Some Protestant Missionary Letters Relating to the Religious Question in Brazil

The above-quoted letter, along with a score of other letters from the Reverend A. L. Blackford, as well as from other Presbyterian missionaries in Brazil, throw a new light on the so-called Religious Question of the 1870's. The Religious Question or Masonic Question, as all students of Brazilian history well know, was the incident which began in December of 1872, when Bishop Dom Frei Vital M. Gonçalves de Oliveira, of the Diocese of Olinda, Pernambuco (who later on was joined by Bishop Dom Antonio de Macedo Costa, of the Diocese of Pará), ordered all Catholics who were Masons to be expelled from the Catholic fraternal organizations known as confrarias . The confrarias , which were dominated by Masonic elements, refused to expel the Masons from their midst. The Bishop, in return, interdicted all of the recalcitrant confrarias and their churches in the Diocese. The confrarias appealed to the Crown demanding that the Bishop be restrained by the Imperial Power of Patronage, as under the law of the land—as interpreted by the Crown—the Bishop was not entitled to take such a measure. The Papal Encyclicals, which the Bishop was using as his guide, had never been approved by the Crown and as such, were not legally enforceable in Brazil. The Imperial Patronage of the Church, which had been inherited from the Portuguese kings, was very jealously guarded by the Emperor

Ancient history · Crown (dentistry · Emperor · Political science · Portuguese · Power (physics · Protestantism · Theology · Classics · History · Law · Philosophy · Religion and Society in Latin America · Religious studies · Religious Studies

• The Historiography of Brazil 1808-1889

  Stanley J Stein•Hispanic American Historical Review•1960

  Add to list