The archives of the National Information Service (PR) on the Catholic left in the interior of Paraná (1975-1985)

Abstract

This article deals with the catholic left in Paraná based on the document archive of the Serviço Nacional de Informações (SNI-PR), from the Curitiba agency. The main objective was to critically understand, using Otto Maduro's perspective, the political-ideological expressions described, attached, and judged in the reports of SNI-PR agents on the catholic left in the hinterland of Paraná, in the period of political opening of the dictatorship military. Through exploratory qualitative documentary research, comprising the various records of SNI-PR agents, we identified the actions of religious people in the interior of Paraná who were the target of surveillance and persecution by the military dictatorship's state apparatus during the period of political openness. The importance of studies on the catholic left under surveillance and silencing in inland regions is highlighted, showing that the reach of the dictatorship's repressive state apparatus was not limited to metropolitan regions or those with a higher population density. In addition, access to unpublished archives made it possible to address the issue of the religious field as a product of the dynamics of social conflicts in Brazilian society, with religious action limited and guided by these conflicts, but possessing relative autonomy over them.