Em nossa postagem "Verbetes na 'Encyclopedia of Latin American Religions': Positivismo e laicidade", de 5.8.2019, divulgamos que tivemos dois artigos (ou melhor, verbetes) na Enclyclopedia of Latin American Religions, publicada pela editora Springer.
Pois bem: seguindo os parâmetros editoriais da Springer, podemos tornar público o artigo em sua versão preliminar, isto é, sem a formatação da editora e sem a paginação.
Assim, o texto inicial está disponível abaixo.
As referências bibliográficas para consulta efetiva são estas:
Biscaia de Lacerda G. (2019) Laicity in Brazil. In: Gooren H. (eds) Encyclopedia of Latin American Religions. Religions of the World. pp 821-825, Springer, Cham, pp 821-825
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Gustavo Biscaia de Lacerda
Setor de Ciências Exatas, Universidade Federal do Paraná
Curitiba
Brazil
Laicism, Catholic
Church, Brazilian State, juridical-political organization.
Laicism can be understood as the theory that
advocates the separation between church and State (“laicity”), as well as the
militant practice that follows from the theory. It is not the
defense of an atheist State, as it does not deny God nor forbids religions; on
the other hand, it is not pluriconfessionalism, because laicity respect but not
“recognize” religions nor bring them inside the State or finance them: so,
laicity is more a position of indifference or neutrality between church and
State. During Brazilian history, the State had official religion (Catholicism
in particular) and a formally perfect laicity of State; in other moments,
Catholicism has been a para-official religion; Brazil has never had atheism of
State or pluriconfessionalism. Currently, a strong social and political activism
fights pro and against laicity.
Since January 7, 1890, Brazil is characterized by laicity, just after
the proclamation of Republic (November 15, 1889).
In terms of history of religions in Brazil, or, more precisely, the history of
religious liberties, these two dates establishes a “before” and a “later” and,
then, are central to deal with laicity in Brazil in general. Such a subject
must be treated in sociological terms; as society doesn’t exist in the vacuum,
we must consider the relations maintained by at least four
collective-institutional actors: the State; the Catholic Church; non-catholic
religions; and civil society in general. At the same time, a historical
approach is necessary, in order to understand the many transformations those
relations have suffered during time and that conforms the Brazilian religious
milieu today. On the other hand, some legal remarks will be done, as the formal
relations between the State and the churches/religions are defined by law,
specially in the many national constitutions. Considering all these aspects
(historical-sociological and legal), much of the discussion on laicism in
Brazil deals in particular with the relations between Catholic Church (or ICAR
– Igreja Católica Apostólica Romana) and the Brazilian State, be it
historically or politically.
Anyway, as we said above, we can establish two main phases on laicity in
Brazil, before and after the proclamation of Brazilian Republic (November 15,
1889) and the subsequent Decree n. 119-A (January 7, 1890): before, Catholicism
was the official religion, sustained by the State and with a number of
privileges and duties (even its situation was many times a difficult one, with
disputes with the government); after 1889-1890, it was proclaimed the freedom
of consciousness, expression and association in a general canvas of laicity,
but for a long time many cults – mainly those that are nowadays called “of
African matrix” (such as Candomblé and Umbanda), but also Allan Kardec’s
Spiritism – have been persecuted and in some periods Catholicism appeared as a
para-official religion (like in 1930-1946 and 1964-1966).
We need some basic,
operational definitions. So, we can define laicism as the mutual absence of
support by the State and the many churches, in the sense that the State does
not privilege any church and, in the contrary, it also does not create
obstacles to the existence of any church; it can also be understood in the
sense that the State does not have an official doctrine that must be accepted
by all citizens in order to have a full citizenship. By the part of the
churches, laicity imply they do not ask for the State to use its power to
impose to society their particular beliefs (even if some church assemble the
majority of the population of some country).
Separation between
churches and the State can happen in a number of different situations (although
not in any social context); for
example, during the Middle Ages, the Papacy and the Holy Empire were two distinct
institutions which divided and disputed the mastery over Catholic Europe.
However, as the Catholic Church intended not only to be a spiritual power, but
a temporal one too, both Papacy and the Holy Empire clashed, as the “Road to
Canossa” episode, in the XI Century, exemplifies; the result of those clashes
were the mutual neutralization and the overture of the path for the ascension
of the kings as rulers of Europe.
The “Road to Canossa”
also exemplifies a separation of church and State in a situation of a
non-secularized society: however, we must recognize that in such societies
separation between church and State are the exception, not the rule. On the
other hand, seculariz(ed) societies are the most common and easy milieus for
the institutionalization of laicity, as there happens the progressive
privatization of believes, the separation of realms (political, religious etc.)
and the rationalization of life (Casanova 1994), specially the first two
features.
So, for our purposes,
laicity presupposes the broad process of secularization. It is important to
note that, as “laicity” is the
phenomenon, “laicism” can be
understood both as the process and the militancy for the laicity. For us,
laicism in the sense of militancy is just a descriptive noun, which we use
without value judgments; however, in Brazil, many social-political actors use
that word with a negative sense, implying it as an aggressive militancy which
supposedly seeks for the laicization not only of the State, but also of the
society itself: in particular, that is the interpretation of Brazilian branch
of Catholic Church.
As we have said
before, the history of laicism in Brazil is divided into two main phases,
before and after the proclamation of Republic, in 1889; the period before 1889,
by its part, is divided into two other phases, the colonial Brazil (1500-1822)
and the Brazilian Empire (1822-1889). Leaving aside the particular
characteristics of the colonial phase, for what concerns to the relations between
church and State, as Brazil was a Portuguese colony, its institutions followed
Portuguese ones; so, the official religion – and, as a matter of fact, the only
accepted religion – was that established by ICAR.
Two specific institutions
were particularly religiously important to the Portuguese State, concerning the
whole building of the Catholic Church: the regalism (“regalismo”) and the patronage (“padroado”).
They both were conceded in early Modern times by the Holy See to the Iberian
monarchies (Portugal and Spain). By the patronage, the monarch was the
responsible both for the defense and propagation of the Catholic doctrine and
for the maintenance of the Catholic church; by the regalism, the Temporal power
not only pay for the whole structure of the church, but was also responsible
for organizing its bureaucratic structure, including the appointment of the
bishops, priests etc.: so, actually, the clerics were public officials and
depended of and were limited by the State. Anyway, it is important to notice
that the Church was an important instrument of the colonization of the
territory (Weffort 2012), as it can be seen by the examples of Jesuitical
priests Manoel da Nóbrega and Antônio Vieira.
After 1822, when
Brazil became an independent State, the monarchic regime was maintained (in
order to keep together all the provinces) and so did the ecclesiastic
structure; in particular, both patronage and regalism remained. But the
Brazilian Empire differed from the Brazilian colony, among other aspects, by
having a constitution and, according to it, despite the Roman Catholic
Apostolic religion was the official doctrine of the State (art. 5th
of the Constitution of 1824), other confessions were accepted, since they were
not publicly professed and their temples have not an exterior aspect of
churches: non-catholic religions (or, more specifically, non-catholic christianisms) were literally private matters.
During the Brazilian
Empire, the situation of Catholic Church was paradoxical: on the one hand, it
had a lot of privileges, like the exclusivity of civil acts (registration of
births, deaths, matrimonies), the management of public cemeteries and
maintenance of basic public schools and basic public teaching; on the other
hand, without rejecting the political importance of ICAR for public control,
the State and many Statesmen acted in order to restrict the action of the
Church, by imposing rigorous limits to the number of new priests graduated in
Brazil, of the importation of new priests from abroad, the maintenance of
churches and parishes in the interior of the country etc. Such a policy was
followed even by men like Priest
Feijó, during his regency (1835-1837), or the Emperor d. Pedro II himself (1840-1889)
(Scampini 1978) (albeit the Emperor acted cautiously in this case, just like in
everything else). The climate of confrontation between Church and State grew
over the years and in 1872-1875 the “Religious Question” (“Questão Religiosa”) opposed neatly both institutions, with some
ultramontanists bishops on one side and free-masons, Enlightenment-like civil
servants on the other side.
The Republican
movement – which has rebirth in 1870 – was not unitary, but many propagandists
of Republic also favored the separation between church and State: liberals,
positivists, even freemasons. The Republic being proclaimed in November 15,
1889, only two months later (January 7, 1890) the separation between Church and
State has been accomplished, through the Decree n. 119-A, which separated
citizenship and the religious professions: the State ceased both to finance and
control Church(es) and, on the other hand, Catholic Church ceased to regulate
civil acts (like birth, death and matrimony registrations); however, the
mortmain (“mão morta”)
has been maintained at first, due to the influence of Rui Barbosa. Anyway, in
February 24, 1891, a new, Republican Constitution has been approved by the National
Congress, reaffirming the laicization of Brazilian State and securing the
liberties of consciousness, expression and association; official holidays lost
their religious character and assumed civic human traits.
As the Positivist leader Raimundo Teixeira Mendes noticed, laicization of the
State was so desired by the people and the civil and military elites that there
were virtually no complaints and no riots at all against it (Lacerda 2016).
Despite these legal
provisions, the laicization process was not fully accomplished: administration
of public cemeteries were not ran by the State (Lacerda 2016) and much of the
educational system remained under the control of Catholic Church (Cunha 2007). Just
after the Decree n. 119-A, the Church itself complained vehemently against what
it saw as a “violence”, demanding in particular the maintenance of its
character of official doctrine and some sort of patronage (but without
regalism).
However, soon the
clergy perceived that the laicization of the State was not bad at all and, on
the contrary, it freed the Church and created the conditions for its
reorganization, reversing the harsh institutional conditions suffered during
the Empire. The quest for patronage-without-regalism remained constant through
the Republican years; in 1916, the future Bishop of Rio de Janeiro and
Brazilian Cardinal d. Sebastião Leme launched the campaign named
“Neo-Christendom” (“Neocristandade”),
aiming to “recatholicize” both Brazilian State and society. In 1925-1926, in a
process of constitutional revision, Sebastião Leme tried to inscribe in the
Brazilian Constitution some article instituting again Catholicism as official creed,
affirming it the “religion of the Brazilian people”; however, President Arthur
Bernardes refused such a proposition: the Revolution of 1930, which ended the
Brazilian I Republic, changed the situation and allowed the Neocristandade
project to be finally victorious.
In the end of 1930
Getúlio Vargas leaded a successful civilian-military coup, putting an end to
the social-political arrangement of the I Republic and beginning a 15-year
period called by the historians the “Vargas Era” – which was divided into many
different phases: provisional (1930-1934) and constitutional (1934-1937)
governments and civilian-military dictatorship (1937-1945). While the period
1889-1930 was characterized by the prevalence of rural societies and the rule
of regional elites in a strong federalism, after 1930 Vargas conducted Brazil
into a united (even authoritarian) government and to efforts of State-oriented
industrialization.
After the
revolutionary movement of 1930, Vargas needed political support to make stable
his new regime; such a need was soon perceived by Sebastião Leme, who in 1931 –
by the way, during the inauguration of the now world-famous monument “Christ
the Redeemer” (“Cristo Redentor”) –
proposed a not fair trade to Vargas: ICAR would support the new regime in
exchange of many concessions and privileges granted by the State and based on
the myth of Brazil as a “Christian nation” (Della Cava 1975); so, Catholicism
assumed a condition of para-official religion of Brazil, with the obligatory
presence of the clergy in official ceremonies, the Church ruling the public
education, the introduction of a facultative discipline of “Religious
Education” in the regular periods of classes and the possibility of “collaboration”
between church and State based on the “public interest”. Besides that, a major
social-political Catholic activism was developed, with the creation of the
Electoral Catholic League (“Liga
Eleitoral Católica”), the Catholic workers circles and the aggressive criticisms
made by intellectual lays (like Jackson de Figueiredo) against liberalism,
freedom of consciousness and, more generally, against modernity; alongside with
the efforts of recatholicization of the State and the elites, the Neo-Christendom
tented to support more conservatives and authoritarian conceptions of the
society and the State. In 1937, when Vargas accomplished a new
civilian-military coup, now to establish an authoritarian, fascist-like regime
(called “New State” (“Estado Novo”)),
ICAR made no opposition to that.
Besides that, the Afro-Brazilian cults were criminalized and the many Protestantisms
suffered intolerance. Finally, the homage to “God” was inscribed in the
constitution of 1934 – albeit, curiously, it was absent in the authoritarian
constitution of 1937.
During the authoritarian
“New State”, laicity had a difficult situation. Firstly, ICAR acted actively
before to be a para-official church; secondly, Vargas created polices for
political activities and ideological diffusion, besides an office for official
propaganda: albeit the New State was not a totalitarian regime, it had
something like an official ideology, imposed over society and characterized by
a cult of the dictator, strong nationalism and an emphasis on hierarchy and
military-like order. From 1930 until 1937, despite the more or less liberal
environment, many illiberal ideologies championed in Brazil, including
Communism and “Integralism” (“Integralismo”),
the Brazilian version of Fascism, besides the more conservative, authoritarian
version of Catholicism, that is, the Neo-Christendom. After 1937 and until
1945, only remained Neo-Christendom and the official propaganda: cults and
religions other than Catholicism were accepted (when they were accepted) only
as they were practiced as more or less private matters and, above all, as
non-political ones. Yet, it is noteworthy that in the 1930’s and the 1940’s a political-pedagogical
movement called “New School” (“Escola
Nova”), leaded by Anísio Teixeira, championed the causes of democracy,
modern pedagogical methods and laicity in Education (Cunha 2007).
During World War II,
Brazil had been aligned with USA; the defeat of the nazi-fascist regimes in
Europe led to a growing pression to democratization, what occurred through a
military coup in the end of 1945; in 1946 a new, democratic constitution was
promulgated, changing some of the terms of the relation between ICAR and the
State, but not reversing to the status quo of full laicity previous to 1930.
The laicity of the State and the religious freedom were affirmed, but the
collaboration between church and State in the name of public interest remained,
as well as classes of Religious Education in the regular times; on the other
hand, chaplaincies were allowed to exist in the Armed Forces.
Anyway, after 1946 two
major social traits were the social-intellectual pluralization and
politization; it was the period of the decolonization nationalism, but also of
the Cold War and Brazil was not exempt from its troubles. Political-intellectual
Marxism spread through society and constituted by itself a major force on
behalf of secularization and laicity (even sometimes also on behalf of
atheism); it influenced ICAR, which divided into two great tendencies, one more
“progressist” and Marxism-friendly and another more conservative: in broad
terms, a left-wing and a right-wing ICAR. Both were militant, but the leftist
Catholics had more prominence, providing support for social movements of
students, urban and rural workers, women etc. Political Catholicism has
suffered ambiguous influences in that period, anyway: Marxism, nationalism and
pluralization all worked in the direction of secularization; II Vatican Council
(1962-1965), affirming the need and the correction of openness of ICAR to the modernity,
refrained the (declining) importance of ultramontanist impulses of Catholic
Church in Brazil and, in certain way, legitimized the secularization process;
but, at the same time, in 1952 it was founded the National Conference of
Bishops of Brazil (Conferência Nacional
dos Bispos do Brasil – CNBB), assembling all the Brazilian bishops in an
unique institution, but
mainly giving voice to the leftist priests and, so, legitimizing their
political action and their support to social movements.
On the other hand,
Protestantisms also spread, specially in the lower classes; not as militant as
Catholics (or not militant at all), they were more conservatives or openly
politically rightist, claiming against (atheist) Communism (even based on the
Catholic myth of Brazil as a “Christian nation”).
From 1946 on, but
specially after 1961, radicalization accompanied politization. The years
between 1961 and 1964 have seen many disturbances related to the Presidential
succession from the rightist President Jânio Quadros (who renounced in 1961,
just after seven months in office) to the leftist vice-President João Goulart
(whose alias was “Jango”). In order to be installed in office, Jango first
accepted to lose Presidential powers, after a maneuver to establish parliamentarism
in Brazil, in 1962; after a harsh campaign for the re-establishment of
presidentialism, Jango regained full power, but his fame as a radical leftist
(albeit he wasn’t initially radical), the aggressive campaigns of the rightist
opposition and the climate of Cold War weakened the social-political support to
Jango; the result was the growing radicalization of the President of Brazil,
which resulted in April 1, 1964, in a civilian-military coup, which soon
installed a mostly military authoritarian regime, lasting until 1985.
Just like Vargas’ “New
State”, during the military regime most religions were tolerated if they were
practiced as non-political matters. But unlike the authoritarian regime of
1937-1945, the military regime had no official ideology other than the militant
anti-Communism and, in certain periods, some political and/or economical
nationalism. In 1964 ICAR supported the civilian-military coup in the name of
anti-Communism, but, due the political persecutions and, after, the practice of
tortures, ICAR soon distanced itself from the regime, becoming then a focus of
opposition to the regime. On the other hand, looking for some religious
legitimation, the regime changed a century-long policy and invited some
Protestants – mostly Evangelicals – to participate of official ceremonies.
Protestants and, in particular, Evangelicals were both vigorous anti-Communists
and non-political actors, so they were very adequate to substitute ICAR as
para-official priests. Those changes – even if they were merely temporary
concerning ICAR –, in addition to the support of Catholic Church to the
transition from authoritarianism to democracy in the early 1980’s set apart the
institution from the State, at least during some time (Della Cava, 1975;
Mariano, 2002).
In 1985 a new,
civilian President has been elected in Brazil (Tancredo Neves, who died before
assuming office and being succeeded by the vice-President, José Sarney). That
event was a mark in the Brazilian political transition, which began in late
1970’s with a controlled overture, passed through provincial elections for
gubernators (in 1982, with a massive victory of opposition) and an indirect
election for President (in 1985) and culminated in 1988 with the promulgation of
a new Constitution – the “citizen constitution”. All that process occurred with
the strong participation of the civil society: old and new neighbor
associations, professional unions, cultural and thematic organizations
(landless workers, houseless people, environmentalism, feminists, gays etc.) and,
for sure, churches developed an intense activism during that period and, in
particular, contributed during the debates of the new constitution.
Such an activism was
(and is) based on basic civil freedoms: consciousness, expression and
association; as those social movements affirmed themselves at the expense of
the State, they also affirmed values and practices close to laicity, even if
they didn’t intended to. However, we must observe that, as ICAR distanced itself
from the State during the military regime, its action developed in civil
society and much of the activism of the late 1970’s and 1980’s was influenced
or even organized and sustained by the Catholic Church: so, laicity as an
absence of mutual influences between church and State suffered or, at least,
was in an ambiguous situation, as the “confessionalization” of politics was
again affirmed, this time by the side of civil society. On the other hand,
after the invitation of the military presidents for the political engagement of
Evangelicals, these churches began to launch candidates, appealing directly to
ecclesiastical values: “believer votes in believer” was their motto during the
1980’s and most of the 1990’s.
A sign of the renewed confessionalization of the politics is the inscription of
the motto “God be blessed” (“Deus seja
louvado”) in all currency notes since 1986 by the pious President Sarney.
The Constitution of
1988 followed the ambivalent pattern of previous constitutions concerning
laicity: on one hand, it affirmed the separation of churches and State in terms
according to the concept of laicity (art. 19); but, on the other hand, it accepted
the “collaboration” between churches and the State in the case of “public
interest”, affirmed the teaching of Religious Education
and, in its “Preamble”, affirmed that the Constitution was promulgated under
the “protection of God”
(Brasil s/d-b). These provisions had their effects: in 1996 a new Law of Basis
of Education was promulgated, where Religious Education is reaffirmed as
constitutive of the scholar curriculum, although as an optional discipline to
be offered in regular school period (Brasil s/d-c); in 1997 an amendment to
that law affirmed that the teachers of Religious Education must be paid by the
State, but leaving open the specific subject matter of such discipline.
Besides that, in 2008
President Lula signed an agreement with the Holy See, by the occasion of the
visit of Pope Benedict XVI – a Concordat, reaffirming old privileges of ICAR
and establishing new ones, such as the legal provision of Catholic chaplaincies
in the military and in public hospitals and the express reference to
Catholicism in the Religious Education curricula (Cunha 2009). To be approved
by the Brazilian National Congress, the government proposed the creation of a
“General Law of Religions” (“Lei Geral
das Religiões”), extending the privileges of ICAR present in the Concordat
to “all” religions, but targeting in particular Evangelicals. Such “General Law
of Religions” have not been approved until 2018, but the international treaty that is the Concordat continues producing internal effects.
The Concordat was a
major theme that opposed ICAR to Evangelicals, but in practice these
organizations are frequently allied in moral issues, both in society and in
Brazilian parliaments: fight against pro-abortion and pro-same sex marriage
laws are two conspicuous examples of such close political alliances.
The growing
pluralization of Brazilian civil society, specially from the 1980’s on, has its
effects on the religiosity of people: on one hand, in the last three decades
the number of atheists, agnostics and persons without religion (and/or even
without church affiliation) has grown,
with the creation of militant associations of atheists, agnostics and secular
humanists; on the other hand, despite the maintenance of the privileges of
ICAR, its numbers has fallen (95% in 1940 to 64,6% in 2010), in part due to the
growing number of Evangelicals (2,7% in 1940 to 22,2% in 2010) (Alves 2017).
Finally, the Afro-Brazilian cults are more evident and demanding of respect and
tolerance, as well as Spiritism.
Considering those
demographic changes, the more important feature of Brazilian politics
concerning religion is the organization of Evangelicals in political parties
and their eagerness to master public offices and to influence policies; albeit
not indifferent to political-economic themes, their agenda is primarily moral, aggressively
demanding legislation tending to more conservative behavior patterns. On the
other hand, with more or less success they repeatedly try to impose the lecture
of the Bible and/or to celebrate cults in public spaces, like schools and even
parliaments.
One of the major
alterations in the Brazilian polity made by the Constitution of 1988 is the
more independence and power granted to Attorney General Office (“Ministério Público”), seen since then as
the “guardian of citizenship”. So, specially since mid-2000’s, Federal Attorney
General Office and its subnational branches develop an active defense of
laicity, both through judicial processes and educational campaigns.
Anyway, a great social-political-juridical activism pro-laicity is being done
by Ministério Público and civil society, motivated by the separation between
churches and State, but also for sensitive issues, like education, abortion,
same-sex marriage etc.
As a last remark, we
must notice that, despite the clear concept of laicity as the
mutual indifference between churches and the State, remains in Brazil two major
confusions, either they are innocent or interested, between laicity and atheism
of State, on one hand, and between laicity and pluriconfessionalism. They represent
conceptual differences, but also different political arrangements concerning
State and religions. Atheism deny God and an atheist State in practice is
anti-clericalist; so, by imposing an official doctrine the atheist State
distances itself from the laicity – but, in order to fight laicity, it is an
easy rethoric resource to force the confusion between it and atheism of State.
On the other hand, pluriconfessionality seems to many either an alternative to
laicity or even its best realization: by recognizing and bringing religions inside
the State, many consider the pluriconfessionalism a more “democratic” way to
deal with politics and religion. Brazil has not an atheist State; despite many
prefer pluriconfessionality in good faith, many defends it as a means to deny
and cease laicity.
Catholicism in Brazil;
Vargas, Getúlio; Positivism in Brazil; Roman Catholic Apostolic Church; Protestantism
in Brazil; Secularism
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