CONFLICT AND COMPETITION: The Latin American Church in a Changing Environment
edited by Edward L. Cleary / Hannah Stewart-GambinoCHAPTER 3 =================================
Catholicism and Political Action in Brazil: Limitations and Prospects
================ THOMAS C.BRUNEAU & W. E. HEWITTA large number of scholarly and popular works have recently examined the changing politico-religious role of the Latin American Catholic church during the second half of this century. Students of the church have indeed been very much captivated by the way in which, in a number of key countries, national churches formerly supportive of the status quo have, within a relatively short time, increasingly appeared to cast their lot with the social justice cause of the poor and oppressed.
As most church observers are aware, the developments they examine in this respect are very much conditioned by a complex set of relationships linking culture, society, and religion.(1) Yet rather interestingly, many authors have concerned themselves only with the positive effect of the wider social milieu on church-based political activation in recent years. By contrast, much less emphasis has been given to the study of constraints imposed upon politico-religious innovation by the broader sociocultural context.
In the case of Brazil, the nature and effect of positive cultural inducements to church involvement in politics have been much discussed to this point. After 1950, the Brazilian Catholic church moved to reorient its institutional goals away from support for conservative elites and toward the promotion of social justice. This change in church orientation occurred, and in fact was encouraged, within the context of a variety of sociopolitical factors, including modernizing tendencies within international Catholicism (especially in the post-Vatican II period) and increasing competition from secular and religious value movements, such as communism and Protestantism, respectively. Still another important factor was the assumption of power by the Brazilian military in 1964. In the decade that followed, Brazil approximated the model of a bureaucraticauthoritarian state, characterized by a strong push toward economic and Political modernization within a context of severe repression. Most avenues of formal protest for labor, students, minorities, and other interest groups were either prohibited or tightly controlled by government legislation. It was within this repressive political milieu that the Brazilian church initially assumed its now-famous "preferential option for the poor," acting essentially as a surrogate for prohibited social movements. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, this stance was then consolidated, largely during a time when the military began to relax its grip on Brazilian politics and to broaden its base of popular support through a reintroduction of basic rights and liberties. The church, in fact, helped to play a role in this liberalization process, which eventually culminated in the official transfer of power to civilian hands in January 1985.
Throughout the military period, the role of the church as defender of the poor and oppressed was relatively clear. More recently, however, the church's continued involvement in this area has been threatened by certain politico-religious constraints. Since 1985, for example, political life in Brazil has opened up considerably, and parties and value movements of all stripes have begun to flourish. Elections for legislators at all administrative levels have also been held on several occasions, a new democratic constitution was promulgated in 1988, and Brazil's first democratically elected president since 1961-- Fernando Collor de Mello -- was inaugurated in 1990. Complementing these changes on the political front, the Vatican has given clear signals of a distaste for overt political action, while competing value movements, especially Protestantism, are once again reposed to be expanding at the expense of Catholic religious hegemony.
Such developments within the spheres of domestic and international politics and religion have most assuredly caused complications for the church. During the past two decades, its actions have been largely in favor of the lower classes and the church's allies, the left or progressives. Now, with the emergence of parties and groups of various ideological stripes in ascension and the changes in the national and international religious milieu the church has had little choke but to adapt and rechart its course through relatively unknown and potentially dangerous waters.
Certainly, there are already strong hints as to what the church's new course will likely be. In response to the new climate in Brazil, the church appears to be reconsidering seriously the desirability -- in fact, the necessity-- of maintaining an overtly political role in favor of social change. Indeed, although the "option for the poor" is far from dead, the church has already moved to replace this strategy with one designed to serve better the more devotional needs of the faithful.
In this chapter, we examine the historical context of these developments and investigate the factors -- emanating from domestic and international secular and religious sources -- that have worked for and, more recently, against the continued politicization of the institution. We conclude with an assessment of where, in light of its current situation, the Catholic church in Brazil is likely to move in the near future.
The Historical Context of Church Activism in Brazil Within the literature, there has without question been more attention given to the Brazilian church than to any other in Latin America. This is due not so much to the large size and population of the country or to the energy of Brazilian and foreign researchers as to the existence of a wide and varied richness of events and processes occuring within the church that have demanded attention in recent years.
Most students of the Brazilian church clearly recognize that the institution as part of the worldwide Catholic community, has as its primary role the religious function: administering the sacraments and providing other services to the faithful. Nevertheless, the attention of the vast majority of researchers has been directed toward the more explicitly this -- worldly activities of the church in Brazil -- in particular those relating to the church's growing concern for social justice.
The specific sociopolitical and religious context of the emergence of the church's preferential option for the poor, the origins of which can be traced as far back as the mid-1950s, has been examined from several perspectives. One view, which might be termed the "institutional opportunism" approach, focuses mainly on the institution itself (the episcopacy, in particular); its primary goal is seen as the retention and augmentation of organizational power within Brazilian society. If the aims of the church have changed in recent years, this approach suggests, it is because the institution, in the face of threats from competing value movements, has made a conscious decision to approximate itself to the concerns of its historical constituency -- the lower classes -- in order to preserve its hegemonic position.(2)
At the opposite end of the scale is another approach that might be termed the "people ascendent" view. This perspective is basically an exercise in class analysis, insofar as it gives primary attention to the involvement and demands of the lower classes in reorienting the church.(3) Proponents of this approach suggest that the poor, who in recent years have suffered under a government strategy for economic development that favors economic expansion over social welfare, have essentially pushed the institutional church to act in their class-based political interests.
Although attractive to many, in their extremes, both of these approaches are somewhat flawed. Certainly, they do reflect on some rather salient societal influences on church change. Nevertheless, they neglect too many central dimensions of the church, and tend to totalize certain features of the church that are best viewed in relative terms. The institutional-opportunism approach, to begin with, ignores the role of theology in legitimating church initiatives and pays little attention to the momentum furnished by the response and support of the lower classes to the institutionalization of the social justice cause. The people-ascendant view, on the other hand, fails to explain how and why a whole complex institution could be usurped by the poor and also tends to neglect We international dimensions of the church. Indicative of a strong totalizing tendency, moreover, is how this approach adheres to the closely interrelated phenomena of liberation theology and the comunidades eclesiais de base, or CEBs. For its proponents, the theology of liberation becomes the only way to understand the church and its mission. Once this interpretation, which locates the church in a historical and concrete context, is accepted, certain roles in society follow. In a situation of underdevelopment, the church must be involved, it must opt for the poor, and it must use its resources to assist the poor in their liberation. The CEBs, for their part, become the privileged vehicle to work with the poor and promote their awareness, mobilization, and organization. In the opinion of some proponents, the CEB becomes literally a new way of being the church with the structure of authority inverted; the base is now the real source of legitimacy in the institution.(4)
There can be little question, however, that the Brazilian church itself and the relationship it maintains with the predominant sociocultural milieu, are far more complex than these incomplete, totalized visions would offer. To begin with, it must be recalled that the church is first and foremost an institution which is international in scope and behavior -- and one that finds its justification, and even justification for change, in centralized theology sanctioned by the Vatican. The church is also a community unto its own right, with power exercised at different levels by the various sectors operating within it. Although the episcopacy is clearly the most important level in the national context for understanding change, there is at least some scope or other clerical and lay actors to affect policy. The response of the population, affected as it is by the prevailing social and political environment, does matter in determining the extent and durability of innovations.
Using this broader understanding of the church as institution and its role in society, a number of authors have attempted more accurately to place the church's preferential option within the broader socioreligious and political contexts.(5) In his attempt to understand church change, Mainwaring, for example, has focused upon the interaction between the institutional church, middle-class activists, and the popular classes in urban areas. Some researchers have looked at the development and impact of church-sponsored programs of national or regional scope favoring human rights or natives and other oppressed groups. There is also much attention paid to Brazilian contributions to the development of the theology of liberation and its resultant effects upon church activation.
Our own work in this area has also been guided by a bask belief that the church is a complex international institution that seeks to influence individuals and society within the context of specific sociohistorical factors. As we have argued elsewhere, the religious influence of the church in Brazil has traditionally been problematic, with various forms of popular religiosity and spiritism much in evidence. Because of historical factors making for weak influence and also perpetuating that status, the church has tended to view politics as a valid means to gain influence. The term politics as used here is not restricted to party politics but rather includes any form of link with the sate or elites holding power. Traditionally, the use of politics by the church resulted in its playing a conservative role in state and society.
In the context of Brazil in the 1950s and early 1960s, we have suggested, the church's political base of support was challenged by encroaching religious and secular value movements, and the church responded in part by redefining its base to be the lower classes. This was encouraged by theological trends in the universal church that culminated in the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) and in the regional church at the CELAM meeting in Medellín (1968). By late 1968 and the consolidation of the military regime in Brazil, the church had assumed sufficient commitment to promote change in favor of the lower classes; subsequent repression orchestrated by the military against dissidents did not discourage but rather solidified the commitment among dominant sectors of the institutional church. Later, such moves toward an institutional commitment to the poor and oppressed were reinforced by the response of the lower classes themselves to the organizational adoption of a preferential option.
Implementation of an Option for the Poor Within the Church On the issue of the quality and extent of the commitment to social justice undertaken by the institutional church since the 1950s, most students of the Brazilian church are in agreement. In contrast to its historical (and largely unconscious) involvement in support of the status quo, church involvement during the 1970s and 1980s is seen, in essence, as having been conscious and intentional, with the church seeking to promote change in specific ways and in accordance with the clearly defined preferentialOption program. There is also consensus about the ways in which the strategy came to be implemented at various levels within the church.
The most important vehicle for the direct stimulation of the church's program , most observers agree, has been the CNBB (Conferência Nacional dos Bispos do Brasil). Formed in 1952 by progressives within the upper hierarchy of the church, this body has spoken regularly and force fully for nearly two decades on many important and polemic sociopolitical issues. The CNBB has also maintained extensive contacts with other hierarchies and foreign sources of funding that have allowed it to fill a broad sphere of activities within the social justice area. In addition, it has provided the umbrella organization for a number of programs -- operating within specific societal milieus -- that hold obvious political implications, such as the Indian Missionary Council (CIMI), the Pastoral Workers' Commission (CPO), and the Pastoral Land Commission (CPT).(6)
The CNBB is also seen as instrumental for its role in promoting the basic Christian communities, or CEBs.(7) These small cell-like organizations, of which there are reported to be 60,000-100,000 in operation, may well be the most widely recognized innovation in the Brazilian church and have received considerable popular and scholarly attention. Even if the CEBs have not, as some have suggested, turned out to be the "new way of being Church" and have definitely not inverted authority within the institution, they are important as a means of relating to society, particularly for the lower classes. Closely linked to the institution, they have constituted a network whereby the institution can promote a variety of sociopolitical issues such as agrarian reform and popular participation in politics. They have also led to the formation of other movements such as cooperatives, unions, and similar associations for promoting the interests of their lower-class membership.
The degree of success the CNBB has had in converting the entire church to the preferential-option approach has, of course, been questioned. It is well known that the actual implementation of most programs, including the CEBs, has varied from diocese to diocese. Some dioceses are known as progressive -- São Paulo, Fortaleza, and Vítoria, for example -- others as conservative -- Rio de Janeiro, Porto Alegre, and Aracaju. These designations normally refer to the orientation of the local bishop. When the bishop is changed for one with a different orientation, it is not long before the overall orientation of the diocese changes, as is the case of Recife on the one hand, and Manaus on the other.
Generally, though, most authors would agree that support for the preferential-option strategy has been remarkably strong from the CNBB right down through the entire institution. Within the CNBB itself, a majority of the almost 400 members of the hierarchy have supported the church's role in promoting change. Since 1970, moreover, the CNBB has been led by progressive and active bishops. This holds with regard not only to the presidency (including a president, vice-president, and general secretary) but also the majority of commissions and other organizations within and affiliated to the CNBB. Outside of the hierarchy, probably a majority of the 13,000 clergy also have supported this role, as have a lesser percentage of the 40,000 nuns -- although numerical strength likely has varied a great deal among Brazil's nearly 225 dioceses. Brazil is exceptional, as well, in having available a well-prepared and committed laity. Emerging from sectors of the Catholic Action organization in the 1950s and early 1960s, a relatively large number of lay people have continued to be involved with church organizations and programs with important sociopolitical content. Their involvement within the institutional church has tended to be somewhat ad hoc, but they have certainly kept pressure on clergy and bishops to ensure a continuing commitment to the poor.
Recent Changes in Society, Religion, and Politics in Brazil The Brazilian church's preferential-option program, thus shaped, has provided direction to church activation for the better part of two decades. Nevertheless, the religious and sociopolitical context that provided fertile soil for its sustenance and growth is now unquestionably changing. Such changes are both national and international in scope, and religious and secular in nature.
At the national level and within the secular realm, the changing political agenda in Brazil has without question imposed certain constraints on space for the continued implementation of the church's program. First of all, with the primary source of societal evil-doing (i,e., the military) in retreat, church leaders have been left without a solitary target to focus upon. Second, the new civilian regime has been securely bent on a liberalizing path, removing restrictions on pornography, divorce, birth control, and other matters of historical concern to the church. Government initiatives in these and other areas have thus effectively forced church leaders to attend to mans they had not been forced to deal with for at least twenty years. The military may have been the physical embodiment of evil in the sphere of economy and politics, but its leaders at least claimed to be moral purists. And third, with the political market open, there are increasing numbers of political parties, popular associations, and labor union organizations now flourishing in Brazil. In effect, these groups have not only siphoned off leading church activists, but have also essentially reduced the need for the church to remain actively involved with the cause of social change.
On the national religious front, an opening up of a different kind has also been occurring. Indeed, the religious monopoly of the Catholic church has been seriously threatened in recent years -- and at an accelerated pace -- by a number of newcomers to the Brazilian religious Marketplace. Of particular significance in this regard has been the advance of Protestantism. Although US-style evangelical preachers have traditionally drawn large numbers to regional soccer fields (as many as 150,000 in fact), the percentage of the population claiming Protestant affiliation has historically been rather low. In 1950, Protestants accounted for less than 2 percent of the population, and most of these were concentrated in German-speaking (Lutheran) areas of the south. By 1980, however, the figure had risen to nearly 7 percent, and 1991 estimates are that as many as 10 percent of Brazilians may now call themselves Protestant.(8)
To a considerable extent, the monopoly of the Catholic church in Brazil remains secure, insofar as well over 80 percent of the population still claims Catholicism. Nevertheless, with a growth rate nearly double that of Catholicism (currently at about 2.5 percent per year), the various Protestant denominations serve as a stark reminder to church leaders that Catholicism's numerical supremacy is threatened.
Within the institutional church, a number of developments have contributed as well to a more restricted platform for further sociopolitical activation. To begin with, there has emerged a crisis of leadership within the institutional elite. Although clearly an advocate of the option for the poor, current president Luciano Mendes de Almeida of We CNBB is a true moderate who disdains confrontation. His leadership style is markedly more subdued than that of his predecessors during the middle to later years of military rule.
It has also recently become apparent that the church has been operating with far less popular support for its initiatives than many institutional leaders had supposed. The Catholic church in Brazil remains one of the country's most trusted institutions, but research based on national surveys of public opinion undertaken during the height of the church's engagement with the option for the poor in the early 1980s has revealed that only between one-third and one-half of practicing Catholics in Brazil supported specific individual church initiatives in the political sphere at any one time, with popular support for all church initiatives combined far lower still. This was true, moreover, for all social classes and age groups.(9)
Making matters worse, the Brazilian print media -- and Sao Paulo's influential O Estado de São Paulo in particular -- have subjected the church lately to considerable criticism for certain of its activities in the social justice sphere. Most of the accusations stemmed from actions reportedly undertaken by the church's more vociferous agencies and commissions. In 1987, one of these, the Indian Missionary Council (CIMI), publicly suggested that Brazil, and in particular the Amazon region, be subjected to more intense international scrutiny in order to protect the local Indians and their forest reserves. In the press, this was generally interpreted as a call to "internationalization" and thus served to fuel intense criticism from a historically nationalistic Brazilian government and public. The fact that the suggestion came from a commission as part of one of the world's largest international religious conglomerates only added insult to injury. In a similar manner, the Pastoral Land Commission (CPT) was accused of using money donated by European churches to purchase arms for land-hungry peasants engaged in skirmishes with large landholders. Though the church vehemently denied the charges, the reputation of the CPT remained effectively stained.(10)
The church has also come under direct criticism from the Brazilian government for charges it had leveled concerning the pervasiveness of high-level corruption. Condemnation in 1988 of financial illegalities orchestrated by top government officials, for example, made by CNBB president Luciano Mendes de Almeida, was in fact met with howls of derision in Brasília. Seizing the moment, President José Sarney, in a much publicized response, sarcastically reminded Dom Luciano of the Vatican's own troubles with Roberto Calvi and the Banco Abrosiano.(11) Although such domestic religious and secular changes have certainly given the church pause to consider its present political strategy, perhaps the most potent force weighing on the institution originates from a source outside the country -- the Vatican. As is well known, the Vatican has generally moved to adopt a more conservative position with respect to the political defense of the poor and oppressed within national churches.(12) In the papacy of John Paul II, the Vatican has certainly supported political change in certain circumstances, including the Marxist regime of Poland and the authoritarian regimes of Haiti, Paraguay, and the Philippines. The support is less clear in Chile, but there it may not have been so necessary. However, the Vatican clearly opposes political involvement, broadly understood, in democracies and where transitions are under way. Brazil fits into the latter category, along with Portugal and Spain. In the Brazilian case, the pope has made this very clear in his speeches in Brazil in 1980 and in discussions with the Brazilian bishops. For example, in a February 1990 speech to bishops from Brazil's southern states, the pope warned that it is necessary for the church "to make a clear distinction between the action that the faithful do, individually or in groups, guided by their Christian conscience, and the actions they undertake in communion with their pastors in the name of the Church." He continued: "The specific mission that Christ confided to his Church, is certainly not of a political, economic, or social order.(13) The Vatican has also actively discouraged be theology of liberation, which provides much of the justification for Political involvement at the grassroots level. Cardinal Ratzinger, prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, has attacked the credibility of well-known liberationists, such as Leonardo Boff, while at the same time minimizing the legitimacy and jurisdiction of episcopal conferences that sympathize with this theological tendency, such as the CNBB.(14)
Perhaps even more significantly, the Vatican has moved to replace or to marginalize predominant Progressives within the Brazilian hierarchy. Virtually all new appointments for archbishops and most for bishops are conservatives. The change is clearest in Recife, where the outspoken Dom Helder Camara was replaced by Dom José Sobrinho. In Salvador, a moderate archbishop was replaced by the somewhat more conservative Dom Lucas Moreira Neves. And in the elevation to the cardinalate in mid-1988, the two Brazilians were Moreira Neves and the conservative archbishop of Brasilia, Dom José Freire Falcão. These two archbishops were in fact the only two Brazilians raised to the cardinalate during the first ten years of John Paul II's papacy.
In São Paulo, the most important center of the progressive church since the early 1970s, other changes have been evident. In an attempt to undermine the power of well-known activist Cardinal Archbishop Paulo Evaristo Arns, the archdiocese was split in 1989 into five dioceses. Even though the bishops for the four new units are not considered to be conservatives, the division indicates a setback for the cardinal and will probably slow the momentum in sociopolitical programs.(15) Momentum was also lost because of the transfer from SAo Paulo of the president of the CNBB, Dom Luciano Mendes de Almeida, to the isolated rural archdiocese of Mariana.
Alterations in Church Strategy Given the changes in Rome and the very fluid (and often confused) domestic political and religious context, the church in Brazil consequently finds itself in a new situation. Indeed, it is clear that for a growing number of the hierarchy, both the desirability and the necessity of upholding the preferential-option strategy may be questioned. To an increasing extent, far more appealing -- and indeed safer -- to growing numbers within the church leadership, is a return to more devotional concerns and more traditional forms of maintaining influence in Brazilian society.
This is not of course to say that the option for the poor is dead. Recent events demonstrate that in some respects at least, the approach has continued to instruct church thinking and action in some fundamental respects.
Without question, the five years of the civilian-led Sarney administration -the first civilian regime since the transfer of power from the military in 1985 -- gave the church much to react against, insofar as the government has been characterized by economic crisis, social instability, corruption, politicization of every imaginable issue, and the continuing fragility of political institutions, including parties.
A good synthesis of We Church's sociopolitical involvement during the Sarney administration was its role in the elaboration of the new constitution.(16) As early as 1977, the CNBB advocated a new institutional framework in its Exigências Cristãs de uma Nova Ordem Política, and throughout the late 1970s and early 1980s, remained at the forefront in demanding not only the return of civilian rule but a new constitution for the country as well. Many in the church calculated that mobilization in favor of a new basic charter would result in the rupture with Brazil's history of mass apathy and populist politics. As part of this thrust, elements within the church were, for example, key players in the Plenário Pro-Participação Popular na Constituinte, the umbrella organization seeking to guarantee lower-class interests. Broad sectors of the church also remained active in the general process associated with framing the new constitution, from as early as mid-1985 through the promulgation in October 1988. Overall, such lobbying efforts were successful, and many of the Church's goals -- with the notable exception of agrarian reform -- were achieved in the constitution.
The high level of church involvement in the elaboration of the constitution led right into the campaign for the presidential elections in late 1989. In August 1989, for example, the CNBB issued a document entitled Participar com Esperança, which requested the Congress to pass laws implementing the constitution, encouraged popular participation in the elections, and defined the criteria for evaluating a candidate for the president.(17) During the actual campaign, the church was also involved, although it did not officially support a candidate. In the first round of voting and more obviously in the second, the CEBs, many clergy, and a number of bishops demonstrated support for Luis Inácio da Silva (Lula).(18) Lula and the Workers' Party (PT) had a long relationship with the archdiocese of Sao Paulo and the CEB movement. In addition, Lula had a program in accord with the CNBB's criteria; he was in line with the constitution of 1988, and he belonged to a real political party. Thus, Lula was a much closer approximation in the political sphere to the church's preferential-option program, than was conservative rival Fernando Collor de Mello.
Such recent church involvement in Brazilian politics is noteworthy. At in some ways, it obscures another reality because the signs of a new, more conservative agenda within the church have slowly been appearing for at least a half dozen years.
To begin with, there have occurred subtle changes in the way the church comports itself politically. As part of its commitment to the poor and its people-centered strategy for effecting change, the church largely eschewed high-level interaction with bureaucratic and political elites in favor of a strategy of popular mobilization. More recently, however, there appears to be a return on the part of the church leadership to the elite-level Political maneuvering characteristic of the period before the poor-oriented strategy.(19)
Since José Sarney's assumption of the presidency in 1985, the church has in fact been a constant fixture in the halls of power. Dom Luciano Mendes, for example, as secretary-general of the CNBB, had been a frequent visitor to the presidential palace and at one time was thought to be one of Sarney's closest advisers. Moreover, in his capacity as president of the bishops' council, he has certainly been less than shy about calling on influential power brokers to resolve church problems. In late August 1987, he met with several congressmen to demand a government inquiry into "fraudulent" press criticism of the CNBB's Indian Missionary Council (CIMI). Again, in 1989, he requested that the president personally intervene on behalf of agricultural workers engaged in disputes with landowners in Rio Grande do Sul and Bahia states.
There has also been strong evidence of increased church involvement in electoral politics and political decisionmaking -- involvement highly reminiscent of church action during the 1930s, when church leaders attempted to influence public policyrnaking through such means as voting leagues and high-level influence peddling. Before the 1986 general elections, some of the bishops, including outspoken progressives such as São Paulo's Cardinal Arns and Bauru's Cândido Padim, released lists of candidates deemed worthy of church support. Such activity was not generally undertaken during elections some four years earlier, when church leaders took great pains to educate voters politically without appearing to favor any one particular party. As mentioned earlier, during the debate surrounding the formulation of the country's new constitution, the church played an active and direct lobbying role; it did so once again during the 1989 presidential elections, when many of the bishops and clergy also publicly announced their electoral preferences.
In addition to reviving old forms of political lobbying, church leaders have increasingly demonstrated a growing conservatism and return to dogmatism that in some cases has ironically been prejudicial to the needs of the socially disadvantaged the preferential option traditionally defended. A few of the more salient examples of this latter tendency may be presented chronologically.(20)
In 1986, to begin with, Cardinal Arns of São Paulo reportedly requested and was granted a government-imposed ban of Jean Luc Godard's controversial film on the life of Mary, Je Vous Salue, Marie. At one point, Arns even requested that the São Paulo state governor call in the military police (a body he had fought tooth and nail with during the years of the military regime) to prevent a screening of the film at the Pontiffcia Universidade Católica -- of which he is chancellor.
In 1987, the bishops of Brazil's impoverished northeast region undertook to purge the area's long-standing basic education movement (based in large measure on radical pedagogy developed by educator Paulo Freire) of progressives linked to the Communist Party and various working-class movements. That same year, soon after assuming the presidency of the CNBB, Luciano Mendes de Almeida publicly scolded liberation theologian Leonardo Boff for suggesting that the communist states of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union were examples of the values of the kingdom of Heaven in practice. Again in 1987, Bishop Serafim Araújo criticized the state government of Minas Gerais for promoting the use of condoms to prevent AIDS, while a colleague, Bishop Benedito Vieira (formerly vice-president of the CNBB) cautioned federal politicians against establishing a national family-planning program. In the year following, documents released by the CNBB, including Diretrizes Gerais da Ação Pastoral da Igreja no Brasil and Igreja: Comunhão e Missão na Evangelização dos Povos, were among the most moderate in tone -- in terms of criticism of the status quo -- in nearly twenty years.
In 1989 Archbishop of Recife José Cardoso Sobrinho (who replaced Dom Helder Câmara), following a repressive strategy employed by Cardinal Arns in São Paulo some three years earlier, called upon the local military police to disperse a group of peasants who had arrived unannounced to request an immediate audience with the archbishop. When the Recife chapter of the CNBB's Justice and Peace Commission protested the move, moreover, Cardoso henceforth forbade the agency from speaking officially on behalf of the archdiocese. In other moves, Cardoso purged four coordinators of the local Pastoral Land Commission for their involvement in working-class political movements and forbade priests sympathetic to the theology of liberation from celebrating mass on local television.
Again in 1989, some church leaders openly advocated an enhanced role for the conservative Catholic charismatic movement as a way to combat the growth of Protestant evangelical groups. By early 1991, the concerns about the Protestant threat were so generalized that the CNBB went so far as to convene the first National Seminar on Religious Pluralism in Brazil in Caieiras, Sio Paulo, to stimulate discussion about the necessity of creating pastoral methods capable of resisting the Protestant groups' advance.
Also in 1991, the CNBB's Comissão Episcopal de Doutrina began a review of the new Bíblia Pastoral, first released for use by Catholics in Brazil in 1990. In the view of a sufficient number of the bishops, the new bible was tied too closely with the theology of liberation. The CNBB also vowed that year to work diligently to fight government plans to reopen the country's gambling casinos; renewed gambling, according to secretary-general Dom Celso Queiroz, would lead to "moral decomposition" on a national scale.
Perhaps the most significant development of all over the years, howeven has been the way in which concrete support for the all-important basic Christian community phenomenon has suffered.(21) References to the CEBs in official church documents, for example, have been relatively rare since 1988. Occasionally, reference is made to comunidades eclesiais, but this is used in the generic sense and refers not only to CEBs but also to dioceses, parishes, or Catholic associations. There also appears to have been a significant alteration in the way the church conceives of the role of CEBs. Whereas once seen as the "new way to be Church" or the seeds of the new society, the mission of the CEBs is increasingly tied to leadership building. In essence, the CEBs and other similar types of lay groups or associations are seen no longer as agents acting autonomously in the name of the church. Rather, they serve to provide militants on an individual basis a way to operate within secular bodies such as labor unions and popular movements. In any case, by all accounts, the CEBs appear increasingly to be in a period of stagnation. After twenty years, these groups still vary tremendously in size, composition, and role. Certainly, they have received a good deal of attention, not a little of which is more an indication of commitment and hope than a description of reality. Much was expected of the CEBs, and indeed their importance in the late 1970s and early 1980s in providing alternate forms of organization and mobilization cannot be denied. Nevertheless, they have not matched expectations, despite inflated figures on their numbers. An independent lay leadership has not emerged from the CEBs, and they still rely very much on clergy and bishops. They have not been unified on sociopolitical matters, and their general impact is weak. It seems likely that the CEBs will turn out to be one more organization or movement in the long line of church-generated entities aimed at relating to sectors of society at different periods.(22)
Overall, then, whether in terms of support for the CEBs or changes in statements and undertakings of the upper hierarchy directly, the ability and the willingness of the church to intervene in Brazilian society and politics appear to be increasingly constrained. Without question, through relationships at the elite level, specific target groups and programs, and mobilization of the lower classes through the CEBs, the church up until recently has had a highly publicized impact. Increasingly, however, predominant sectors within the church appear engaged in an attempt to restore its traditional religious role in the face of some very salient social, political, and religious pressures.
Future Trends in the Church's Political Role In January 1990, Fernando Collor de Mello assumed the presidency of Brazil. A member of the Brazilian elite, Collor won the election on a populist platform, vowing to take Brazil into the twenty-first century by wrestling inflation to the ground and modernizing the economy. In practice, he has attempted to do this through a combination of innovative policy measures, including stringent monetary controls and a progressive opening up of Brazil's highly protected domestic economy to foreign competition.
Such initiatives have certainly brought the inflation rate down, and more and more foreign goods are available for consumption in Brazil, but in the short run these measures have also had a seriously dampening effect on the national economy. Production of goods and services has fallen dramatically, and this in turn has resulted in ever-rising levels of unemployment.
During the first days of the Collor administration, the Brazilian church indicated, through CNBB secretary-general Dom Celso Queiroz, that it would cooperate with the president for the good of Brazil, as it had with previous presidents. And to a considerable extent it has. Indeed, a year and a half into Collor's term, CNBB president Dom Luciano Mendes de Almeida offered his tacit support to the Brazilian president's latest proposed agenda for economic restructuring, known as the Projeto de Reconstrução Nacional (or simply Projetão), in the interest of national harmony and development. Nevertheless, the Collor government has given large sectors within the church much to complain about, especially those members of the hierarchy most closely tied to the preferential-option strategy. The CNBB and affiliated organizations (the CPT and CIMI, for example), several dioceses (such as São Paulo and Vitória), and the popular movement based in the CEBs have to this point continued to use the option, along with the 1988 constitution, to judge the performance of the government. There has been at least some criticism of Collor's lack of support for agrarian reform and of his perceived tendency to work around the constitution. In early May 1990, for example, eight organizations linked to the CNBB, including the Workers Pastoral Commission (CPO), the National Commission of the Laity (CNO), and the Pastoral Land Commission (CPT), issued a document critical of the Collor administration. They criticized his style, and in their view, the technocratic and authoritarian approach to administration compromised even promising economic measures.
Even in the face of continued poor economic and political performance, there is little question, though, that the cracks and fissures in the Church's option for the poor will likely widen. Throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, as was shown, the Brazilian church was very active in the social Justice field, primarily because of the leadership of progressives in key dioceses and the CNBB. Because of the changes that have occurred in the domestic and international context of church operation, however, and the evidence of problems with the preferential-option already apparent (as described in the previous section), it is logical to anticipate still less Commitment and action in the future.
To begin with, given the Vatican's relentless moves to pacify the Brazilian church through the appointment of more moderate bishops, the press attacks on the institution, and the ever-present Protestant threat, consensus within the ranks of the upper hierarchy on social justice issues will be difficult, if not impossible, to reach. Moreover, the ongoing confusion and fragmentation inherent within Brazil's presently open political system will likely ensure that any political position the church does assume will alienate at least some large sectors of the population. The logical response, then, will be to hesitate or equivocate in assuming positions -- or at the very least to issue only generic statements.
Within the CNBB, a lack of consensus is already much in evidence. During the twenty-eighth general assembly of the CNBB at Itaici, São Paulo, in May 1990, divisions were in evidence regarding the chances for success of the Collor government. In addition, the CNBB did not adopt an official position on the government's tough economic program, despite its apparent social costs (especially unemployment). As for the potential for alienation, this in fact has also already been realized in the attacks in early 1989 of Leonel Brizola, candidate of the Democratic Labor Party (PDT), on the church and its putative support for the PT. Finally, the tendency of the church to define its position more generically has been made clear in the document prepared by the CNBB at its March 1989 assembly, entitled Exigências Eticas de uma Nova Ordem Institucional, in which specific suggestions for changes in political direction are all but absent.
The Church may be becoming more fractious and cautious with respect to overt political action, but it is showing increasing signs of unity where the promotion of the devotional is concerned, Perhaps more than any other single factor, the principal catalyst for the growing consensus is the perceived Protestant threat.
Some within the church, in fact, now see nominal affiliation with Catholicism failing to as low as 75 percent of the population during the 1990s. This has so alarmed the bishops that during their April 1991 meeting in Itaici, S5o Paulo, there emerged strong support for a realignment of the church's this-worldly role with the more conservative directives on church action outlined by Pope John Paul II. In the months ahead, this will unquestionably contribute to still less emphasis on the direct forms of social action that the preferential option for the poor mandates and more on the spiritual role of the church.(23)
Conclusion In the early 1950s, the Brazilian church became extremely active and innovative within certain spheres of Brazilian society -- especially politics. Within a context of competing value movements, progressive tendencies in international Catholicism, and political repression orchestrated by the ruling military, the church effectively redefined its base in part to be the lower classes and eventually adopted the preferential option for the poor as its principal operating strategy.
The context in which such activism grew has changed in recent years. Not only has the Vatican become less supportive of church activities in the sociopolitical sphere, but Brazil has been engaged in a long and arduous transition from authoritarian state structure to civilian democracy. Moreover, the threat of competing value movements has proved to be a long-term problem the church has been increasingly unable to ignore. Such factors, as we have argued, have been conducive to a diminution of church activation in the sphere of politics.
Because the process involved in developing and implementing the preferential option was long and complicated, it must be stated that there is no reason to anticipate a rapid and obvious retreat from that commitment. Indeed, in the days ahead, large sectors of the church will likely continue to promote and implement the preferential option. Nevertheless, these will operate in ever-greater isolation, and certainly implementation of the strategy will not proceed with the intensity of the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Whether there will be a return sometime in the future to the preferential option as the church's primary operative strategy is open to considerable doubt. Clearly, despite the severe political and economic stress, Brazil is modernizing, and traditional religion per se may become less relevant, much as it has in the industrialized countries. As it does, the available sacral and religious space for the church to continue to exercise influence of any kind will likely be restricted still further.
Notes 1. On this point, see Donald Smith, "The Limits of Religious Resurgence," in Emile Sahliyeh, ed., Religious Resurgence and Politics in the Contemporary World (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990), p. 33.
2. See especially Roberto Romano, Igreja contra estado (São Paulo: Kairos, 1979).
3. The more theoretical statements on this position are given in Luiz Alberto G. de Souza, "Igreja e sociedade: Elementos para um marco teórico," Síntese 13 (April-June 1978), pp. 1-25; and Luiz Gonzaga de Souza Lima, Evolução Política dos Católicos e da igreja no Brasil (Petrópolis: Vozes, 1979).
4. A forceful statement on both of these elements is Leonardo Boff's Igreja: Carisma e poder (Petrpolis: Vozes, 1981).
5. See, for example, Paulo Krischke and Scott Mainwaring, eds., A igreja nas bases em tempo de transição, 1974-1985 (São Paulo: L&PM, 1986); Scott Mainwaring, The Catholic Church and Politics in Brazil, 1916-1985 (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1986); Vanilda Paiva, ed., 1greja e questio agrária (São Paulo, Loyola, 1985); and Heléna Salem, ed., A igreja dos oprimidos (São Paulo: Brasil Mates, 1981).
6. On the nature and extent of these programs, see Thomas Bruneau, The Church in Brazil: The Politics of Religion (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1982); and Mainwaring, The Catholic Church and Politics.
7. On the CEBs, see Marcello de Azevedo, Basic Ecclesial Communities in Brazil: The Challenge of a New Way of Being Church, trans. John Drury (Washington: Georgetown University Press, 1987); and especially W. E. Hewitt, Base Christian Communities and Social Change in Brazil (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1991).
8. On the extent of Protestant evangelical growth in Brazil, see David Barrett, ed., World Christian Encyclopedia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982), p. 186; and Instituto Brasileiro de Geografica e Estatística, Anuário estátistico do Brasil (Rio de Janeiro: Fundação IBGE, 1982), p. 74.
9. Thomas C. Bruneau and W. E. Hewitt, "Patterns of Church Influence in Brazil's Political Transition," Comparative Politics, October 1989, pp. 39-61.
10. For reports of the controversy surrounding these agencies, see, for example, O Globo, September 5, 1987, p. 8; and Jornal do Brasil, February 22, 1989, p. 7.
11. See O Globo, February 5, 1988, p. 5.
12. This factor is also discussed by Ralph Della Cava, "The 'People's Church,' the Vatican, and Abertura," in Alfred Stepan, ed., Democratizing Brazil (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), pp. 143-167.
13. Taken from Catholic New Times (Toronto), March 4, 1991, p. 2.
14. The pope's position is clearly stated in his letter to the Brazilian bishops of April 1986. He reiterated support for the instruction of August 1984 on the theology of liberation and emphasized the church as mystery. On Ratzinger, see The Ratzinger Report.- An Exclusive Interview on the State of the Church (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1985).
15. This issue was covered extensively in the Brazilian media. See, for example, Folha de São Paulo, March 15,1989; and Veja, March 22,1989.
16. Bruneau has discussed the general process of elaborating the constitution in "Constitutions and Democratic Consolidation: Brazil in Comparative Perspective," NPS Technical Report (NPS-56-89-009), March 1989, pp. 1-30. For a discussion of the CNBB's role, see José Ernanne Pinheiro, "A Ação da CNBB na constituinte," Revista da Cultura Vozes 82, July-December 1988.
17. Among the eight criteria were the following: Does the candidate favor agrarian reform; promote the just distribution of urban land; assist in the struggle of workers for social justice and workers' rights; and intend to review carefully the country's foreign debt? See Folha de São Paulo, August 26, 1989.
18. See Veja, November 15, 1989, and December 6, 1989, for examples of church involvment in the campaign
19. For a more thorough account of the developments cited in the rest of this section, see W. E. Hewitt, "Origins and Prospects of the Option for the Poor in Brazilian Catholicism," Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 28 (1989), pp. 120135.
21. See W. E. Hewitt, "Religion and the Consolidation of Democracy in Brazil," Sociological Analysis 59 (Summer 1990), pp. 139-152.
22. On these points, see Hewitt, Base Christian Communities and Social Change.
23. Such tendencies have now been widely reported in Brazil's print media. See, for example, O Globo, April 10, 1991, p. 9; and April 17,1991, p. 5.
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