Igreja Católica e movimento operário no contexto da transição democrática: a trajetória da Pastoral Operária (1975-1990)

Abstract

This thesis aims to analyze the political and religious experiences of Pastoral Operária (PO) and workers during the transition period from the military dictatorship to the period of redemocratization, extending until the 1990’s. We started from 1975, because it was during this period that the Pastoral Operária began to articulate throughout the national territory through the first meetings of the National Commission for Pastoral Workers (CPO). These meetings were important for the first founding documents of the pastoral to emerge from 1978, defining the objectives of the work of Pastoral Operária in several Brazilian dioceses. In order to understand the role of the pastoral ecumenical movement, but that arises from the Catholic Church, we seek to investigate how the religious and political experience of the members of the Pastoral Operária took place with the workers and with the workers in general, but taking the region of ABC Paulista and the Volta Redonda city to map this intensity. It is important to point out to the reader that the choice of ABC and Volta Redonda was not a random choice. They are two important regions for thinking about the social, political and religious relations between the PO and the workers' movement, since they had a preponderance in the national political scene. At the end of the 1970’s and during the 1980’s, they became important nuclei of political and social experiences for the workers and Catholic movements. They were practices of struggles developed by these social actors, and that extended until the 1990’s, when a neoliberal policy began in Brazil, changing not only the social relationship between capital and labor. In addition, the Church has developed an evangelizing action for political demobilization throughout Latin America to combat liberation theology and the work that was carried out with grassroots ecclesial communities. We also have to consider that there was a change in the Brazilian episcopate from the 1990s that contributed to the emptying of Pastoral Operária in all Brazilian dioceses. This is because we have to take into account the appointment of conservative bishops by Pope John Paul II, and the departure of those bishops who were named Pope Paul VI, who gave an open ground for Pastoral Operária. These bishops were leaving archdioceses and dioceses from the 1990’s onwards, due to their advanced age and length of service in the Church. Both as a background for our investigation was with the documentation produced by the pastoral itself, and also through interviews with pastoral agents who worked at ABC, in Volta Redonda and at the national level