ABSTRACT
The article presents the context of the Catholic Church in the face of the liberal revolutions of 1820. Then, it seeks to demonstrate the important role that the institution played in the Liberal Triennium in Portugal, and how the clergy reacted to the Lusitanian revolution. The approximation between liberals and the Church occurred through the use of the ecclesiastical apparatus to legitimize the new regime, being the pastoral letters fundamental in this context. I call these artifacts Constitutional Pastoral Letters, and in this article, I intend to analyze those written by the bishops of Pará, Maranhão, and the Chapter of Pernambuco, presenting how the liberal and constitutional language was incorporated into the religious discourse to position themselves before the political situation in the context of the Independence of Brazil. As a theoretical and methodological contribution, I use Global History and New Political History. I conclude that the Church in Brazil played a fundamental role in the constitutional political education of the population.
Keywords:
Independence of Brazil; Catholic church; Constitutional Pastoral Letters