Do assistencialismo à luta pela dignidade humana: a formação da Cáritas enquanto braço social da Igreja católica a partir da história de Cândido Neto

Abstract

We are willing, with this thesis, to understand the transformation of Caritas from an institution, which had only the purpose of redistributing food surplus of American production to an institution for the defence of human rights, during the decade of 1960 and 1970. However, in our explanation, we try to give prominence to an approach, which attempts to explain this transformation regarding the interactions between Catholic Church, society and the State. To try to achieve this goal, we use the methodology of life history. We decided, then, to reconstruct the life story of the executive president of Archdiocese Caritas of Rio de Janeiro: Cândido Feliciano da Ponte Neto. We made this choice because he is a long-time employee of the institution and, as we shall see, was present at crucial moments for achieving this new role of Caritas. Therefore, the history of Cândido Neto can help us to complement the history of the institution itself. At the start point of our field of investigation, from the first interviews with Cândido, we saw that his narrative gave a great emphasis to his profession (executive president), and sometimes other aspects of his life such as his relationship with children, for example, were "forgotten". In this way, we glimpse the possibility of having a strong engagement between Cândido Neto and Caritas, and due to this, we take as a secondary objective to try to understand this relationship from the narrative offered by him. To complement, we highlight the approximations between the autobiography of Cândido Neto and descriptions contained in some manuals of Caritas, on the role of the institution.