenologia da Consciência Universitária Cristã no Brasil” (Tese doutoral, Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras de Rio Claro, 1973), mimeo.

62. deKadt, pp. 60-61, passim.

63. Beozzo, pp. 126-27.

64. Joseph Page, The Revolution That Never Was (New York: Grossman, 1972), pp. 152-53; and Cândido Procôpio Camargo, O Movimento de Natal (Bruxelles: Centre de Documentation sur L'Action des Églises dans le Monde, 1968), p. 141, italics mine.

65. Ireland, “Catholic Clergy,” pp. 8, 27-28.

66. Page.

67. Ralph Della Cava, “Brazil: The Struggle for Human Rights,” Commonweal 102, 20 (19 December 1975): 623-26.