The aim of this article is to analyze the position of the Catholic Church in the production of primary forms of association of people with deafness in Brazil, which led to the consolidation of Brazilian Sign Language and forms of civil and political association. For this, the universe of empirical analysis is composed with the relation between this institution and deaf education, the vast network of catholic congregations founding of special schools as well as the trajectories of actors with power, connected the Catholic Church, in positions of political representation in deafness.
deafness; Brazilian Sign Language; Catholic Church; deaf education; political representation