The scholarly literature on the Catholic church is richer in the Brazilian case than any other in Latin America. This is not surprising considering that Brazil, where 90 percent of the population of 135 million declare themselves Catholic, is the largest Catholic country in the world. Further, and probably more important, as Scott Mainwaring argues in his book, Brazil’s is the most progressive church in the world.
In this extensively updated and revised Ph.D. thesis, Mainwaring has made an important contribution to the study of the political role of the church in Latin America. By focusing on the emergence of the “popular,” or progressive, church, he analyzes how the institution adopted a preferential option for the poor, with an emphasis on the prophetic mission. The book is well documented, and has the most comprehensive bibliography on the topic that I have seen; indeed, “Reference Matter” constitutes 62 pages, almost 20 percent of the book. There are few indications of interview data, but Mainwaring presumably spoke with the main clerical and lay activists in the popular church.
Mainwaring defines four models of church: the neo-Christendom, modernizing, reformist, and popular. In chapters 2-4 he covers old ground in describing the neo-Christendom and, from 1955 to 1964, the reformist church. In chapter 5 he examines the emergence of the popular church and discusses, with reference to the National Conference of Brazilian Bishops, basic Christian communities and the church in the Amazon and Northeast. New material is introduced in the next five chapters dealing with the Catholic Youth Workers Movement, the popular church itself, the Diocese of Nova Iguaçú, and the church, popular classes, and democracy.
In explaining the emergence of the popular church, Mainwaring takes pains to elaborate an approach which combines the institutional character of the church with its involvement in society and politics. He is generally successful in this effort, although he tends to qualify his position extensively. He gives attention as well to the strategies and roles of individual actors in the church, primarily the bishops and pastoral agents, in discussing the high degree to which the popular church came to represent the whole institution.
In chapter 11, “The Decline of the Popular Church, 1982-1985,” Mainwaring concludes that the role of the popular church is likely to diminish due to the political transition and the pressure from neoconservative sectors in the Brazilian and international church. While this conclusion may he premature, I tend to agree with his overall argument. This is not to question the positive role of the church during the two decades of the military regime, however, which is documented in this well-researched and extremely well-written book.
