Abstract
The depiction of Brazil as the “world’s largest Catholic nation” has been losing its persuasive power. The declining influence of Catholic morality is related to the growth of the Pentecostal representation in the parliament as well as by its presence in the media and other public arenas. This chapter seeks to demonstrate that the decline of Catholic hegemony over civil society is related to the progressive expansion of a reflexive attitude that considers religions as an object of debate and dispute. To understand the meanings attributed to this concept in the Brazilian case, and the morality that sustains it, we examine some categories present in practices of justification that support the public debate against intolerance in the recent period.
Paula Montero is a senior professor in the Department of Anthropology of the Universidade de São Paulo and researcher at Cebrap. This study is the result of a research project financed by FAPESP (15/02497-5) for which we express our appreciation.
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Notes
- 1.
Neo-Pentecostalism refers to an innovative line of Evangelicalism that arose in Brazil in the 1970s and congregates denominations from Pentecostalism or even traditional Christian churches around new forms of rituals.
- 2.
According to the author, in a reflexive democracy, that which is aware of its own principles, “all the institutions that determine social life (…) need to be justifiable in light of norms that citizens cannot reciprocate and generically reject” (2009, 21).
- 3.
The Afro-Brazilian religions are organized around priests composed of women and men who call themselves “mães de santo” or “pais de santo” (mothers or fathers of the saint). New initiates enter as “filhos de santo” or “children of the saint.” When they complete their initiation or if they enter into conflict with the authority of the mother of the saint, they tend to open a new house of worship that joins around them other “children of the saint” or attracts the children of the saint of the motherhouse.
- 4.
Habermas’ concept of justification relates to the procedural sense of truth or a discursive concept of truth. In this perspective, a statement would be true if and only if “it can be justified in an ideal epsitemic situation” (2004, 46).
- 5.
The Imperial Constitution of 1824 was the only one that established an official association between the state and the Catholic Church and prohibited the public expression of non-Catholic religious cults, reducing them to the realm of the private. Even so, it took care to regulate religious persecution, restricting it to cases of disrespect for the state religion and public morals (article 179, entry V). It is interesting to observe that, in contrast to the European process to make the state secular to guarantee territorial unity, in the Empire it was the definition of Catholicism as the official religion that was the instrument used to guarantee the state effort to maintain the unity of the territorial bases and construct a national sovereignty. This need for construction of a territorial unit was no longer raised in an urgent manner at the end of the nineteenth century, allowing the Republican constitutions (the first dates to 1891) to guarantee separation. The new problem faced since then was to prohibit secessionist political behavior, such as the adoption of new creeds by entities that composed the federation, by the norm of strict separation between political people and the religious power (see Borges and Alves 2013, 249–251).
- 6.
In this respect see Giumbelli 2002. O Fim da Religião: dilemas da liberdade religiosa no Brasil e na França. São Paulo: Attar. [The End of Religion: Dilemmas of Religious Liberty in Brazil and France].
- 7.
Terreiro is the name traditionally given to the houses of worship of Afro-Brazilian religions.
- 8.
Estado Novo, political regime founded by Getúlio Vargas in November 1937. It lasted until October 1945.
- 9.
http://Grabois.org.br/portal/cdn/revista. Posted on 01/08/1997 and consulted on 6/02/2015.
- 10.
It is interesting to observe that the amendment proposed by the sole black constitutional deputy, another representative of the Brazilian Communist Party, was also defeated. Using as a reference war crimes committed against the Jews in World War II, which had just ended, Claudino José da Silva proposed limiting “the establishment of direct or indirect privileges due to race, religion philosophical or political creed.” In this formulation, the racial question began to be associated with the question of non-Christian religions. Anais da Assembléia Constituinte, vol XVI,PP 216 apud Juliano Medeiros 2013.
- 11.
A decree of 1893 authorized religious activities and propaganda by non-Catholic groups. In 1891, the initiative was taken to create a commission that would study the establishment of the civil regime of religious associations so that they could acquire and manage their own goods. The background to this legislation is the dispute between the state and the Santa Sé in relation to the administration of the properties of the Catholic Church. Trying to conciliate the rights of the state and the autonomy of the Catholic orders and congregations, Minister José Hygino proposed to the Senate Law 173 of 1893 that sought to grant them a civil legal status similar to a corporation. The Civil Code of 1917 reiterated the terms of Law 173 granting legal personality to the dioceses, parishes, orders and congregations, as long as they registered their by-laws in public deed offices (about this see Giumbelli 2002). This model, which regulated all forms of non-commercial civil association, became the legal reference for all religious groupings that intended to be legally recognized.
- 12.
James Beckford (2003) distinguishes religious diversity from religious pluralism. Diversity would be at the level of factuality and pluralism at the level of moral and legal acceptance of diversity. In the Brazilian case, diversity would also be constructed at the level of political struggle, given that only the movements of a Christian matrix were recognized as religious.
- 13.
- 14.
Quilombolas—name given to black slaves who fled from their master plantations in colonial times.
- 15.
For a first approximation in relation to this theme see Montero (2012).
- 16.
Lei n. 7.437 of 1985 included in the list of penal contraventions the practices resulting from prejudice based on race, color, sex or civil state, presenting new language for the Lei Afonso Arinos of 1951.
- 17.
Crimes of discrimination or prejudice against religions are considered to be the practices prescribed in articles 3°. Impede or obstruct the access of someone who is properly trained, to any position of direct or indirect Administration (…); 4°. Deny or obstruct employment to a private company; 5°. Refuse or impede access to a commercial establishment (…); 6°. Refuse, deny or impede the inscription or entrance of a student in a public or private establishment of any degree; 7°. Impede access or refuse lodging in a hotel, pension, inn (…); 8°. Impede or refuse access in restaurants, bars, bakeries or similar locations open to the public; 9°. Impede or refuse access to service in sports establishments, amusement park or social establishment open to the public; 10°. Impede access or refuse service in beauty salons, barbershops, thermal baths or massage houses or establishments with similar purposes; 11°. Impede access to social entrances in public or residential buildings and elevators or access stairs to them; 12°. Impede access or use of public transportation (…); 13°. Impede or obstruct someone’s access to the service of any branch of the Armed Forces; 14°. Impede or obstruct, by any means, the marriage or social conviviality; 20. Practice, induce or incite discrimination or prejudice based on race, color, ethnicity, religion or regional origin. See: pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/intolerância_religiosa_no_Brasil, consulted in 18/02/2015.
- 18.
Created between 2007 and 2008 by Afro-Brazilian religious leaders in reaction to their expulsion from the Ilha do Governador by Evangelicals, this became the most organized social force to pressure the Rio de Janeiro legislature to fight “religious intolerance” (Bortoleto 2014, 73).
- 19.
Art 140 of the Código Penal: “slander someone, offending their dignity or decorum” and Art, 208: “Mock someone publically, for reasons of religious belief or function; impede or disturb a ceremony or practice of religious worship; publically vilipend an act or object of religious worship”.
- 20.
In an interesting parallel with the work conducted by Roberto Kant de Lima (2008) who studied the models of administration of conflicts in Brazilian public space, the author observed that in our system differences are organized in a pyramid and in a complementary manner. In this configuration, conflict is always perceived as a disruptive force, the source of disorder that threatens social harmony.
- 21.
In relation to the authors involved, Ari Oro (1997) suggests that the historic distrust of religions of an Afro matrix in relation to the penal, legal system, whose practices were the privileged object of criminal characterization until very recently, did not encourage their leaders to seek protection from the legal system.
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Montero, P. (2017). The “Culture of Justification” in the Production of Public Religiosities in Brazil. In: Mapril, J., Blanes, R., Giumbelli, E., Wilson, E. (eds) Secularisms in a Postsecular Age?. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-43726-2_10
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