Educar doutrinando: a mobilização da Igreja pela educação e escola católica após a Proclamação da República (1889-1916)

Abstract

In Brazil, after the Proclamation of the Republic, education and school were the scene of disputes that involved different ideological and philosophical currents. It was no different for the Catholic Church; it mobilized the episcopate, the clergy, families and Catholics to combat lay teaching and the organization of Catholic schools. It was a conservative education project, supported by ultramontane politics and the interests of the oligarchies, who wanted to modernize the Brazilian economy, without giving up traditionalism. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to describe the discourse and mobilization of the Catholic Church in promoting Catholic school and education in the first decades after the proclamation of the Republic. For the Church, education and the Catholic school served political and ideological interests with the aim of re-Christianization society, in order to restore the Church's power and authority to the State and Brazilian society and, consequently, education was very doctrinal and little scientific. For this study, pastoral letters prepared by Brazilian bishops were used as a documentary base.