“Returning to the Bosom of the Catholic Church”: abjurations and the anti-protestant discourse in the press of Alagoas and Pernambuco (1902–1908)

Abstract

This article analyzes certain aspects of the transformations in the Brazilian religious landscape following the Proclamation of the Republic in 1889, which marked the end of the Royal Patronage system and the emergence of a non-confessional state. Within this context of religious plurality, the Catholic Church adopted strategies to curb the expansion of Protestantism and reinforce its social dominance, notably leveraging the press as a means to disseminate anti-Protestant discourses. Among these strategies, abjurations – public ceremonies in which Protestants renounced their faith and returned to Catholicism – emerged as significant tools of religious propaganda. The study investigates the representations of these abjurations in the press of Pernambuco and Alagoas between 1902 and 1908, analyzing how these ceremonies were employed to reaffirm the legitimacy of the Catholic Church and discredit Protestantism. Situated within the field of Cultural History, the research is grounded in concepts such as Representation (Chartier, 1990), Drama and Liminality (Turner, 2008), and Symbolic Power (Bourdieu, 2007). The adopted methodology engages with qualitative documentary analysis and discourse analysis (Orlandi, 2005; Foucault, 1996), focusing on how Catholic and secular presses constructed and disseminated narratives of power and religious identity. The relevance of this study lies in understanding how discursive strategies contributed to strengthening Catholic hegemony, while also offering insights into religious disputes in Brazil and the dynamics of identity construction in the public sphere.