Catholic press and ultramontane identity in 19th century Brazil: an analysis from the newspaper O Apóstolo

Abstract

This article analyzes the Brazilian experience of secularization, observing how, in the pages of the Catholic press published in the second half of the 19th century, the religious and the secular articulated in different ways and modeled each other. As a central argument, it maintains that the diffusion of printed forms, considered one of the main historical conditions associated with the advent of Western modernity, was also responsible, in this context, for the dissemination of references associated with Romanized Catholicism and a Church independent of imperial regalism. In their defense, clergy and laic with an ultramontane tendency used various actors and instruments, including the periodical press. Thus, based on the theoretical assumption that identities carry a relational and political dimension, in which social conflicts are translated into discursive disputes, the article select as a privileged source the journal O Apóstolo, a Catholic weekly published in Rio de Janeiro between 1866 and 1891 and one of the main spokespersons for ultramontans ideals and projects. Through the analysis of its discursive contents, it is expected to identify some of its main meanings of otherness - associated with the supposed “errors of modernity” - as well as a positive identification linked to the guidelines emanating from the Holy See.