Revista Brasileira de História das Religiões

Presentación - Las experiencias del catolicismo en las Américas en el largo siglo XIX y la modernidad en la Iglesia católica

Ítalo Santirocchi, Ignacio Martínez, José Aurelio Sandí Morales — Sat, 27 Dec 2025 00:00:00 -0300

La Convocatoria temática que aquí se presenta es resultado de un proceso sostenido de diálogo académico entre historiadores e historiadoras del continente americano dedicados al estudio de la Iglesia católica y del catolicismo en sus múltiples dimensiones.

Pius IX, the Americanization of a Pope: from the State relationship to popular devotion

Elisa Cardenas — Sat, 27 Dec 2025 00:00:00 -0300

This article proposes an approach to the way in which, throughout the nineteenth century, in the framework of the construction of direct relations between the nations detached from Spanish and Portuguese domination and the Catholic Church, the figure of the Roman pontiff, as head of the Catholic Church, was being "Americanized". This happened not only because of the interest and action of the governments and faithful of the region, interested in a rapprochement with the leader of the Roman Catholic Church, but also because of the direct participation of the pontiff in the construction of these relations both politically and religiously, at a time when both were considered inseparable from his perspective, vis a vis a world in which the differentiation between them was actively constructed.

From Rome to the Central American jungles (Caribbean and Pacific): a first look from the Holy See at the apostolic vicariates of the Isthmus (1908-1940)

José Aurelio Sandí Morales — Sat, 27 Dec 2025 00:00:00 -0300

In this article, the author provides a first look at the missionary work carried out in the apostolic vicariates created in the Central American Isthmus between 1908 and 1940. This is done through the analysis of sources found in the Vatican archives of Propaganda Fide and the Vatican Apostolic Archives. These sources reveal the political, religious, and social relations between the countries' civil authorities, the Roman Curia, and the clergy in the mission areas, all in relation to the people who lived in those areas. This analysis provided an understanding of the realities faced by missionaries in lands of excessive heat and rainfall, extreme poverty, and a wealth of cultural mixing. All of this, and the knowledge that more sources exist, allows for the possibility of conducting further studies on what developed in the region covered by the vicariates, using existing Vatican sources as well as those available in each country of the Isthmus.

Padroado and Sovereignty in Latin American Concordats: Costa Rica, Argentina, and Brazil under the Pontificate of Pius IX

Ítalo Domingos Santirocchi — Sat, 27 Dec 2025 00:00:00 -0300

The article investigates the concordat negotiations between the Holy See and three Latin American countries during the pontificate of Pius IX, focusing on the tensions between padroado (royal patronage) and national sovereignty. Using the Bolivian model (1851) and its developments as a reference, it demonstrates that the Costa Rican Concordat (1852) was successful because it recognized padroado as a privilege granted by the pope, accompanied by free communication with Rome, the restoration of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, protection of Church property, and freedom for religious orders. In contrast, negotiations with Argentina and Brazil failed, as both governments upheld padroado as a right inherent to national sovereignty (including beneplácito/exequatur and state control over the Church). In the Argentine case, a modus vivendi was established to enable episcopal appointments without renouncing the principle; in the Brazilian case, a “war of narratives” prevailed between the 1824 Constitution and the papal bull Praeclara Portugalliae (1827). The analysis, grounded in the Connected History approach, reveals how these negotiations were embedded in a transnational network of disputes between civil and ecclesiastical powers, highlighting the selective success of Pius IX’s concordat policy where governments agreed to recentralize papal authority within the newly independent national churches.

Vatican diplomacy and the Church-State conflict in Uruguay (1916-1940)

Carolina Greising — Sat, 27 Dec 2025 00:00:00 -0300

This paper aims to account for the active – and virtually unknown – participation of a third international actor in State and Catholic Church relations in Uruguay: Vatican diplomacy. Following the suspension of ties between the Holy See and Uruguay in 1911, the Vatican pursued various strategies to maintain its presence there. This foreign policy constituted an excellent window to air the intersections between the state, religion, and politics, issues rarely addressed in Uruguayan historiography. Furthermore, these intersections acquire relevance due to the historical context in which they occurred, particularly the rise of nationalism, the right wing, anti-communism, and the papacy of Pius XII.

Between modernity and secularization: the Catholic Church in Puerto Rico, 1869-1917

Gerardo Alberto Hernández Aponte — Sat, 27 Dec 2025 00:00:00 -0300

Puerto Rico was under the influence of the Spanish Royal Patronage from the beginning of its colonization in the early 16th century until 1898, when it was invaded and became a colony of the United States of America. The modern and liberal ideas that gained momentum in Europe and Latin America had their effects felt on the island during the 19th century, shattering the Catholic monopoly. Freemasons, Kardecian spiritualists, and Protestants played a transcendental role in the secularization process. The new US colonial order implemented beginning in 1898 de-monopolized the Church, which significantly contributed to religious modernization and the secularization of society. This article explores how the Church in Puerto Rico faced the new socio-religious and political changes introduced during the end of Spanish rule on the island, as well as in the early years of US colonial rule. Faced with the range of problems, the Church resisted and attacked the changes or adapted to them when it had no other alternative. To prepare this article, I analyzed most, if not all, secondary sources using the theoretical approaches of sociologist Peter L. Berger among other authors.

Ultramontanism and French-Canadian nationalism: an analysis based on the newspaper Le Courrier du Canada (1857–1858).

Ana Rosa Cloclet da Silva — Sat, 27 Dec 2025 00:00:00 -0300

This article seeks to contribute to the historiographical approaches that have been reshaping the understanding of Ultramontanism for the American context. To this end, it examines the case of French Canada, a region that has been largely overlooked in Brazilian academic literature, particularly in studies of nineteenth-century Catholicism. Embedded in a global context in which the Holy See formulated and disseminated its uncompromising response to the advances of secularization, Ultramontanism flourished in this part of the British domains of North America during the second half of the nineteenth century, guiding the actions of clergy and laity through the Catholic press, which served as a platform for the discursive battle against the Church's supposed enemies. In the province of Quebec, this struggle manifested original combinations of European ultramontane references and Francophone Catholic nationalism, as analysed through the newspaper Le Courrier du Canada. Published by the Archdiocese of Quebec between 1857 and 1901, this periodical displayed its most combative and ultramontain tendencies under the editorship of Joseph-Charles Taché between 1857 and 1858 — a period that is particularly relevant for this analysis. To highlight the links between ultramontainism and the conditions for the construction of a French-Canadian nation in this part of the American continent, the methodological perspective is based on 'scale games' of observation, which are useful for continuing our reflection on the simultaneously global and specific condition of ultramontane Catholicism.

The Social Reign of Jesus Christ and the Argentine Catholic Revival

Roberto Di Stefano — Sat, 27 Dec 2025 00:00:00 -0300

During the pontificates of Pius XI and Pius XII, Argentine Catholicism experienced its golden age: the number of dioceses and parishes multiplied, priestly ordinations increased, masse-scale lay organizations were created – notably Catholic Action, in 1931 – and the publication of books and magazines proliferated. This article aims to draw attention to aspects of this “Catholic revival” that, curiously, have not yet attracted the attention of historians: the theological, biblical pastoral, devotional, and liturgical foundations of this historical phenomenon that was, ultimately, and above all, a religious phenomenon.

The Republican Education of the Secular Clergy: the Conciliar Seminary at the Instituto Nacional (Chile, 1813–1834)

Matías Maldonado Araya — Sat, 27 Dec 2025 00:00:00 -0300

For two decades, the seminary of the Diocese of Santiago de Chile was annexed to the Instituto Nacional, the educational institution designed by the independence and republican political and intellectual leaders. While the annexation process has been widely examined in the literature, the two decades during which the seminary remained annexed have received little attention from specialists. The purpose of this article is to analyze the reasons behind the annexation, the political and ecclesiastical tensions that arose from this unprecedented situation, and, finally, the arguments put forward to defend the separation in 1834. The main primary sources used are drawn from the Archivo Nacional Histórico, the Archivo del Arzobispado de Santiago, and the Sesiones de los Cuerpos Legislativos de la República de Chile.

Disputes over religious freedom in nineteenth-century Brazil: notes on ultramontane uses of the concept

Gustavo Angelelli — Sat, 27 Dec 2025 00:00:00 -0300

This paper analyzes the uses of the typically liberal concept of religious freedom by historical actors associated with ultramontanism, with particular emphasis on Cândido Mendes de Almeida. The objective is to identify how concepts are appropriated and transformed by rival styles of thought, in this case, how ultramontanism developed its own notion of religious freedom, which came to mean the freedoms of the Catholic Church. After reflecting on the points of convergence and divergence between liberalism and the notion of religious freedom, the paper examines the actions of the ultramontanes in their struggle against the liberal state, and then analyzes how this sector of Catholicism appropriated and employed the concept of religious freedom. Among the historical sources mobilized are texts by ultramontane authors, such as books and parliamentary speeches, as well as periodicals. The conclusion is that, beyond their regular refutation of the liberal notion of religious freedom, the ultramontanes also made use of this concept, albeit in a modified form, to support their own project of catholic modernity.

"Tirez-vous d'affaire comme vous pourrez": the Congregation of the Mission and ‘Romanization’ in Paraguay at the end of the 19th century

Ignacio Telesca — Sat, 27 Dec 2025 00:00:00 -0300

After a presentation of the situation of the Church in Paraguay from independence to the war against the Triple Alliance, the article focuses on the role played by the Holy See, and particularly, by the Congregation of the Mission, in the reorganization of the Church after the catastrophe of the war. Barely thirty priests survived, and the bishop had been shot in the conflict. After a turbulent initial few years, the Holy See sent an apostolic delegate to put the ecclesiastical situation in order. He, in addition to consecrating a Paraguayan bishop, persuaded the government to finance a seminary and allow the Congregation of the Mission to take over. Analyzing the seminary's actions during its first twenty years, the article questions the conceptual importance placed on the idea of "Romanization" and, based on Paraguayan reality, raises its limitations in addressing the situation.

The bishop Mariano José de Escalada and the Making of Argentinian Church: between intransigence and negotiation

Ignacio Martínez — Sat, 27 Dec 2025 00:00:00 -0300

This article analyzes the strategic decisions of Mariano José de Escalada, Bishop of Buenos Aires (1854-1870), to strengthen episcopal authority during the process of constituting the Argentine State. The central research problem is to determine whether his actions stemmed from a doctrinal adherence to Ultramontanism or from a pragmatic strategy of power consolidation. Through the methodology of case study and the analysis of key conjunctures,
it is demonstrated that Escalada maintained an intransigent public discourse but, in practice, sought agreements with civil authorities. It is concluded that his actions were aimed at consolidating his power in the face of the challenges of the new liberal order, rather than at defending a pure model of an Ultramontane Church. Thus, he managed to consolidate the ecclesiastical structure through a difficult balance between defending the Church’s autonomy and collaborating with the State-in-construction. This study is relevant because it provides an in-depth analysis of the main diocese of Argentina, and its conclusions can be used for comparative studies at the Ibero-American level.