1 Adriance, Madeleine, Opting for the Poor: Brazilian Catholicism in Transition (Kansas City, MO: Sheed&Ward, 1986).Google Scholar

2 Löwy, Michael, The War of Gods: Religion and Politics in Latin America (London; New York: Verso, 1996), pp. 40, 2.Google Scholar

3 Löwy, The War of Gods, p. 41

4 Berryman, Phillip, Liberation Theology: The Essential Facts About the Revolutionary Movement in Latin America and Beyond (New York: Pantheon, 1987), pp. 5, 6Google Scholar. For a succinct discussion of the history and status of liberation theology, see Oliveira Ribeiro, Claudio de, “Has Liberation Theology Died? Reflections on the Relationship between Community Life and the Globalization of the Economic System,” The Ecumenical Review 51:3 (July 1999), pp. 304–14.Google Scholar

5 Berryman, Liberation Theology, p. 5.

6 Gutierrez, Gustavo, Teologia da Libertação (Petrópolis: Vozes, 1975 [1971 in Spanish]).Google Scholar

7 Löwy, The War of Gods, p. 81.

8 de Souza, Luiz Alberto Gómez, “Roman Catholic Church and the Experience of Democracy in Latin America,” Paper presented at the conference on Contemporary Catholicism, Religious Pluralism, and Democracy in Latin America: Challenges, Responses, and Impact, Kellogg Institute for International Studies, University of Notre Dame, March 31-April 1, 2005, p. 7.Google Scholar

9 For a specific treatment of this issue, see French, Jan Hoffman, “Dancing for Land: Law-Making and Cultural Performance in Northeastern Brazil,” Political and Legal Anthropology Review (PoLAR) 25:1 (May 2002), pp. 19–36 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; French, Jan Hoffman, “The Rewards of Resistance: Legalizing Identity among Descendants of Indios and Fugitive Slaves in Northeastern Brazil” (Ph.D., Duke University, 2003).Google Scholar

10 In 1960, the diocese of Aracaju, Sergipe, was divided into three dioceses—Aracaju, Propria, and Estancia. In 2002, 97.85% of the population of the Estancia diocese was Catholic (5th in the nation); while Propria was 96.78% Catholic (12th). The percentage of Catholics in the Propria diocese has gone down less than 1% since 1966. Aracaju has fallen from 97% in 1976 to 76.8% in 2002 (http://www.catholichierarchy.org, accessed May 21, 2005), a trend that is repeated in major urban centers around the country, i.e. Rio (54%), Recife (62%), and São Paulo (68%) according to the 2000 census. See Jacob, Cesar Romero, Hees, Dora Rodrigues, Waniez, Philippe, and Brustlein, Violette, Atlas da Filiação Religiosa E Indicadores Sociais No Brasil (Rio de Janeiro; Sao Paulo: Editora PUC-Rio; Loyola; CNBB, 2003)Google Scholar. In fact, the São Francisco River valley that runs through the Propria diocese, then through Bahia and into Minas Gerais is known for its continuing loyalty to Catholicism, with percentages of Catholics remaining in the nineties (Jacob et al., Atlas, p. 15). It is significant that although Church growth is slower than the growth of the overall Brazilian population (over 170 million), 125.5 million people declared themselves to be Catholic in 2000, the largest number of Catholics in a single country. As of 2005, estimates have increased to over 151 million Brazilian Catholics (BBC News In Depth, April 1, 2005, http://newswww.bbc.net.Uk/2/low/in_depth/4243727.stm, accessed June 25, 2005).

11 Ottmann, Goetz Frank, Lost for Words? Brazilian Liberationism in the 1990s (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2002), p. 15.Google Scholar

12 Levine, Daniel, “Review Essay: On Premature Reports of the Death of Liberation Theology,” The Review of Politics 57:1 (Winter 1995), pp. 105–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar.; Ottmann, Lost for Words? p. 15.

13 Vásquez, Manuel (The Brazilian Popular Church and the Crisis of Modernity. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998, p. 110, n. 18)Google Scholar, points out “the term restoration has been endorsed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger” according to whom it means “the search for a new equilibrium after all the exaggerations of an indiscriminate opening to the world” quoting from The Ratzinger Report (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1985, pp. 37-38). In the mid-1980s, Pope John Paul II began replacing progressive bishops with conservative ones, warned those that remained, intervened in religious orders, and attempted to censor publications, among other things, to curtail liberationist Catholicism. See e.g. Serbin, Kenneth, “Religious Tolerance, Church-State Relations, and the Challenge of Pluralism.” In Religious Freedom and Evangelization in Latin America: The Challenge of Religious Pluralism, edited by Sigmund, Paul E. (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1999).Google Scholar

14 The Atlas da Filiação Religiosa e Indicadores Socials no Brasil (Rio de Janeiro; São Paulo: Editora PUC-Rio; Loyola; CNBB, 2003) explains that the territory of where Catholicism has remained strongest is in the largest part of the Northeast (excluding western Maranhão and southeastern Bahia), almost the entire state of Minas Gerais, and the central part of Santa Catarina and regions near the south of Paraná and the north of Rio Grande do Sul. “With respect to the Northeast, it includes low density areas, particularly the sertão, where there is a strong, old, and efficient social and political control by the traditional oligarchies. But to understand the force of the Catholic religion there, one has to consider the weight of the religiosity, of popular beliefs, of oral traditions, and the lesser influence of means of communication in the change of attitudes of its population” (Jabob et al., Atlas da Filiação Religioso, p. 127). An analysis of the 2000 census by Alberto Antoniazzi (“As Religiões No Brasil Segundo O Censo De 2000.” Revista de Estudos da Religião 2003, 2 (2003), pp. 75-80, p. 80) reveals that “the most Catholic states belong to those northeastern states with arid interiors (Piauf 91.4%, Ceará 84.9%, Paraíba 81.7%, Maranhão 83%, Alagoas 81.9%, Sergipe 81.7%, Rio Grande do Norte 81.7%).”

15 Adriance, Madeleine Cousineau, Promised Land: Base Christian Communities and the Struggle for the Amazon, Suny Series in Religion, Culture, and Society (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995), p. 167.Google Scholar

16 Vásquez, The Brazilian Popular Church and the Crisis of Modernity, p. 1.

17 Hewitt, W. E., Base Christian Communities and Social Change in Brazil (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1991)Google Scholar; Levy, Charmain, “Cebs in Crisis: Leadership Structures in the São Paulo Area,” in The Church at the Grassroots in Latin America: Perspectives on Thirty Years of Activism, eds. Burdick, John and Hewitt, W. E. (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2000), pp. 167–82Google Scholar; Mainwaring, Scott, “Grass-Roots Catholic Groups and Politics in Brazil,” in The Progressive Church in Latin America, eds. Mainwaring, Scott and Wilde, Alexander (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1989), pp. 151–92Google Scholar; Tombs, David, Latin American Liberation Theology, Religion in the Americas Series, V I (Boston: Brill Academic Publishers, 2002), pp. 165–177.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

18 Madeleine Adriance, for example, notes: “The action of CEBs in relation to peasant mobilization may thus have more impact on the future of Brazil than the action of CEBs in the cities”(Promised Land, p. 167). For a fine-grained picture of Catholic activism in an urban setting, see Doimo, Ana Maria, “Social Movements and the Catholic Church in Vitória, Brazil,” in The Progressive Church in Latin America, eds. Mainwaring, Scott and Wilde, Alexander (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1989), pp. 193–223.Google Scholar

19 Branford, Sue, and Rocha, Jan, Cutting the Wire: The Story of the Landless Movement in Brazil (London: Latin American Bureau, 2002), pp. 42–43 Google Scholar; Burdick, John, Legacies of Liberation: The Progressive Catholic Church in Brazil at the Start of a New Millennium (Aldershot; Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2004), pp. 101–135 Google Scholar; Houtzager, Peter P., “Collective Action and Political Authority: Rural Workers, Church, and State in Brazil,” Theory and Society 30 (2001), pp. 1–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

20 See e.g. Adriance, Promised Land; Adriance, Madeleine, “Agents of Change: The Roles of Priests, Sisters, and Lay Workers in the Grassroots Catholic Church in Brazil,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 30:3 (September 1991), pp. 292–305 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; de Souza, Luiz Alberto Gómez, “As Várias Faces da Igreja Católica,” Estudos Ayançados 18:52 (2004), pp. 77–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Luiz Alberto Gómez de Souza, “Roman Catholic Church and the Experience of Democracy in Latin America;” Ribeiro, “Has Liberation Theology Died?”

21 See e.g. Burdick, John, Looking for God in Brazil: The Progressive Catholic Church in Urban Brazil’s Religious Arena (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993)Google Scholar; Cleary, Edward L., and Stewart-Gambino, Hannah W., Conflict and Competition: The Latin American Church in a Changing Environment (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1992)Google Scholar; Daudelin, Jean, and Hewitt, W.E., “Churches and, Politics in Latin America: Catholicism at the Crossroads,” Third World Quarterly 16:2 (June 1995), pp. 221–36CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kennedy, Bryan L., “Book Review: Goetz Frank Ottmann, Lost for Words? Brazilian Liberationism in the 1990s. University of Pittsburgh Press, 2002,” Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 81:4 (October 2004), pp. 575–76Google Scholar; Nagle, Robin, Claiming the Virgin: The Broken Promise of Liberation Theology in Brazil (New York: Routledge, 1997).Google Scholar

22 Burdick, Legacies of Liberation Levine, “Review Essay: On Premature Reports of the Death of Liberation Theology;” Ottmann, Lost for Words?; Vazquez, The Brazilian Popular Church and the Crisis of Modernity

23 Burdick, Legacies of Liberation.

24 The first quote is from Hewitt, W.E., “Introduction: The Legacy of the Progressive Church in Latin America” In The Church at the Grassroots in Latin America: Perspectives on Thirty Years of Activism, edited by Burdick, John and Hewitt, W. E., pp. vii–xix (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2000), p. ixGoogle Scholar; and the second is from Burdick, John, “Afterword” In The Church at the Grassroots in Latin America: Perspectives on Thirty Years of Activism, edited by Burdick, John and Hewitt, W. E. (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2000), p. 205.Google Scholar

25 Burdick, “Afterword,” p. 205; Vázquez, The Brazilian Popular Church and the Crisis of Modernity, p. 102 (explicating the progressive reading of the crisis). Ottmann, Lost for Words? adds to this list complacency associated with improvements in living conditions and what he considers the historical inflexibility of liberationist discourse. Vázquez later (p. 221) enunciates his theory as to the “institutional, structural, and systemic obstacles that hinder the production, circulation, and reception of the liberationist messages on the ground.” Those obstacles include “the conservative Vatican offensive, the persistence of clientelism and political corruption, the economic crisis, the restructuring of the Brazilian work force, a legitimation crisis that undermines the development of Brazilian civil society, the crisis of the Latin American left and, more broadly, of modern emancipatory discourses, the rise of a populist right, and the advent of a new phase of capitalist accumulation” (Vázquez, p. 222).

26 See e.g. Chestnut, R.Andrew, Competitive Spirits: Latin America‘s New Religious Economy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003)Google Scholar; Chestnut, R. Andrew, Born Again in Brazil: The Pentecostal Boom and the Pathogens of Poverty (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1997)Google Scholar; Gill, Anthony James, Rendering Unto Caesar: The Catholic Church and the State in Latin America (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1998)Google Scholar; Ireland, Rowan, Kingdoms Come: Religion and Politics in Brazil, Pitt Latin American Series (Pittsburgh, Pa.: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1991)Google Scholar; Stoll, David, Is Latin America Turning Protestant?: The Politics of Evangelical Growth (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Garrard-Burnett, Virginia, and Stoll, David, Rethinking Protestantism in Latin America (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1993).Google Scholar

27 Employing official census figures, Jacob et al. (Atlas da Filiação Religiosa, p. 33) report that between 1980 and 1991 evangelicals grew 2.4% while those without religion grew 3.1% (Catholics lost 5.7%), and between 1991 and 2000 those without religion grew another 2.7% (while evangelicals grew 6.6% and Catholics lost 6.6%). See also Frances Hagopian, “Latin American Catholicism in an Age of Religious and Political Pluralism: A Framework for Analysis,” Paper presented at the conference on Contemporary Catholicism, Religious Pluralism, and Democracy in Latin America: Challenges, Responses, and Impact, Notre Dame, IN, March 31-April 1, 2005, as revised 2006.

28 Cahn, Peter S., “A Standoffish Priest and Sticky Catholics: Questioning the Religious Marketplace in Tzintzuntzan, Mexico,” Journal of Latin American Anthropology 10:1 (April 2005), pp. 1–26, 2.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

29 Burdick, “Afterword,” pp. 205, 206.

30 Burdick, Legacies of Liberation, p. 11.

31 Burdick, Legacies of Liberation, p. 10.

32 A visit to the MST website reveals that Burdick’s research is reinforced at the highest levels of leadership. In May 2005, a march was called by two liberationist Church figures (Dom Tomás Balduino and Luiz Bassegio) as part of the Cry of the Excluded (Grito dos Excluídos) campaign for work, justice, and life in support of land reform. In support of the march, the call includes a quote from Pope John Paul II (“Não é justo, humano e cristão permanecerem incultivadas as terras que escondem o pão para tanta gente’/It is not just, human, and Christian that land that hides food for so many people remains uncultivated) (http://www.mst.org.br/campanha/mobiliz.htm, accessed July 9, 2006).

33 Burdick, Legacies of Liberation p. 10.

34 See Gómez de Souza, Luiz Alberto, Do Vaticano II a Um Novo Concílio? O Olhar de Um Cristão Leigo Sobre a Igreja (São Paulo: Edições Loyola, 2004)Google Scholar; Fraser, Barbara and Jeffrey, Paul, “Latin America: Search for a Future, Part 1: Introduction: Power or Credibility?” National Catholic Reporter, May 14, 2004.Google Scholar

35 Hewitt, “Introduction,” p. ix.

36 Dom Hélder Câmara founded the Conference of Brazilian Bishops in 1952, known for its independence and progressive stances, and the Latin American Episcopal Council (CELAM) in 1955. Dom Hélder, as a bishop and then archbishop, until his death at the age of 90 in 1999, was “a champion of Brazil’s poor and a pioneer of Latin America’s liberation theology movement… which found justification for social change in the Gospel.” Lecumberri, Beatriz, “Brazil’s Hélder Câmara, Champion of Poor, Dies at 90” (Agence France Presse, 28 August 1999)Google Scholar, accessed July 9, 2006 at http://www.hart.fordhwp.com/archives/42/084.html.

37 Enoque Salvador de Melo, Interview by da Silva, Maria Neide Sobral. Poço Redondo, Sergipe: CENDOP (Centro de Documentação e Pesquisa do Baixo São Francisco), p. 997.Google Scholar

38 Enoque Salvador de Melo, Interview by Maria Neide Sobral da Silva.

39 de Melo, Enoque Salvador “Interview” in Santos, Osmário, Memórias De Políticos De Sergipe No Século XX (Aracaju: Gráfica J.Andrade, 2002), pp. 213–217 Google Scholar (first published in Jornal da Cidade, July 29,2001).

40 de Melo, Enoque Salvador, Interview by author, Aracaju, Sergipe, 1998.Google Scholar

41 This crackdown came shortly after the CELAM meeting in Medellín in 1968. CELAM is the acronym for Conferencia Episcopal Latinoamericana (Latin American Episcopal Conference), the regional Catholic bishops’ conference, founded by Dom Hélder Câmara in 1955. Its second general meeting was held in Medellín in 1968 and is known for its official endorsement and articulation of liberation theology doctrine. The Archdiocese of São Paulo in its report on torture in Brazil described AI-5 as “barefaced dictatorship.” The national congress, six state legislative assemblies, and dozens of city councils were disbanded. Sixty-nine members of Congress were removed from office ( Dassin, Joan, ed., Torture in Brazil: A Report by the Archdiocese of São Paulo (New York: Vintage Books, 1986), p. 52.Google Scholar

42 Mainwaring, Scott, The Catholic Church and Politics in Brazil, 1916-1985 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1986), p. 102.Google Scholar

43 Piletti, Nelson and Praxedes, Walter, Dom Hélder Câmara: Entre o Poder e a Profecia (São Paulo: Editora Ática, 1997), pp. 354–55.Google Scholar

44 Enoque Salvador de Melo “Interview” in Memórias De Políticos De Sergipe No Século XX.

45 Serbin, Kenneth P., Needs of the Heart: A Social and Cultural History of Brazil’s Clergy and Seminaries (Notre Dame, IN.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2006), pp. 258–264.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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47 Enoque Salvador de Melo, Interview by Maria Neide Sobral da Silva.

48 Serbin, Needs of the Heart, p. 258.

49 Enoque Salvador de Melo, Interview by Maria Neide Sobral da Silva. All translations in this article are the author’s.

50 Lampião and his band of cangaceiros (bandits) spent much time in the counties of Porto da Folha and Poço Redondo and were captured and beheaded at the grotto of Angicos in Poço Redondo in 1938. Frei Enoque and others often invoke this event and the presence of the bandits to explain the character of the area.

51 For a perspective emphasizing continuity in Church-State relations through an analysis of the secret meetings under the aegis of the Bipartite Commission, see Serbin, Kenneth P., Secret Dialogues: Church-State Relations, Torture, and Social Justice in Authoritarian Brazil (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2000).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

52 Montera, Paula, Entre o Mito e a História: O V Centenário do Descobrimento da América (Petrópolis: Vozes, 1996), p. 110.Google Scholar

53 Mainwaring, The Catholic Church and Politics in Brazil, p. 88.

54 Montero, Entro o Mito e a História, p. 111.

55 Enoque Salvador de Melo, interview by author.

56 Interestingly, the Britto family is widely known to have aided Lampião and his bandits back in the 1930s ( Chandler, Billy Jaynes, The Bandit King: Lampião of Brazil (College Station and London: Texas A&M University Press, 1978), p. 186.Google Scholar

57 Raimundo Bezerra Lima vs. Elizabeth Guimarnes Britto. Labor Case. Juizo de Direito da Comarca de Porto da Folha. Filed August 27, 1971. Decided September 27, 1971 (Judge Manoel Soares Pinto). For more about this lawsuit, see Jan Hoffman French, “The Rewards of Resistance,” pp. 105-108.

58 Dom Távora had founded the Young Catholic Workers movement in 1948 and devoted the rest of his life (until 1970) to promoting the cause of workers, the poor, and the dispossessed. Dom Távora’s left-leaning political activities were largely responsible for the decision to send him to the smallest state in the poorest region of the country, presumably hoping it would reduce his influence. However, in 1960 upon his arrival in Sergipe, Dom Távora immediately founded the MEB (Base Education Movement or Movimento Educação de Base) with federal financial support (from President Jânio Quadros) and served as its national leader (Piletti and Praxedes, Dom Hélder Câmara, p. 275; see also De Kadt, Emanuel Jehuda, Catholic Radicals in Brazil (London, New York: Oxford University Press, 1970).Google Scholar

59 Costa Dantas, José Ibarê, A Tutela Militar Em Sergipe, 1964/1984 (Rio de Janeiro: Tempo Brasileiro, 1997), p. 149.Google Scholar

60 This comes from Comunicado Mensal da CNBB, No. 231, December 1971, quoted in “Y-Juca-Pirama, O Ìndio: Aquele que Deve Morrer,” Documento de Urgência de Bispos e Missionários, 1973. One of the signatories of this document was Dom Tomás Balduíno, bishop of Goiás, who had also been present at the creation of CIMI and in 2003, as president of the CPT, was made a member of the Council of Economic and Social Development, established by President Luis Inácio Lula da Silva.

61 In March 1971 in Iquitos in the Peruvian Amazon, a meeting of bishops of five countries (Peru, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, and Bolivia) issued a document that Balduíno considers the origin of the profound change happening in the indigenist missionary Church of Latin America. Balduíno, Tomás, “Fracionalism Indígena E Poder Clerical.” In A Igreja e o Exercício do Poder, edited by Arrochellas, Maria Helena (Rio de Janeiro: Instituto de Estudos da Religião, 1992), p. 84.Google Scholar

62 Garfield, Seth, “The ‘Greatest Administrative Scandal’.” In The Brazil Reader: History, Culture Politics, edited by Levine, Robert M. and Crocitti, John J. (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1999), pp. 270–71Google Scholar. In 1967, Attorney General Jader Figueiredo was given the mandate to investigate corruption in the Indigenous Protection Service (SPI—Serviço de Proteção aos Índios). As a result of this report, the military government abolished SPI and created the National Indian Foundation (FUNAI—Fundação Nacional do Índio). To illustrate the split in the Church’s thinking at that time, the year before the bishops’ statement defending indigenous rights, in 1970, thirty-two prelates in Amazonia declared the Figueiredo denunciations “exaggerated,” thus supporting the Médici government. Suess, Paulo, A Causa Indígena na Caminhada e a Proposta do CIMI: 1972-1989 (Petrópolis: Vozes, 1989), p. 18.Google Scholar

63 Indigenous land rights took shape only after the military began a concerted expansion into the interior. As the government was creating administrative means for defining indigenous areas, non-indigenous settlers were invading their territory (Stephan Schwartzman, Ana Valéria Araújo, and Pankararú, Paulo. “Brazil: The Legal Battle over Indigenous Rights.” NACLA Report on the Americas 29:5 (March-April 1996), pp. 36–43)Google Scholar. It is generally accepted that the military was motivated by a perceived need to occupy the Amazon with Brazilians for fear that it would be overrun by foreigners ( Albó, Xavier, “And from Kataristas to Mnristas.” In Indigenous Peoples and Democracy in Latin America, edited by Van Cott, Donna Lee (New York: St. Martin’s Press and Inter-American Dialogue, 1994)Google Scholar. The best way to rationally order Amazon development, they felt, was to remove Indians from the “path of progress” and to place them in specified, legally demarcated territories (Schwartzman, “Brazil,” p. 37). Since property relations in that region were murky, the demarcation of indigenous land would also help create marketable title (Schwartzman, “Brazil,” p. 38).

64 A full history of CIMI has yet to be written. Just as CIMI remains active, so the Indian Statute of 1973 remains in force in 2006. Significantly, and perhaps in response to the CNBB’s creation of CIMI, Médici vetoed the sections of the law that would have given missionaries and anthropologists the right to give assistance to indigenous groups without prior approval by the government. See Addendum to “Y-Juca-Pirama, O Índio: Aquele que Deve Morrer,” Documento de Urgência de Bispos e Missionários, 1973 in Suess, Paulo, Em Defesa Dos Povos Indégenas: Documentação E Legislação (São Paulo: Edições Loyola, 1980)Google Scholar. For an analysis of the importance of the definitional section of the Indian Statute for northeastern recognitions, see French, Jan Hoffman, “Mestizaje and Law Making in Indigenous Identity Formation in Northeastern Brazil: ‘after the Conflict Came the History’,” American Anthropologist 106:4 (December 2004), pp. 663–674.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

65 Suess, Em Defesa dos Povos Indigèna, p. 53.

66 Mainwaring, The Catholic Church and Politics in Brazil (1986); Löwy, Michael, The War of Gods: Religion and Politics in Latin America (London; New York: Verso, 1996)Google Scholar. Evidence of this can be seen in the two most-quoted statements by the bishops of the Amazon and the Northeast, respectively, as being the most radical statements ever issued by a Catholic Church official body: O Grito das Igrejas (The Cry of the Churches) and Ouvi os Clamores do Meu Povo (I Heard the Outcry of My People) (Löwy, The War of Gods, p. 87; Martins, “A Igreja Face à Política Agrária do Estado”). These statements were issued in the wake of the 13th General Assembly of the CNBB held on the 25th anniversary of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights (Mainwaring, The Catholic Church and Politics in Brazil, 1986, p. 112). A month after the bishops’ statements were issued, Law No. 5,889 was enacted (regulated by Decree 73,626 of February 12, 1974) extending the Consolidation of Labor Laws to rural workers, giving them, by law, at least if not everywhere in practice, employment stability and social security ( Shirley, Robert W., “Law in Rural Brazil.” In Brazil: Anthropological Perspectives, Essays in Honor of Charles Wagley, edited by Margolis, Maxine L. and Carter, William E. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1979), p. 358)Google Scholar. In 1975, the CPT was founded and the following year, the Bahia/Sergipe CPT was born (“Entre vista com Dom José Brando de Castro, Transcript of Recording.” Tribuna de Aracaju, May 22, 1977).

67 Garfield, Seth, “Where the Earth Touches the Sky: The Xavante Indians’ Struggle for Land in Brazil, 1951-1979.” Hispanic American Historical Review 80:3 (August 2000), pp. 537–63, 546.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

68 Garfield, Seth, Indigenous Struggle at the Heart of Brazil: State Policy, Frontier Expansion, and the Xavante Indians, 1937-1988 (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2001), p. 542.Google Scholar

69 See e.g. Andion Arruti, José Mauríco, “From ‘Mixed Indians’ to ‘Indigenous Remainders’: Strategies of Ethnocide and Ethnogenesis in Northeastern Brazil” In The Challenge of Diversity: Indigenous Peoples and Reform of the State in Latin America, edited by Assies, Willem, der Haar, Gemma van and Hoekema, A. J. (Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Thela Thesis, 1998), pp. 97–121 Google Scholar; French, Jan Hoffman, The Rewards of Resistance”; João Pacheco de Oliveira Filho, ed., A Viagem da Volta: Etnicidade, Política e Reelaboração Cultural no Nordeste Indígena (Rio de Janeiro: Contra Capa Livraria, 1999)Google Scholar; Warren, Jonathan W., Racial Revolutions: Antiracism and Indian Resurgence in Brazil (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2001).Google Scholar

70 Mainwaring, The Catholic Church and Politics in Brazil, p. 87.

71 Souza Martins, José de, “A Igreja Face à Política Agrária do Estado.” In Igreja e Questão Agrária, edited by Paiva, Vanilda (São Paulo: Edições Loyola, 1985), p. 125.Google Scholar

72 Martins, “A Igreja Face à Política Agrária do Estado,” p. 125.

73 See e.g. Suess, Paulo, “Romper o Mal-Estar na Missão: Os Povos Indígenas e a Igreja Pós-Conciliar,” Perspectiva Teológica 34 (2002), pp. 11–36 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Faustino Teixeira, “Inculturação da Fé e Pluralismo Religioso” In RELAMI (Rede Ecumênica Latino-Americana de Missiologias, http://www.missiologia.org.br/artigos/15_incult.php., (2002) accessed December 17, 2006.

74 See French, “Mestizaje and Law Making,” p. 669.

75 Skidmore, Thomas E., The Politics of Military Rule in Brazil, 1964-85 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), pp. 172–73.Google Scholar

76 Gaspari, Elio, A Ditadura Derrotada (São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2003), p. 474.Google Scholar

77 “Propriá: Mayor Quer D.Brandão na LSN,” Jornal de Sergipe, December 5, 1978.

78 Hirschman, Albert O., Journeys toward Progress; Studies of Economic Policy-Making in Latin America (New York: Twentieth Century Fund, 1963).Google Scholar

79 Dom José was a member of the Redemptorist order, founded in 1732, which arrived in Brazil in 1893, and is devoted to “evangelizing especially the poor and most abandoned” (http://www.praiseofglory.com/redemptorist/whysite.htm, Accessed August 31, 2004). Moreover, the Redemptorists are known in Brazil for running the sacred places (santuários) to which pilgrims come each year often from great distances (i.e. Bom Jesus da Lapa, Bahia, where the order arrived in 1956). Steil, Carlos Alberto, O Sertão das Romarias: Um Esludo Antropológico sobre o Santuário de Bom Jesus da Lapa-Bahia (Petrópolis: Vozes, 1996), p. 77 Google Scholar. A goal of the Redemptorists is to reach the public that does not normally attend church, especially in rural areas, and thus are also known for their support of pilgrimages. Souza Nascimento, Silvana de, “A Festa Vai à Cidade: Uma Etnografia da Romaria do Divino Pai Eterno, Goiás” Religião e Sociedade 22:2 (2002).Google Scholar

80 Bernardi, Luciano, “Dom José Brandão Bispo de Propriá (Se),” O Mensageiro de Santo Antônio, April 4, 1984, pp. 10–12.Google Scholar

81 Berryman, Liberation Theology, p. 6.

82 Speed, Shannon and Reyes, Alvaro, ‘In Our Own Defense’: Rights and Resistance in Chiapas,” Political and Legal Anthropology Review 25:1 (May 2002), pp. 69–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

83 Löwy, The War of Gods, p. 40.

84 At the end of October 1978, on the anniversary of Frei Doroteu’s death, in defiance of a court injunction, the Propriá diocese sponsored a land pilgrimage to São Pedro Island, the first of a series of annual pilgrimages to land struggle sites. The 1978 pilgrimage took place just as the families were consolidating their origin story as Xocó. It attracted hundreds of Church and trade union activists from the region. As a Catholic religious event, while affirming the families’ new identity as an indigenous tribe, it also cemented their devotion to the Church.

85 Steil, O Sertão das Romarias, pp. 272-288.

86 Burdick, Legacies of Liberation, p. 124.

87 In 1975, a 39-page mimeographed document was produced as the result of a series of meetings with indigenous leaders and trade union federations: “A Single Outcry of Índios and Peasants: The Land for Those Who Work It” (Um Só Clamor de Índios e Camponeses: A Terra para Quem Trabalha).

88 The national CPT was established in 1975 by the CNBB. Poletto, Ivo and Canuto, Antônio, eds. Nas Pegadas do Povo da Terra (São Paulo: Loyola, 2002), p. 50 Google Scholar. Dom José Brandão and Frei Enoque attended the Regional Northeast III meeting of the CNBB at which the decision was made to found the Bahia/Sergipe CPT in 1976. In 1977, Dom José Brandão was chosen to represent the Church of the entire Northeast to testify about land fraud and violence in the countryside before an investigatory commission of the federal house of representatives (Câmara dos Deputados) ( Cruz, Marta Vieira, “Igreja Católica e Sindicato no Campo: Conservadorismo ou Transformação? (1975–1985).” Ph.D., Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo, 1992, pp. 117, 130)Google Scholar. Land struggles in Sergipe in the 1980s included both CPT and MST-initiated actions. They occurred throughout the state, but the ones in the Propriá diocese include: Betume, Borda da Mata, Morro de Chaves, Monte Santo, Ilha do Ouro, Barra da Onça, Pedras Grandes, São Clemente, and Santana dos Frades ( da Silva, Rosemiro Magno and Azevedo Lopes, Eliano Sérgio, Conflitos de Terra e Reforma Agrária em Sergipe (São Cristovão, Sergipe: Editora UFS, 1996), p. 25)Google Scholar. Sergipe rural trade unions supported by the diocese were also instrumental in supporting these struggles ( de Oliveira, Neilza Barreto and José, Centro Dom; Brandão de Castro, Sindicato de Trabalhador Rural: Nosso (Des)Conhecido (Aracaju: CDJBC, 1999).Google Scholar

89 Although Frei Enoque has never run on a PT ticket (and has generally been loyal to the party of the then state government), he has been portrayed in the national press as “a sympathizer of the PT” (O Estado de São Paulo, February 23, 2003).

90 Cava, Ralph Della, “The ‘People’s Church,’ the Vatican, and Abertura,” in Democratizing Brazil: Problems of Transition and Consolidation, edited by Stepan, Alfred C. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), p. 159.Google Scholar

91 Löwy, The War of Gods, p. 132. In the 1990s, the Vatican nominated a number of arch-reactionary Opus Dei priests in Latin America and expelled the Cardenal brothers from their religious order in Nicaragua, Father Aristide from his order in Haiti, and forbade Leonardo Boff in Brazil from teaching, which provoked him to leave the priesthood.

92 Houtzager, Peter P., “Social Movements Amidst Democratic Transitions: Lessons from the Brazilian Countryside.” Journal of Development Studies 36:5 (June 2000), pp. 59–88, 62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

93 Silva and Lopes, Conflitos de Terra, pp. 77, 80. The CPT and Frei Enoque worked in parallel on behalf of landless rural workers (Interview by author with João Daniel, MST Coordinator, Sergipe, June 1,2000).

94 Madeiros Pacheco, Jorge de, “A Farsa Do Ex-Bispo De Propriá E Do Vigário Frei Enoque.” Jornal de Sergipe, January 10 and 11, 1988, p. 10.Google Scholar

95 da Mota, Clarice Novaes, Jurema‘s Children in the Forest of Spirits: Healing and Ritual among Two Brazilian Indigenous Groups (London: Intermediate Technology Publications, 1997), p. 40 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The toré was first noted in the 1930s among the Fulni-ô (in southern Pernambuco), the only northeastern tribe to retain its own language. Based on these findings, the government “instituted the toré as the basic criterion for recognition… and thus transformed it into a norm for being an Indian in the region.” (Arruti, “From ‘Mixed Indians’ to ‘Indigenous Remainders,’” p. 106).

96 The intervention of that prosecutor, Evaldo Campos, in aid of the Xocó may be considered the first act by the federal prosecutor in Sergipe under the new constitutional formation of that office as independent of the three branches of government. Out from under the executive and judicial branches, it began to defend the rights of Indians and minorities, the environment, and the landless. Evaldo Campos later became a politician and served as city councilman in Aracaju in the 1990s.

97 Oliveira Filho, João Pacheco de, Atlas das Terras Indígenas do Nordeste, Projeto Estudo sobre Terras Indígenas no Brasil (Rio de Janeiro: Museu Nacional/UFRJ, 1993).Google Scholar

98 Magno da Silva, Conflitos De Terra E Reforma Agrária Em Sergipe, pp. 41-46. The 1990s saw a doubling of land conflicts with approximately 46 occupations, 32 of which were by MST; in 2001, there were 56 occupations, with 47 by MST (Eliano Sergio Azevedo Lopes, “História dos Movimentos Sociais no Campo em Sergipe (Uma Abordagem Preliminar).” Mimeo. Aracaju, 2002).

99 Cava, Della, “The ‘People’s Church,’ the Vatican, and Abertura,” pp. 159, 148.Google Scholar

100 Serbin, Secret Dialogues, p. 12.

101 Serbin, Secret Dialogues, p. 12.

102 Serbin, Secret Dialogues, p. 12.

103 Serbin, , Secret Dialogues, pp. 66, 167.Google Scholar

104 Serbin, Secret Dialogues, p. 12.

105 “A Defesa (December 1987).” Orgão Oficial da Diocese de Propriá 3a fase, no. No. 742 (1987), as cited in Cruz, Marta Vieira,. “Igreja Católica e Sindicato no Campo: Conservadurismo ou Transformação? (1975-1985).” Ph.D., Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo, 1992, p. 132.Google Scholar

106 Enoque Salvador de Melo, Interview by Maria Neide Sobral da Silva.

107 Padre Isaías Carlos Nascimento Filho, Interview by author (Propriá, Sergipe, August 4, 2000).

108 Frei Enoque, when parish priest of Porto da Folha, had tried to convince Mocambo to change its saint’s day festival. He wanted them to stop taking money from politicians and landowners and to restrict the times of the dances to before the mass and after the procession. When the people in Mocambo refused, Frei Enoque stopped going there to say mass for four years (1986-1990) ( Andion Arruti, José Maurício, “‘Étnias Federais’: O Processo de Identificação de ‘Remanescentes’ Indígenas e Quilombolas no Baixo São Francisco.” Ph.D., UFRJ, 2002, p. 280 Google Scholar).

109 Two years earlier, Mariza had been called upon by Frei Enoque and Padre Isaías to help the Xocó in their land bid, which she said she could not do for lack of legal experience with indigenous law. At that time, she said and Isaías confirmed, the scene in Mocambo was depressing with men sitting in front of their houses drinking, without prospects, dependent on government assistance during election times. Interview by author with Rios, Mariza. Colatina, Espirito Santo, 20 May 2000.

110 Mariza Rios, Interview by author (Colatina, Espírito Santo, May 20, 2000).

111 Transitory Article 68 provides: “Aos remanescentes das comunidades dos quilombos que estejam ocupando suas terras é reconhecida a propriedade definitiva, devendo o Estado emitir os títulos respectivos.” The reason it was placed in the transitory section at the end of the Constitution was because the Constituent Assembly assumed that there were not very many quilombos and that all would be identified and taken care of within just a few years—in 2005, over 2,200 quilombos have been identified and as will be seen below, the process has taken on a life of its own not to end any time soon.

112 Approximately one-third of Mocambo was opposed to pursuing quilombo status-a complicated dance of family feuds and local political intrigue. The split has been exacerbated by the influx of a foreman of the Brittos and his family when their small landholdings were expropriated for the Xocó indigenous reserve in 1991. See French, The Rewards of Resistance.

113 Seixas Dória spent a year on Fernando de Noronha island with Miguel Arrães, governor of Pernambuco, and in 1998 still counted Arrães as one of his best friends (João de Seixas Dória, Interview by author. Aracaju, Sergipe, May 26, 1998).

114 Title to the land was given by the Palmares Cultural Foundation to the association of Mocambo residents that had been formed by Mariza expressly for the purpose of holding the land. Granting of title did not end their problems, however. Due to the haziness of the legal status of quilombo land, there had been no provision for expropriating landowners whose land was being taken on the theory that the quilombolas had been there prior to any other landowner. Another difficulty was the conflict provoked between the Palmares Foundation and INCRA (the national land reform agency). This has led to presidential decrees (by both Cardoso and Lula) attempting to resolve the problems. The current decree shifts responsibility for land issues to INCRA and allows communities to be recognized without expert reports by anthropologists—self-identification by rural black communities is the only requirement for recognition (Decree 4887 of November 20, 2003).

115 Padre Isaías Carlos Nascimento Filho, interview by author.

116 Brazilian Health Department, http://portal.saude.gov.br/saude/, accessed July 11, 2006.

117 Frei Enoque completed his second term as mayor of Poço Redondo at the end of 2004. Some say that Frei Enoque’s ties to the state government were instrumental in allowing the MST to succeed in establishing settlements in Poço Redondo.

118 Padre Isaías Carlos Nascimento Filho, interview by author.

119 In May 2004, a meeting was held in Garanhuns, Pernambuco, of priests that are mayors and state deputies, including Enoque, Frei (“Padres desafiam bispos e participam da política,” Correlo Sete Colinas, May 8, 2004).Google Scholar

120 Some of these figures are Frei Betto, Bispo Tomás Balduíno (head of the CPT), and Dom Mauro Morelli (Roldão Arruda, “Planalto abre vagas para radicais da Igreja,” O Estado de São Paulo, February 23, 2003). This article, which quotes Frei Enoque, also discusses the influence of the CPT and CIMI in the Lula government.

121 Ottmann regrets the institutionalization of liberation theology doctrine in the urban peripheral communities of São Paulo where he did his fieldwork: “After it became clear that the Church’s option for the poor was indeed only preferential, the term was increasingly felt to represent an imposition by a hierarchy claiming a base it was no longer representing.” Ottmann, Lost for Words, p. 82. However, even with his pessimism regarding such institutionalization, Ottmann ends his book with an optimistic view of the São Paulo hip hop genre when he reports that “liberationism has become the underlying taken-for-granted cultural fabric in many a bairro in the periphery. Hip-hop militants revitalize a liberationist mode of action that has become part of the repertoire of secular popular dissent.” Ottmann, Lost for Words, p. 179.

122 Hagopian, Frances, “Latin American Catholicism in an Age of Religious and Political Pluralism: A Framework for Analysis,” Paper presented at the conference on Contemporary Catholicism, Religious Pluralism, and Democracy in Latin America: Challenges, Responses, and Impact, Helen Kellogg Institute for International Studies, University of Notre Dame (Notre Dame, IN, March 31-April 1, 2005), p. 7.Google Scholar

123 Cleary, Edward L., and Steigenga, Timothy J., “Resurgent Voices: Indians, Politics, and Religion in Latin America,” in Resurgent Voices in Latin America: Indigenous Peoples, Political Mobilization, and Religious Change, eds. Cleary, Edward L. and Steigenga, Timothy J. (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2004), pp. 11, 16.Google Scholar

124 Gómez de Souza, “As Várias Faces da Igreja Católica,” p. 89.

125 See the Technical Note from the Holy See when a representative from the Vatican participated in the International Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (Porto Alegre, 6-10 March 2006) at http://www.ncrlc.com/AgrarianReformHOLY_SEE.html, accessed July 12, 2006, and the statement from the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, “Towards a Better Distribution of Land: The Challenge of Agrarian Reform” (1997), which opens with the following:

126 See for example Adriance, Promised Land; Adriance, Madeleine, “Base Communities and Rural Mobilization in Northern Brazil,” in Religion & Democracy in Latin America, ed. Swatos, William H. (New Brunswick, N.J., U.S.A.: Transaction Publishers, 1995), pp. 59–74.Google Scholar

127 Fernandes, Rubem, “Santos e Agentes—das dificuldades e da possibilidade de urna comunicação entre eles,” Paper presented in the Colóquio Franco-Brasileiro em Ciências Sociais, Paris, April 27-30, 1989 Google Scholar, as quoted in Vázquez, The Brazilian Popular Church and the Crisis of Modernity, p. 271. This is a theme that resonates with Alberto Antoniazzi’s analysis of the 2000 census, in which he points out that many Brazilians “consciously practice more than one religion simultaneously.” Antoniazzi, Alberto, “As Religiões no Brasil segundo O Censo de 2000,” Revista de Estudos da Religião 3:2 (2003), p. 77.Google Scholar

128 Azevedo, Thaies de, O Catolicismo No Brasil: Um Campo Para a Pesquisa Social (Salvador: Edufba, 2002 [1955]), p. 36.Google Scholar

129 “A Igreja no Contexto Nacional e Internacional,” Grupo de Conjuntura No. 41, Instituto Universitário de Pesquisas do Rio de Janeiro, 1991.

130 Ottman, Lost for Words, p. 2.

131 de Melo, Enoque Salvador and de Oliveira, Roberto Eufrásio, “Uma Experiência Missionária no Nordeste do Brasil,” Revista Mundo e Missão, 42 (2000), p. 38.Google Scholar