American Views of the Progressive Catholic Church in Brazil, 1964-1972: From Suspicion to Collaboration

Both the United States and the Brazilian Catholic Church played decisive roles during the military dictatorship that ruled Brazil between 1964 and 1985. Therefore, an understanding of the relationship between these influential political actors is imperative. This article explores American views of a...

Full description

Autores:
Romero, Sigifredo
Tipo de recurso:
Article of journal
Fecha de publicación:
2017
Institución:
Universidad Nacional de Colombia
Repositorio:
Universidad Nacional de Colombia
Idioma:
spa
OAI Identifier:
oai:repositorio.unal.edu.co:unal/61507
Acceso en línea:
https://repositorio.unal.edu.co/handle/unal/61507
http://bdigital.unal.edu.co/60318/
Palabra clave:
98 Historia general de América del Sur / History of ancient world; of specific continents, countries, localities; of extraterrestrial worlds
American diplomatic service
Brazilian Catholic Church
(Thesaurus) Church
dictatorship
diplomatic archives
State.
Iglesia católica brasileña
servicio diplomático estadounidense
archivos diplomáticos
dictadura
Estado
Iglesia
Rights
openAccess
License
Atribución-NoComercial 4.0 Internacional
Description
Summary:Both the United States and the Brazilian Catholic Church played decisive roles during the military dictatorship that ruled Brazil between 1964 and 1985. Therefore, an understanding of the relationship between these influential political actors is imperative. This article explores American views of and interests in the Brazilian Catholic Church through a critical examination, categorization, discourse analysis and periodization of cables produced by the U.S. diplomatic mission in Brazil from 1964 to 1972. It maintains that, in the ideological context of National Security doctrine, the U.S. regarded the progressive Catholic movement, and at some level the Church as a whole, as a threat. Nonetheless, starting in 1969, after an intensification of political repression and the growing institutional commitment of the Church to human rights defense, the American approach changed from suspicion to collaboration for development. This article sheds light on the changing political context during the Brazilian military regime.