Abstracts
The consolidation of modern national states involved multiple combinations of secular rationalism and Christian mentalities. Nevertheless, relations between temporal and spiritual powers were not always congruent and harmonious. Nor were they limited to institutional frameworks. In Brazil many clerics combined in a peculiar way pastoral and intellectual formation and the political action in favor of their own interests, seeking benefits from their social networks to resist the normatization enacted directed by the state since 1822. Aiming at preserving or even increasing attributes that were guarantors of distinction, wealth and power, and acting especially through informal channels, these clerics staged some of the conflicts which occurred in the Minas Gerais 'sertão', which as this article examines, challenged government competence to ensure strict observance of the law.
politician priests; constitutionalism; Minas Gerais
A consolidação dos Estados nacionais modernos implicou combinações múltiplas entre mentalidade cristã e racionalismo secular. Apesar disso, as relações entre poder temporal e espiritual nem sempre foram congruentes e harmoniosas. Tampouco limitaram-se ao âmbito institucional. No caso brasileiro, muitos clérigos aliaram de modo peculiar a formação pastoral e intelectual à atuação política, em favor de seus interesses privados, buscando usufruir de suas redes de sociabilidade para resistir às normatizações encaminhadas pelo Estado nacional, desde 1822. Visando preservar ou mesmo galgar aqueles atributos garantidores de distinção, riqueza e poder e atuando, sobretudo, por vias informais, esses clérigos protagonizaram alguns dos conflitos ocorridos no sertão de Minas Gerais, os quais, conforme analisa o presente artigo, desafiaram a competência governamental em garantir a estrita observância da Lei, denunciando novas formas de fazer política, personificadas na figura do 'padre político'.
padre político; constitucionalismo; Minas Gerais
DOSSIER: CHURCH AND STATE
Politician priests and their solidarity networks: an analysis of the role of priests in the 'sertão' of Minas Gerais (1822 and 1831)
Ana Rosa Cloclet da Silva
Centro de Ciências Humanas e Sociais Aplicadas. Faculdade de História, PUC-Campinas. Rodovia Dom Pedro I, km 136, Parque das Universidades, Cidade Universitária. 13086-900 Campinas SP Brasil. cloclet@ig.com.br
ABSTRACT
The consolidation of modern national states involved multiple combinations of secular rationalism and Christian mentalities. Nevertheless, relations between temporal and spiritual powers were not always congruent and harmonious. Nor were they limited to institutional frameworks. In Brazil many clerics combined in a particular way pastoral and intellectual formation and political action in favor of their own interests, seeking benefits from their social networks to resist the rules enacted by the state since 1822. Aiming at preserving or even increasing attributes that were guarantors of distinction, wealth and power, and acting especially through informal channels, these clerics caused some of the conflicts which occurred in the Minas Gerais 'sertão,' which as this article examines, challenged government competence to ensure strict observance of the law.
Keywords: politician priests; constitutionalism; Minas Gerais.
RESUMO
A consolidação dos Estados nacionais modernos implicou combinações múltiplas entre mentalidade cristã e racionalismo secular. Apesar disso, as relações entre poder temporal e espiritual nem sempre foram congruentes e harmoniosas. Tampouco limitaram-se ao âmbito institucional. No caso brasileiro, muitos clérigos aliaram de modo peculiar a formação pastoral e intelectual à atuação política, em favor de seus interesses privados, buscando usufruir de suas redes de sociabilidade para resistir às normatizações encaminhadas pelo Estado nacional, desde 1822. Visando preservar ou mesmo galgar aqueles atributos garantidores de distinção, riqueza e poder e atuando, sobretudo, por vias informais, esses clérigos protagonizaram alguns dos conflitos ocorridos no sertão de Minas Gerais, os quais, conforme analisa o presente artigo, desafiaram a competência governamental em garantir a estrita observância da Lei, denunciando novas formas de fazer política, personificadas na figura do 'padre político'.
Palavras-chave: padre político; constitucionalismo; Minas Gerais.
The European eighteenth century witnessed a reinterpretation of the nature of government which had profound repercussions on state structures. Based on new conceptions developed since the seventeenth century of the origins of "civil and political society, the pact or contract between the ruled and rulers, the nature of sovereignty, the most rational regime or political system, the liberties and rights inherent in citizenship,"
However, the tendency in question does not imply a unison reply of philosophers to the question of religion, nor, the impossibility of coexistence between apparently irreconcilable elements, such as "faith and science, the philosophical tradition and rational and experimental innovation, theocentrism and anthropocentrism."
As a result religion was at the foundations of the Catholic Enlightenment characteristic of the Italian and Iberian states and even in the countries which were the stage of modern democratic and liberal experiences,
From this perspective the criticism of religion and the later separation between Church and State did not eliminate the active participation of the clergy in the ongoing process, nor did it result in the complete replacement of faith by reason, or of religion by nationalist ideology. There was thus no shortage of cases in which it was sought to constitute the nation as a community of believers using Christian symbols to sacralize them,
In the Brazilian case, although recent contributions have advanced the understanding of the participation of the 'political clergy' in the process of independence and the formation of the imperial state,
In addition to active participation in the construction of new spaces of sociability "political, patriotic, philanthropic and Masonic, public and secret"
This profile of the Brazilian political clergy has been attributed in part to the precarious manner in which the Tridentine reform was conducted in Brazil,
the priests of colonial Brazil were little different from their flocks in their daily lives. In addition to their involvement with questions of a temporal nature, it was not rare to see priests without their sacerdotal habit participating in profane festivities, entering into concubinage and raising children. This proximity of priests with the daily life of the population meant that they ended up sharing the same problems, demands and feelings as their believers. Consequently, priests became much more apt at assuming the role of spokespersons for the people, transforming themselves into potential popular leaders. (Souza, 2010, p.46)
Moreover, the education of the clergy active in the context of independence and the initial stages of the construction of the Brazilian national state was guided by "Pombaline Catholic regalism."
At the same time, the actions of these clerics was associated with violence and the indiscipline characteristic of the resistance of local potentates to the ongoing imposition of new rules, aiming to preserve, or even expand, those attributes which guaranteed distinction, wealth, and power, such as land, slaves and titles.
In this article a privileged focus is taken for the analysis of the actions of these clerics, at the moment when the national state carried out the first institutional adaptations necessary for the creation of the material and symbolic conditions of its existence. Specifically, I look at some of the political conflicts which occurred in areas of the Minas Gerais sertão, which illustrate the weight of disputes sponsored by local clerics.
Traditionally in a region "so vast, so deserted, so far"
almost all of the sertão which lies at the extremities of the captaincies of Bahia, Minas Gerais, Goiases and Pernambuco suffers great inconveniences from the lack of administration of justice, due to the long roads and for the same reason: respect for royal authority in these places is very like the light, whose rays are weaker the greater the distance from the focus.
In the context of independence and the implementation of modern political forms, these 'representatives of the laws of God,' feeling their personal and institutional power questioned by constitutionalism, wove alliances and voiced political practices, nuanced not by questions of a religious nature, but by concepts of power related to a singular regional trajectory, values and political practices which, in the conception of the judges and magistrates based in those regions, were associated with the risks of 'anarchy' and 'despotism', extremes averse to the moderate liberal cause.
In the following reflections we have sought to situate some of these conflicts caused by clerics in the Minas sertão, which give density to a process which was clashing with an essential competence of public administration: the strict observance of the law. Without ignoring the fact that the resistance and jurisdictional conflict in this process of qualitative transformations in conceptions of representation, sovereignty, and the foundations of the Monarchy, came from the judicial and civil authorities in the provinces, we are interested in the emergence of new forms of politics, personified in the figure of the 'political priest'.
THE EDUCATION OF ENLIGHTENED LUSO-BRAZILIAN CLERGY AND ITS POLITICAL IMPLICATIONS
For the Luso-Brazilian case, the association between spiritual and temporal power resides in the concession that the popes made to the Portuguese and Spanish monarch of the 'padroado' (patronage): the right to administer ecclesiastic business aimed at "expanding the faith and the empire."
This connection between religious practice and politics took specific form whilst the Marquis de Pombal was prime minister of King José I (1750-1777). Historically associated with enlightened Portuguese reformism, the government of Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo inaugurated a policy known as regalism, aiming to place the Church under the wardship of the state, nationalizing it and making its members 'public servants.'
As in Portugal, the Jesuits exercised an ideological monopoly which had lasted centuries
In the Compêndio Histórico do Estado da Universidade, prepared by the Junta de Providência Literária (Board of Literary Providence), created on 23 December 1770 with the aim of examining the state of the University of Coimbra and to serve as the foundations for the writing of its New Statues, these reflections were systematized, unraveling a methodology in harmony with that advocated by the Enlightenment. Analyzing the means through which the Jesuits took possession the University, they complaining about the lack of practical guidance for students, suffocated by the use of speculative procedures and reasoning, inhibitors both of erudition requisite for the interpretation of old texts and experimentation, and thus of the empiricism of the Enlightenment, concluding with the impossibility of using any of the old Statutes, in force since 1598, "nothing ... for the purpose of reform."
In the recently reformed university regalist and Galican-Jansenist
In this process, while on the one hand the 'natural order' was not questioned because it was prescribed by God and revealed through the authority of the Church , on the other it became intelligible to the extent that it was interpreted in light of history, both the sacred and profane, reducing its character as an absolute truth. Though historicization, it was possible to find arguments for renewed politico-religious attitudes.
In both the metropole and the colony where the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1759 left the teaching system destructured, introducing the regalist classes ecclesiastics continued to be active in the progress of the Pombaline reforms.
The reforms carried out in the University of Coimbra marked the intellectual education of a large part of the Luso-Brazilian statesmen who, especially those who studied law and theology between 1780 and 1790,
Although not all the clerics who were involved in the phase of Brazilian national construction had obtained a university education, and even though only a small percentage had frequented the University of Coimbra target of the Pombaline teaching reforms , it is licit to extend the profile of the formal orientation received there to the body of priests in a general manner, a phenomenon attributed to the fact that other educational establishments in Brazil starting with Olinda Seminary, created in 1800
From this landmark in the education of Brazilian clergy there emerged the figure of the 'political priest,' who associated in a very peculiar manner pastoral and intellectual activities with his activities as a public man. An education which, although not exclusively confined to seminaries,
This profile was related to the various complaints and accusations by provincial authorities at the moment of the affirmation of constitutionalism in Brazil, when the supposedly 'disorderly' action of these clerics involved in local networks of solidarity and leaders of private retinues made them similar to local potentates, appearing with alternative political projects to those of the central power.
It should clarified here in relation to this apparently contradictory behavior of clerics, that the implementation of constitutional political structures reinforced their traditional 'civil-religious action.'
the best example of this phenomenon can be seen in the dependence that the state in the initial period of its formation had on priests to carry out elections. By doing this it encouraged the involvement of priests in the electoral process, naturalizing even more the association between religious practice and political practice, as well as providing the men of the Church with instruments to control and manipulate elections. (Souza, 2010, p.47)
Simultaneous to the availability of documentation, space and bureaucratic personnel in the organization of elections and the progress of electoral processes, the Brazilian clergy also revealed its electoral performance in a direct manner, occupying various spaces of public power, including the Brazilian parliament.
However, despite the breaches opened by constitutionalism, for the clergy to be able to continue not just exercising traditional lay functions, but ascending into new spheres of political representation, there hovered over its representatives as well as over the rest of the civic authorities of the various provinces a great legal confusion about the specific attributions of civic and ecclesiastic positions, aggravated by the lack of knowledge of the ones that existed.
Moreover, although the new lay attributes conferred on clerics configured a structuring dimension of the efforts to internalize the dominion of decisions and laws, captained by the central power, it involved men who through the trajectory of their education would not flee from the stigma most commonly applied to the laity: the development of ties with their respective locations, redounding in favoritisms in the disputes they arbitrated, as well as the infiltration of private questions in bureaucratic affairs.
This scenario minimized the possibilities of a rational administration, hindering the predictability of order, allowing a form of conduct for the laity and clerics which reinforced, in various dimensions, its autonomous nature inrelation to both religious precepts and the power of the imperial state, causing a type of 'competitive cooperation'
In the rest of the article we will try to map out some of the patterns of social insertion recurrent among clerics based in the areas furthest from the seat of provincial power in Minas, which tore a form of action reproduced at the expense of, and often through, the law itself.
POLITICAL PRIESTS AND THEIR SOLIDARITY NETWORKS: BETWEEN 'DESPOTISM' AND 'DEMAGOGUERY'
In the perquisition of the tangible aspects which permeated the mounting of a public space in nineteenth century Minas, the logic of 'not knowing subordination' was presented as a characteristic mark of the actions of clerics, magistrates and other authorities based in the regions furthest from the seats of provincial power, configuring a profile of "disorder that must exist in a body without a head."
In the circumstances analyzed by us, the actions of these authorities lay and religious was most notable in the Comarca (district) of Paracatu, situated in the northwest of Minas. Unlike the material conquests which favored landholders in the center and south of the province,
An autonomy which favors many types of iniquities and even reproduces itself in the body of ministers charged with applying the law, and affecting the recurrent disputes for spaces of power between magistrates, judges and local power.
In relation to ecclesiastic power, the situation was even more complicated. This was because the parish priests sent to those sertões put themselves from the very beginning under the protection of the power landholders, enlargingtheir retinues,
All of the Paracatu region became part of the diocese de Olinda
The example of Fr. Santiago was followed by others, characterizing the profile of a clergy formed of men who were "violent, political and quarrelsome" (ibidem, p.198-201), who, until the advent of the Empire, had exercised great influence on local political life. According to the diagnosis of the French naturalist and traveler Auguste de Saint-Hilaire, who passed through the region at the beginning of the nineteenth century, to a great extent the problem was due to the distance from the seat of the bishopric, implying that "no vigilance can be exercised over the clergy in this part of Brazil."
He commented that the "priests could follow with impunity the examples of the laity who surrounded them and their conduct could not have an impact on the latter." In the words of another contemporary traveler Emanuel Pohl the clergy was 'numerous,' and were 'exclusively from the city,' who possessed 'much land' and who were concerned with 'economic activities.'
In the vila (town) of Paracatu, the weight of political disputes sponsored by the local clergy was present from the moment of the formation of the provisional government, due to the opposition of Vicar Forâneo Joaquim de Mello Franco who had held the position of ouvidor of the Comarca since 1812 to new holder of this position, the recently invested Coronel Antonio Baptista da Costa Pinto, who had to overcome a series of political difficulties, due to the great influence of his predecessor who became, according to the Coronel, the main political influence in the area.
This was reported in the correspondence from the ouvidor of the Comarca then taking refuge in his ranch to the provisional government, in which he denounced that he found "the people restless and the Magistrates prevented from enacting Justice freely, and all caused by a rebellious man, who has raised himself as a Despot and who intends to be the judge of all," not recognizing any "Superior, deeming that everything is permitted to him."
with all efforts as soon as the Parochial Electors arrived, to make their spirits nervous and to move them to unite to create in this Vila a Provisional Government, in which project he would be the President, and who, with all his seductions and private invitations made to some Officers of the Militia, was causing a great revolution which fortunately was interrupted by the lack of union.
Nonetheless, the document continues, even after the provisional government took power and the notice of this had reached the vila of Paracatu,
that restless man still dared to invite the Electors, Lieutenant José Luiz da Costa Araújo Arios and the Ensigns José Carneiro, José Lopes, and Fr. Miguel de Mello Chaves and Captain João Pereira da Costa for the new Revolution and the Creation of a new Government independent of the legitimate one
While in this episode the nephew of the vicar from outside, Francisco de Assis, saw himself favored by the widespread influence of his uncle, a short while later, when he already held the position of judge, he was overlooked in the indication of his successor, due to the influence of another cleric from the Comarca: Rev. Manoel Carneiro de Mendonça, twin brother of the father-in-law of the then ouvidor of the Comarca, Antônio Limpo Paulino de Abreu.
According to Francisco de Assis, when the ouvidor found it necessary to absent himself to take up the position of deputy in the Legislative Assembly, he had to appoint his successor to the position, and ignored the right of the 'preference of the oldest,' appointing Rev. Manoel Carneiro de Mendonça to the detriment of Francisco de Assis, "due to the relations of affinity and intimacy, with which he was linked to the Reverend."
Dissatisfied with this, Antônio de Assis came to cause disorder in the Vila, defying the interim ouvidor Manoel Carneiro de Mendonça and stating that he did not recognize his jurisdiction, inflaming the people and the other members of the Câmara (municipal council) against him, as well as disrespecting other authorities, as registered in an official letter sent by the interim ouvidor to the president of the province.
However, the interim ouvidor stated that this "his strongest support did not breach the existing Laws, nor give him any preference" and "finally the simple complaint, and representation made to the Superiors, was not enough for him to carry out the business in question, to protect compliance with the law, suspend the march of Justice and leave a Comarca without an Ouvidor" (idem, fl. 3). Reporting other conflicts involving Francisco de Assis, he concluded that "these reasons, which reach any limited spirit, do not loom before the eyes of a man who only listens to the voice of his own love, and to the vanity of preceding."
Described in these terms, the movement that occurred in Paracatu suggests the weight of the disputes sponsored by local potentates in the political game of independence, a dimension still little explored by the historiography, and which will certainly result in more objective readings of the institutional and cultural relations between religion and politics in its regional extraction. On these occasions, the representative of spiritual power seeks not only to take advantage of the new spaces of political representation disputing important positions , as well as encouraging a simultaneous and skillful instrumentalization of modern and archaic political practices and values, denouncing the prevalence of a modus vivendi that was still Ancien Regime. After all, as Rev. Manoel Carneiro de Mendonça stated, the Constitution did not derogate 'the existing Laws.'
In the documentation researched there appear various other reports of conflicts of jurisdiction and public disorders captained by clerics. Thus, in an official letter addressed to the Presidency of the Province, dated 20 March 1824, the interim ouvidor of Paracatu, Miguel Alves de Sousa, defended himself for the accusation made against him by his successor, who had been co-optedby the 'fearful party' who always sought to 'contrast him' with the "scoundrels responsible for this conspiracy ... Fr. João Gaspar Esteves Rodrigues, his friend Joaquim Pimentel Barbosa ... and their retinues from the two families, Baptistas and Portelas, who are their followers," as well as their "Agents, in Salgado, Captain Serrão, and S. Romão the said former judge João Pereira, and Vicar Manoel Caetano de Moraes Cabalão", who "seduce parties against me."
Fr. João Gaspar [who] being the Prosecutor stayed with a mulatto called Adão from the goods collected from a Manoel da Costa Oeiras from Fazenda das Vazantes ... Joaquim Pimentel [who] being the Clerk of the Court, as well as having received from a Eliziário de something ... a female slave with the name Maria to comply with a tax collection... [all this, according to him] carried out by the aforementioned vicar of the Vara (District) and by his friends ... (idem, fl. 2v)
In other cases, these vicars, "with a cheating genius, and with little friendship for the Popular Authorities" simply ended up refusing to provide spiritual services to the local populations, preferring to private business, as mentioned in the Ofício (letter) from the Justice of the Peace of the District of São Gonçalo and Milho Verde, Jerônimo Júlio Baracho Brasileiro, who on 10 December 1831 notified the provincial government about the complaints of the inhabitants
from the district of S. Gonçalo do Rio das Pedras ... who found themselves in this Arraial (settlement) with the church closed, without them being able to fulfill the precepts of the Church because the curate of the chapel is an insolent and immoral man, an affect of the Religion who only seeks to encourage among his flock intrigue and with his arbitrary power to oppress and embarrass the Peoples, stopping to celebrate Mass in this chapel and denying the keys of the church to the other priest existing in his place so that no mass will be said to the people ... such behavior has never been seen.
In an annexed document there are other complaints against the "omission of the priest to minister sacraments and to celebrate mass," having let a slave of a local landholder died "without salvation," by denying him extreme unction, or also "having received alms to say Mass, the curate... did not do this," having gone "to a private property" (idem, fls. 8v-9).
The complex interweaving of the social networks woven by those charged with "implementing the Laws of God," as well as their involvement with private business, appears in various other official letters sent by the court and other authorities of the Comarca of Paracatu, extending to the most northern districts of the Comarca of Serro, equally far from the Bishoprics of Mariana and Rio de Janeiro and where for a long time the clergy had been involved in political questions.
Captain S. M., commander of 7th Company, was contacted by the parish priest, and interested in the 200$ rs promised him, he notified in person the soldiers of his company, Ângelo Custódio, José Carlos, Leandro Petracho and others to present themselves on 7 April ready for the uprising, which was set for the said day at eight in the morning, in the house of the parish priest, from where they were to leave. The aforementioned soldiers were unwilling and did not turn up, for which reason the aforementioned commander appeared alone at the time set.
The co-opting of military officers by clerics and local potentates in breach of public order and the insubordination of the people was not a novelty, being incorporated in the traditional social insertion of these segments, always involved in excesses committed during diligences and in other abuses, "a reflection of the increasing militarization of the captaincy during the eighteenth century."
being made fully aware that Furriel Januário Ferreira dos Santos, Commander of the Detachment stationed there to prevent theft on the National day, with the convenience of others working there in a mine whose shaft was under land already embargoed, and because it was his duty to report to the Superintendent the malpractice of this Employee, he did this and he was ordered by this Magistrate to go to the place and stop the work of the said Furriel, and his partners.
Having done this, "this Furriel who was a despot by nature went to the place where the" justice of the peace lived and "in uniform arrested him ... bringing him to the Barracks." However, "not satisfied with the this, the Furriel in a similar outrage went to the place embargoed by the order of the Superintendent and by the Supplicant executed in his position as Justice of the Peace, deemed this embargo to be of no effect, and took the possessions of the goods," "in which act he robbed the work of the company."
In a petition sent by the people of the district of São Miguel e Almas to the president of the province, it was also alleged that the Rev. Luis José Ferreira took part in this, and "digging in embargoed mountains a mine with 20 and something flights" conspired, together with the above mentioned Furriel, against the national interests. According to the supplication of the Justice of the Peace "the necessary measures had to be taken so that this Jesuit, and his hunchback colleague called Furriel Januário Ferreira Carvalho, could not feed on the treasure of others, especially that of the Nation."
In the eyes of these provincial authorities, no aspect in these conflicts was more alarming that the fact that the political alliances and conclaves enacted by local powers worked in a vertical sense, mobilizing what were designated as the 'little classes,' the 'crude people,' the 'plebian anarchy,'
From the perspective of the groups which wove cohesion around the moderate liberal project, the always latent threat of insurrection from these social groups was tied to the action of the supposed "enemies of the Sacred cause of Brazil,"
It was in these terms that during the First Kingdom, these 'disorderly priests' personified the 'risk of revolution' imputed by provincial authorities to the demagoguery "which was characteristic of people who proclaimed themselves defenders of the 'people' for their own benefit," using for this means contrary to the Constitutional System and which for this reason were associated with despotism/absolutism, real 'political slavery.'
In the context of the First Kingdom and especially after 7 April , the actions of these clerics were politicized, being identified as the party of the 'Restoration.' This is the cause of the concern registered in the official letter sent by the interim circuit court judge of Vila do Príncipe, João Nepomuceno de Almeida, about the need for the Enlightenment of peoples as a way to bar the proliferation of 'subversive principles.' Agreeing that "the first duty of rulers is to make the possible efforts to enlighten the popular masses since with enlightenment domestic and public virtues come, and as a consequence there is happiness, which is the aim of all association," he recommended that in addition to "establishing public schools, permitting and protecting Freedom of the Press, and the duty of avoiding cautiously anything that can contribute to the intellectual backwardness and the stultification of the people," the established government should "blunt the instruments of barbarity which the enemies of civilization and of Liberty have resorted to."
The accusation of the judge was repeated in another official letter sent by the interim ouvidor of Serro, José Ferreira Carneiro, alarmed with the comingof the priests in question to Vila do Príncipe to "preach anarchy," as it was a strategy of these "enemies of the current system," who "have looked for the link of religion to unite them to villainy."
In no other location in Minas, however, did the subversion of the 'small classes,' sponsored by clerics, assume the proportions of the movement that occurred in São João Del Rei in the middle of 1831, which culminated in the well known Carrancas slave revolt.
The progress of the resulting lawsuit highlighted the limits of the law in dealing with a social framework with such complexity. Thus, despite the seriousness of the events, the Circuit Court Judge for the Vila Francisco de Paula Monteiro de Barros judged in another official letter sent to the Presidency of the Province that there was not enough evidence in relation to the 'plans for insurrection' drafted in Arraial de Carrancas, sending for judgment only the case of the "intended murder against the life of the Rev. Joaquim Leonel de Paiva by this slave," a crime which according to the conclusion obtained from the interviewing of nine witnesses , "was insinuated by the slaves of Lieutenant Francisco Machado Azevedo, father of the Justice of the Peace; to whom the same would have been done after the death of Fr. Leonel, and that at the end of all this they would all have been freed."
Thus, "due to the omission in our Laws in relation to this case," the circuit court judge justified, and despite "wanting to proceed with all prudence and circumspection in relation to this; with the crime being very serious when it was real and existed," he stated that he had acted in "accordance with legal knowledge," ordering "the two prisoners to be released... without the slightest fear of having infringed any Law" (idem, fl. 3v).
FINAL CONSIDERATIONS
From the beginning of colonization the Church carried out 'civil-religious action,' which made it a link between the state apparatus and the subjects (believers), later citizens. At the moment of the implementation of constitutional political forms in Brazil, it accumulated new functions, acting in the building of new public spaces under the inspiration of the liberal ideal, as well as functioning, in a systematic and institutional form, as the center of electoral registers and elections themselves.
This simultaneously religious and lay insertion opened breaches for the Brazilian political clergy to mold the process of the construction of spheres of constitutional power at both a national and provincial level. In addition to the skillful manipulation of the law and to the attributes of distinction conferred by the positions, there were priests who resisted the ongoing regulation through more informal ways, as this article has sought to demonstrate.
Above all, in the areas most distant from the seats of temporal and ecclesiastic power, these clerics had their actions politicized, converting themselves into a powerful link between dimensions which at that moment were undergoing profound transformations and re-articulations: Brazilian society in formation and the state apparatus; regional impulses and imperial political centralization; the delimitation of spheres of jurisprudence between the political and religious power; the sedimentation of an national identity coexisting with references of an intended universal nature.
In this process, although it does not configure a uniform posture fruit of the diversified liberal formation and of strikingly regional interests these priests used to commanding and a typically Ancien Regime form of politics resisted the ongoing institutional adjustments, adding clientelist networks, codes of conducts and various references of cohesive power, capable of imposing limits on the process of transforming the administration into an active and rational instrument suitable of preserving order and maintaining the social equilibrium.
NOTES
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- 3 PEREIRA, Miguel Baptista. Modernidade e secularização Coimbra: Almedina, 1990. p.7.
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- 5 SILVA, Ana Rosa Cloclet da. Ilustração, história e ecletismo: considerações sobre a forma eclética de se aprender com a história no século XVIII. História da historiografia, Ouro Preto: Ufop, n.4, p.75-87, mar. 2010.
- 6 ISRAEL, Jonathan. Iluminismo radical: a filosofia e a construção da modernidade 1650-1750. São Paulo: Madras, 2009.
- 7 VOVELLE, Michel (Dir.) O homem do Iluminismo. Lisboa: Presença, 1997.
- 8 LENHARO, Alcir. A sacralização da política São Paulo: Papirus, 1986. p.18.
- 9 HAUPT, Heinz-Gerherd. Religião e nação na Europa no século XIX: algumas notas comparativas. Estudos Avançados, São Paulo, v.22, n.62, p.77-94, 2008. Disponível em: www.scielo.br
- 10 SOUZA, Françoise Jean de Oliveira. Do altar à tribuna: os Padres Políticos na formação do Estado nacional brasileiro (1823-1841). Tese (Doutorado em História) Uerj. Rio de Janeiro, 2010. p.42.
- 11 Como exemplos de trabalhos que vão nessa linha, ver: SOUZA, 2010; MICELI. Sergio. A elite eclesiástica brasileira. 1890-1930 São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2009; SERBIN, Kenneth. P. Padres, celibato e conflito social: uma história da Igreja católica no Brasil. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2008; WERNET, Augustin. A Igreja paulista no século XIX: a Reforma de D. Antônio Joaquim de Melo (1851-1861). São Paulo: Ática, 1987; ROMANO, Roberto. Igreja contra o Estado: crítica ao populismo católico. São Paulo: Kairós, 1979; RUBERT, Arlindo. A Igreja no Brasil: galicanismo imperial (1822-1889). Porto Alegre: Pallotti, 1993. v.4.
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1212 A despeito da comum herança do regalismo herdado do iluminismo luso-brasileiro, houve sacerdotes que se orientaram religiosamente por princípios liberais, como foi o caso de Diogo Feijó e alguns padres políticos muito próximos dele, como Custódio Dias, José Bento, Amaral Gurgel e Maria de Moura, dentre outros. Esses padres tinham uma ideia bastante liberal no tocante à liberdade da Igreja brasileira em face da Igreja universal. Partindo do pressuposto da distinção entre o dogma e a disciplina, procuravam acomodar a disciplina religiosa às circunstâncias do Brasil, no intento de conferir à Igreja do Império características próprias, mais nacionais e mais próximas ao modelo religioso que propugnavam. Para tanto, acreditavam na competência e na legitimidade da interferência do poder civil para examinar os assuntos constantes das bulas papais, bem como para determinar as reformas internas pelas quais a Igreja deveria passar. Sem fugir do campo de influência do pensamento regalista, mas impondo sérias restrições à interferência do Estado nos assuntos da Igreja, situava-se o grupo de padres liderados pelo arcebispo da Bahia, Romualdo Antônio de Seixas, auxiliado pelo bispo do Maranhão, Marcos Antônio de Sousa, conhecidos na historiografia como os 'católicos conservadores'. Ao contrário do 'clero liberal', defendiam um maior alinhamento com as diretrizes de Roma, propugnando a regeneração da Igreja segundo os padrões estabelecidos pelo Concílio de Trento. Assim, defendiam uma Igreja para o Brasil, com um caráter mais universal, europeizada, ao mesmo tempo em que propunham uma maior autonomia para a Igreja brasileira em face do poder temporal.
- 13 MOREL, Marco. As transformações dos espaços públicos: imprensa, atores políticos e sociabilidades na cidade imperial (1820-1840). São Paulo: Hucitec, 2005.
- 14 AZZI, Riolando. O clero no Brasil: uma trajetória de crises e reformas. Brasília: Rumos, 1992.
- 15 BRASIL, Gérson. O Regalismo brasileiro Rio de Janeiro: Cátedra, 1978.
- 16 BOURDIEU, Pierre. A economia das trocas simbólicas São Paulo: Perspectiva, 2007. p.37.
- 17 Citado em ARAÚJO, Emanuel. Tão vasto, tão ermo, tão grande: o sertão e o sertanejo nos tempos coloniais. In: DEL PRIORE, Mary (Org.) Revisão do Paraíso Rio de Janeiro: Campus, 2000.
- 18 Citado em ARAÚJO, 2000. p.78.
- 19 FILHO, João Dornas. O padroado e a igreja brasileira São Paulo: Cia. Ed. Nacional, 1938.
- 20 LASLETT, Peter. O mundo que nós perdemos Lisboa: Cosmos, 1975.
- 21 SILVA, Ana Rosa Cloclet da. Inventando a Nação: intelectuais ilustrados e estadistas luso-brasileiros na crise do Antigo Regime Português. São Paulo: Hucitec, 2006.
- 22 LOURENÇO, Eduardo. Portugal e os Jesuítas. Oceanos, Lisboa: Comissão Nacional para a Comemoração dos Descobrimentos Portugueses, n.12, 1992.
- 23 CARVALHO, Flávio Reis de. Um Iluminismo português? A reforma da Universidade de Coimbra (1772). São Paulo: Annablume, 2008. p.52.
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2424Compêndio Histórico do Estado da Universidade de Coimbra no Tempo da Invasão dos Denominados Jesuítas e dos Estragos Feitos nas Ciências e nos Professores e Diretores que a Regem pelas Maquinações, e Publicações dos Novos Estatutos por eles Fabricados Lisboa: Régia Officina Typ., 1771. p.IX-X.
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2525 Os padres oratorianos foram os responsáveis ela introdução dessas ideias em Coimbra. Fizeram-no através da Teologia de Lyon, também chamada teologia Lugdunense, manual que conferia aos príncipes e dirigentes cristãos o direito de convocar Concílios e alterar pontos disciplinares da Igreja. Por isso, foi condenado por Roma e colocado no Index em 1792, o que não impediu "que ele se tornasse o terceiro manual mais lido entre os clérigos brasileiros". Outro instrumento de divulgação das ideias galicano-jansenistas foi o Catecismo de Montpellier, do oratoriano François-Aimé Pouget. Essa obra, adotada em substituição aos catecismos jesuítas, conclamava o clero e os leigos letrados à leitura diária da Bíblia, aproximando-se do protestantismo. (AZZI, Riolando. A crise da Cristandade e o projeto liberal: história do pensamento católico no Brasil. São Paulo: Paulinas, 1991. v.II).
- 26 Vale ressaltar que os professores régios foram, em grande parte, membros do clero. A carência de pessoal qualificado obrigou o Estado a apelar para os religiosos, conduzindo, assim, a um aparente retorno à situação anterior à expulsão dos Jesuítas, em que o ensino encontrava-se intimamente associado à instituição eclesiástica. (ANDRADE, Antônio Alberto Banha de. A Reforma Pombalina dos Estudos Menores em Portugal e no Brasil. Revista de História, São Paulo: USP, v.LVI, ano XXVIII, n.112, out.-dez. 1977).
- 27 A principal evidência desse fato estava na ajuda buscada junto aos Oratorianos reconhecidos como os primeiros a se oporem publicamente aos 'confusos e escuros' métodos escolásticos muitos dos quais escolhidos para lentes na futura Universidade reformada (SILVA, 2006).
- 28 CARVALHO, José Murilo de. A construção da ordem: a elite política imperial. Brasília: Campus, 1981.
- 29 SILVA, Ana Rosa Cloclet da. A formação do homem público no Portugal setecentista: 1750-1777. Intellèctus, Rio de Janeiro: Uerj, v.2, 2003.
- 30 NEVES, Guilherme Pereira das. O Seminário de Olinda: educação, cultura e política nos tempos modernos. Dissertação (Mestrado) Instituto de Ciências Humanas e Filosofia, Universidade Federal Fluminense (UFF). Niterói (RJ), 1984.
- 31 Desses espaços, destacaram-se a maçonaria, o Instituto Histórico e Geográfico Brasileiro, a Sociedade Auxiliadora da Indústria Nacional e a Sociedade Defensora da Independência e Liberdade Nacional, além das múltiplas inserções na esfera do magistério e da imprensa periódica do período (SOUZA, 2010, p.90-109).
- 32 A propensão do clero brasileiro a se aproximar das ideias do século deu-se mesmo no âmbito dessa formação institucional, uma vez que elas se infiltravam nos próprios Seminários. BERNARDES, Denis Antônio de Mendonça. O patriotismo constitucional: Pernambuco, 1820-1822. São Paulo: Hucitec; Recife: Ed. UFPE, 2006.
- 33 Esse tema é recorrente na documentação dos Conselhos Gerais de Província, primeiro esboço do poder legislativo provincial, criado em 1823. Na pesquisa dessa documentação para o caso de Minas Gerais, foi possível sistematizar as problemáticas relacionadas à atuação de sacerdotes que instabilizaram o arranjo institucional em curso. Ver: SILVA, Ana Rosa Cloclet da. A aplicação da justiça em Minas Gerais: tensões e controvérsias em torno da lei, 1822-1831. In: OLIVEIRA, Cecília Helena de Salles; BITTENCOURT, Vera Lúcia Nagib; COSTA, Wilma Peres (Org.) Soberania e conflito: configurações do Estado Nacional no Brasil do século XIX. São Paulo: Hucitec, 2010. p.287-336.
- 34 Tal ação incluía desde a educação até registros civis de nascimentos, mortes, casamentos e testamentos, passando pelo atendimento das necessidades assistencialistas e também pela realização dos sacramentos e rituais religiosos. Ver: HAUCK, João Fagundes; FRAGOSO, Hugo et al. A História da Igreja no Brasil: ensaio de interpretação a partir do povo. Segunda Época século XIX. Petrópolis (RJ): Vozes, 1980. p.14-15.
- 35 VELLASCO, Ivan. As seduções da ordem: violência, criminalidade e administração da justiça: Minas Gerais século 19. Bauru (SP): Edusc; São Paulo: Anpocs, 2004. p.113.
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3636 "Ofício de D. Rodrigo José de Menezes a Martinho de Melo e Castro, de 31 de dezembro de 1781", citado em ANASTASIA, Carla Maria Junho. A geografia do crime Violência nas Minas Gerais Setecentistas. Belo Horizonte: Ed. UFMG, 2005. p.45.
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3737 Segundo Clotilde Paiva, com as regiões de Minas Novas, Sertão do Alto São Francisco, Triângulo, Extremo Noroeste e Sertão do Rio Doce, Paracatu conformava o grupo de regiões com menor nível de desenvolvimento. PAIVA, Clotilde Andrade. População e economia nas Minas Gerais do século XIX. Tese (Doutorado) – Depto. de História, FFLCH, USP. São Paulo, 1996. p.117.
- 38 MATA-MACHADO, Bernardo. História do Sertão Noroeste de Minas Gerais (1690-1930) Belo Horizonte: Imprensa Oficial, 1991. p.50; SOUZA, Marcos Spagnuolo de. A ocupação do Vale do Rio São Francisco: século XVII e XVIII. Dissertação (Mestrado) Universidade Federal de Goiás. Goiânia, 2002.
- 39 Sobre a natureza dessas disputas, ver: SILVA, 2010.
- 40 "Registro de Ofícios do Governo Provisório ao Ministério", de 28 ago. 1823. In: Arquivo Público Mineiro, Seção Provincial SP 07, fls. 191v e 192.
- 41 Segundo Carla Anastasia, era esse o caso do vigário de Matias Cardoso que atuava no sentido de estender suas jurisdições por imenso território, bem como insuflava a insubordinação dos fiéis ao governo de Minas , o qual apoiava-se no mais famoso régulo do sertão do São Francisco, Manoel Nunes Viana, que atormentava as autoridades régias na região desde a Guerra dos Emboabas (ANASTASIA, 2005, p.79-80).
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4242 Apenas em 1854 a Paróquia de Paracatu passara a fazer parte da jurisdição de Diamantina.
- 43 Segundo Oliveira Mello, tratava-se de um 'padre aventureiro, briguento e andejo', o qual fazia questão de residir nas povoações da margem esquerda do rio São Francisco, por pertencer ao Bispado de Pernambuco e distar deste cerca de 500 léguas de distância. Dentre as arbitrariedades por ele praticadas, estava o resistir às visitas dos sacerdotes encaminhados pelo bispado do Rio de Janeiro. MELLO, Oliveira. As minas reveladas: Paracatu no Tempo. 2.ed. Paracatu (MG): Prefeitura Municipal, 2002. p.179.
- 44 SAINT-HILAIRE, Auguste de. Viagem às nascentes do Rio São Francisco e pela província de Goiás Tomo I. São Paulo: Cia. Ed. Nacional, 1944. p.204-205.
- 45 POHL, Johann Emanuel. Viagem no interior do Brasil Belo Horizonte: Itatiaia; São Paulo: Edusp, 1976. p.102.
- 46 GONZAGA, Olympio. Memória histórica de Paracatu Uberaba (MG): s.n., 1910. p.26.
- 47 Movimento político em Paracatú (1822). RAPM, ano de 1898, v.III, p.288-290.
- 48 Arquivo Público Mineiro, Seção Presidência de Província, PP1/30, Cx 2, doc 5, 25/fev/1826.
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4949 Ofício de Manoel Carneiro de Mendonça – Ouvidor interino – ao Presidente da Província, de 5 ago. 1826. (Arquivo Público Mineiro, Seção Presidência de Província – PP 1/18, cx 328, doc 53).
- 50 Arquivo Público Mineiro, Seção Provincial, PP 1 / 18 cx 328, Doc. 1 (São Romão, 20 mar. 1824).
- 51 Arquivo Público Mineiro, Seção Provincial, PP 1 / 1, cx 198, Doc. 27 (Distrito de S. Gonçalo e Milho Verde, em 10 dez. 1831).
- 52 A esse respeito, vale lembrar o exemplo do padre inconfidente Rolim, residente no Tejuco, supostamente incumbido de espalhar as ideias revolucionárias no Serro e no próprio Distrito e cujos bens foram sequestrados pelo Estado. MACHADO FILHO, Aires da Mata. Arraial do Tijuco Cidade Diamantina São Paulo: Martins, s.d. p.93-94.
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5353 Arquivo Público Mineiro, Seção Provincial, PP 1 / 18, cx 152, Doc. 1 (São Romão, 12 abr. 1827).
- 54 SILVEIRA, Marco Antonio. O universo do indistinto: Estado e sociedade nas minas setecentistas (1735-1808). São Paulo: Hucitec, 1997. p.144-145.
- 55 Arquivo Público Mineiro, Seção Provincial, PP 1 / 18, cx 152, Doc. 3 (Brejo do Salgado, 12 nov. 1828).
- 56 Arquivo Público Mineiro, Seção Provincial, PP 1 / 18 cx 336, doc. 49.
- 57 Arquivo Público Mineiro, Seção Provincial, PP 1 / 18 cx 336, doc. 51. (Manoel Joaquim de Carvalho Juiz de Paz do Distrito de S. Miguel e Almas, 25 jun. 1831). O abaixo-assinado reúne 79 nomes.
- 58 Arquivo Público Mineiro, Seção Provincial, PP 1 / 18, cx 152, Doc. 7. No vocabulário de Bluteau, o verbete 'plebe' aparece como sinônimo de 'povo', 'gente popular', desprovida daqueles atributos que definiam a condição de nobre: as 'honras e estimação', conferidos por sangue ou por alvará do Príncipe. BLUTEAU, Raphael. Vocabulario Portuguez e Latino Lisboa, 1721. v.6, p.546.
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5959Carta Missiva de José Fernandes de Sousa para o presidente da Assembleia Nacional, dirigida à Comissão do Ultramar, apresentando os vários pontos que haja necessidade de serem discutidos para o bem do povo daquela Comarca, de 15 set. 1821. (Biblioteca Nacional do Rio de Janeiro, Seção de Manuscritos, Avulsos do Conselho Ultramarino – Minas Gerais, ms 544, cx 188, rolo 174, doc 24).
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6060 "Ofício do Presidente da Província à Câmara Municipal de Ouro Preto", de 4 jun. 1831. (Arquivo Público Mineiro, Câmara Municipal de Ouro Preto, 249, p.75).
- 61 Segundo Morel, a expressão 'liberalismo moderado', antes de ser usada no Brasil, fazia parte do vocabulário político da península ibérica, significando determinada concepção de organização do Estado inspirada nos Girondinos de 1791 (a revolução com o Rei) e no Parlamentarismo inglês de 1688. Assim, na sua vertente espanhola, buscava o 'equilíbrio entre a autoridade monárquica e o Parlamento'. No caso português, caracterizava-se pelo predomínio da soberania monárquica, coabitando com as representação das Câmaras. No caso brasileiro, ele expressa-se na sua vertente conservadora queriam "conservar a ordem social e trazer algumas transformações à ordem política" , o que impunha, na conjuntura do Primeiro Reinado, afastar os extremos dos absolutistas e dos exaltados. Daí o dilema em pretender-se "fundar uma nova ordem e evitar a ruptura de uma revolução nacional". MOREL, 2005, p.117-127.
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6262 "Congratulação da Câmara de Ouro Preto a V. M. I. pela visita realizada à Província de Minas Gerais, em 1831". (Arquivo Nacional, pac. 758).
- 63 Arquivo Público Mineiro, Seção Provincial, PM, PP 1 / 18 cx 315, Doc. 37 (Vila do Príncipe, 11 dez. 1831).
- 64 Arquivo Público Mineiro, Seção Provincial, PP 1 / 18 cx 336, doc. 55. (Vila do Príncipe, 11 dez. 1831).
- 65 ANDRADE, Marcos Ferreira de. Rebeldia e resistência: as revoltas escravas na Província de Minas Gerais. Dissertação (Mestrado) UFMG. Belo Horizonte, 1996.
- 66 Arquivo Público Mineiro, Seção Provincial, PP 1 / 18 cx 187, Doc. 8. (Vila de São João Del Rei, jul. 1831).
- 67 Arquivo Público Mineiro, Seção Provincial, PP 1 / 18 cx 314, Doc. 20. (S. João, 10 ago. 1831).
- 68 SILVA, Ana Rosa Cloclet da. De comunidades a Nação: o tempo-espaço da modernidade política mineira. In: ALMANACK BRAZILIENSE (online), São Paulo, v.2, n.2, 2005. p.43-63.
Acervo
Ilustração e catolicismo. Teodoro de Almeida.
Modernidade e secularização
A época pombalina
História da historiografia
Iluminismo radical
O homem do Iluminismo.
A sacralização da política
Estudos Avançados
A elite eclesiástica brasileira. 1890-1930
As transformações dos espaços públicos
O clero no Brasil
O Regalismo brasileiro
A economia das trocas simbólicas
Revisão do Paraíso
O padroado e a igreja brasileira
O mundo que nós perdemos
Inventando a Nação
Oceanos
Um Iluminismo português?
Compêndio Histórico do Estado da Universidade de Coimbra no Tempo da Invasão dos Denominados Jesuítas e dos Estragos Feitos nas Ciências e nos Professores e Diretores que a Regem pelas Maquinações, e Publicações dos Novos Estatutos por eles Fabricados
Index
Revista de História
A construção da ordem
Intellèctus
O patriotismo constitucional
Soberania e conflito
A História da Igreja no Brasil: ensaio de interpretação a partir do povo. Segunda Época século XIX.
A geografia do crime
História do Sertão Noroeste de Minas Gerais (1690-1930)
As minas reveladas
Viagem às nascentes do Rio São Francisco e pela província de Goiás
Viagem no interior do Brasil
Memória histórica de Paracatu
RAPM
Arraial do Tijuco Cidade Diamantina
O universo do indistinto
Vocabulario Portuguez e Latino
Carta Missiva de José Fernandes de Sousa para o presidente da Assembleia Nacional, dirigida à Comissão do Ultramar, apresentando os vários pontos que haja necessidade de serem discutidos para o bem do povo daquela Comarca
Rebeldia e resistência
online
Publication Dates
-
Publication in this collection
28 Aug 2012 -
Date of issue
2012
History
-
Received
28 Mar 2012 -
Accepted
15 June 2012