Catholic Church and Conservative-Traditionalist Groups: the Struggle for the Monopoly of Brazilian Catholicism in Contemporary Times

Abstract

The Roman Catholic Church in Latin America was crossed by numerous currents of political thought in the mid-twentieth century and early twenty-first century. A pivotal moment for the reconfiguration of the Catholic structure took place in the 1960s, with the movement of distension with modern values carried out by the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965). From then onwards, we see the resurgence of movements more to the right, anti-modern in value, although they are present in modernity. What ideas and values are the symbolic vertebrae of these Catholic movements that see Catholic tradition as a stronghold under attack? The article intends to explore the hypothesis that these traditionalist movements and groups that emerged in the second half of the twentieth century, especially in conflict with the directives of Vatican II, have values and ideas loaded with religious pessimism and political reactionarism and reflect the complex relationships between Catholicism and modernity. Based on research in primary and secondary documental sources located in the historical-sociological epistemological horizon, it is intended to present an overview of these groups, some of them more institutionalized, others more diffuse, their distinct origins, and their convergence towards a religiously traditionalist perspective while it is politically reactionary.