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The Brazilian Church: Reintegrating Ontology and Epistemology Christine A. Kearney 151 THE EMINENT HISTORIAN Thomas Skidmore tells us that in March of 1500, King Manuel of Portugal celebrated a special mass to mark the launch of his greatest fleet of ships. The fleet was to sail around the tip of Africa to India, repeating Vasco da Gama’s famous voyage of a few years earlier. To announce Portugal’s dedication to the Christian mission, the ships’ flags were emblazoned with crosses. But the fleet never made it to India. The lead ship, captained by Pedro Álvares Cabral, blew off course, and on April 23 of the same year landed in what today is the state of Bahia in Brazil. Cabral promptly claimed the “new” land for the king of Portugal and the Holy Church, and he called it Terra da Vera Cruz, Land of the True Cross.1 Thus Brazil was born, and thus the Roman Catholic Church marked it from the very beginning. Catholicism is without doubt an integral part of Brazil’s historical, intellectual , social, political, and economic identity. Brazil is the largest Catholic country in the world, with more than 130 million Catholics, and for most of Brazil’s fivehundred -year history, Catholicism has been the official state religion.2 However, despite this apparently secure position, the Church’s role in Brazilian society, and its relationship to secular authority in particular, have been complex, changing, and not always straightforwardly powerful. During the colonial period (1500–1822), crown authorities and wealthy landowners dominated Church officials both institutionally and morally. Given the great distance, the colonial Catholic Church in Brazil had a limited and periodic connection to Rome, a fact that compounded its dependence on secular authority. This pattern continued after independence during the imperial period (1822–89). The First Republic (1889–1930) saw the Brazilian Catholic Church lose its position as the official state religion but, ironically, also allowed it to reconnect with Rome and to develop an institutional identity and authority separate from the Brazilian state. During the dictatorship of Getúlio Vargas (1930– 45), Church authorities lobbied for and secured the reinstatement of Catholicism Chapter 9 152 The Challenge of Justice as Brazil’s official religion. This period also witnessed a close collaboration of Brazilian Church leadership with state authorities, especially on matters of social policy.3 This pattern continued under the Second Republic (1945–64), but it changed again markedly during the military dictatorship years (1964–85), when the Catholic hierarchy abandoned its conservative support of the state and, under the banner of liberation theology, became a key advocate of social justice, human rights, and democratic reform.4 Most recently, since Brazil’s return to democracy in the mid-1980s, scholars have noted an apparent decrease in the Brazilian Catholic Church’s influence. They have highlighted the weakening of liberation theology–inspired social movements, such as the comunidades eclesiais de base (ecclesiastical base communities , or CEBs); the silencing of liberal clergy by Rome; and, finally, the remarkable increase in Pentecostal churches’ influence.5 Although this chapter does not dispute these trends, it does propose that the evidence also supports an optimistic outlook for Brazilian Catholicism.6 Viewed in historical and cultural context, Catholicism is actually quite robust in Brazil, and it may well be on the verge of reclaiming some of the religious ground “lost” to the Pentecostals. The chapter has four sections. The first offers a brief history of Brazilian Church–state relations, focusing on enduring patterns and structures. The second describes the period since the 1960s, and especially the two major shifts in the Brazilian Church’s orientation during this time, first toward liberation theology and then back toward “traditional” concerns in the 1990s. The third section assesses the strength of the Catholic Church in Brazil today. Finally, the conclusion draws implications, both for the possible future(s) of Catholicism in Brazil, as well as for the study of religion by social and political scientists. Church and State in Brazil: Background Brazil was a Portuguese colony for more than three hundred years—much longer than any of the United States were British colonies and longer than Brazil has been an independent state. Not surprisingly, the colonial period left deep marks on Brazilian society, including the religious realm. “From the very beginning,” the Brazilian economist Celso Furtado once said, “Brazil was a business.” It was an asset to be exploited.7 An opportunistic, mercantile attitude shaped Brazil’s development. Economically, it led to an...

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