Do altar à tribuna:os padres políticos na formação do Estado Nacional Brasileiro (1823-1841)

Abstract

The years between Brazil s political emancipation and the end of the Regency experiment are characterized by conflicts over the definition of the outlines of political arrangement which would form the new state which was being created. The clergy was called to participate in this unique moment of Brazilian political history and it was one of the numerically strongest segments of the Parliament. Based on this evidence, this study seeks to understand the intimate relations between religion and politics in the Empire and how was the participation of political priests in the process of building the Brazilian state foundations. From the analysis of the trajectory of the priests present at the Constituent Assembly of 1823 and the General Assembly of Brazil, during the first four legislatures of the Empire, between 1826 and 1841, we focus on three key issues. The first refers to the conjunction of factors which led priests to enter into the formal world of politics, via electoral process. The second concerns the involvement of the clergy in discussions which problematized matters of power distribution within the Imperial center/periphery; between the Executive and the Legislative; and between the historical and the spiritual. Finally, the third point refers to the religious motivation underlying numerous battles in the Parliament among the priests, which conveyed their expectations of opening a new phase in the history of Brazilian Catholicism.