Abstract:
The object of this present study is the participation of the Capuchin Missionaries of the Savoy Province in the Romanizing reform of the Apostolic Roman Catholic Church (ICAR) in the Region of Italian Colonization and in the Fields of the Top of the Mountains of Rio Grande do Sul during the years of 1896 to 1913. Fruit of the confluence of political and ecclesial factors in Europe and in Brazil, the Romanizing reform, which began in the middle of the 19th century and intensified after the Proclamation of the Republic, consisted of a profound reconfiguration of the ICAR which was seeking to distance itself from the Brazilian State, society and way of being Catholic and to adapt itself to the Roman pattern of Church. Besides investigating the participation of the friars in this transition, the research has as a goal to identify the ecclesial structures which were constructed in this process and their permanence in the life and action of the ICAR facilitating or making more difficult their adaptation to the new times. As primary sources textual documents produced by the French friars and by people who lived with them and by the Brazilian Capuchins of the first generation are used. The documents are read in the perspective of a Church History of the poor following the methodological tradition proposed by the Study Center of Church History in Latin America. In the whole work there is the concern of detecting the transformations which occurred within the relation of the church with the society as well as the internal reconfiguration of the ICAR itself. In the first chapter, besides the conceptual definition, the context of the coming of the Savoy Capuchins to Brazil is presented. The second and third chapters have as a focus the resistance of the church to the loss of religious and cultural hegemony resulting from the proclamation of the Republic and deal with the relations with the State, the other churches and religions and education. The fourth and fifth chapters analyze the internal reconfiguration of the ICAR whereby the lay protagonism and popular religiosity are annulled and the clerical leadership and Roman way of being Catholic are imposed where the sacramental practice and a spirituality that is disconnected from terrestrial realities predominate. Finally, the last two chapters deal with the main instruments of the Romanizing reform: the popular parishes and missions and pastoral visits. As the conclusion, it is affirmed that the Savoy Capuchins participated affectively and effectively in the process of Romanizing leaving their own mark, especially in the parishes and in the popular missions, which to this day remain in the ICAR of Rio Grande do Sul.
