Contemporary Transformations in the Brazilian Popular Catholic Festivals: the Case of the Holy Divine Spirit Festival (Festa do Divino)

The Azorean families, wherever they migrated, brought their cultural background in which there clearly stood out celebrations of the annual festival of the Divine Holy Spirit. The Festa do Divino, as it is called in Brazil, has turned, in places where they originally settled down, into one of the most famous religious festivals of the Brazilian Popular Catholicism. However, due to some contemporary sociocultural factors, mostly linked to the more and more frequent application of the laws of market economy to the sphere of religion and also to the visible liberalization of the religious festivals’ “rules of conduct,” it has been recently suffering from some important modifications. In this article, we present and analyze such changes, basing on the study of celebrations of this popular religious tradition in four different municipalities of four different states of Brazil.

Pesquisa Estética e Materialidade fílmica no documentário musical: Música e Imagem Tecendo Fevereiros

This paper intends to analyze the documentary film Fevereiros (Februaries), by Marcio Debellian, and its themes - such as the relationship singer Maria Bethania has with African-Brazilian and popular catholicism religiosities, with sacred and profane festivities, and with the Estação Primeira de Mangueira samba school - using as a starting point the critical debates about documentary cinema and Brazilian musical documentary film. Taking into account the issues involving filmic materiality, the present analysis intends to apprehend the invisible thread that the variety of sounds and music interweaves, in the musical documentary genre, with images and other resources available in the cinematic language.

“BEJAÇÃO” : patrimônio, fé e gratidão em uma festa afrocatólica na comunidade quilombola de Jurussaca, Tracuateua-PA.

A Comunidade Quilombola de Jurussaca no município de Tracuateua/Pará, abriga todos os anos na segunda quinzena de outubro, uma diversidade de pessoas que chegam para comemorar a Festa de Todos os Santos. Junto aos santos e a policromia de fitas envoltas em seus pés, os devotos materializam a fé e a gratidão aos santos na “bejação” de suas fitas, ditas sagradas. Pela ocasião da festa, dita afrocatólica, percebe-se uma pluralidade cultural e religiosa que vai além da materialidade, é a imaterialidade do patrimônio religioso na circularidade dos santos que “recebem” os filhos e amigos para agradecer as promessas alcançadas ou pedir proteção, entre outros apelos que se ouve em festas de catolicismo popular, espalhadas pela Amazônia. Abstract: The Quilombola Community of Jurussaca in the municipality of Tracuateua/Pará, is home every year in the second half of October, a diversity of people who come to celebrate the Feast of all Saints. Together with the Saints and the polychromy of ribbons snathed on their feet, devotes materialize Faith and gratitude to saints in the “beading” of their tapes, so called sacred. On the occasion on the feast, só called Afro-Catholic, a cultural and religious plurality is perceived that goes beyond materiality, is the immateriality of religious heritage in the circularity of saints who “receive” children and friends to thank the promises achieved or ask for protection, among other appeals that aree heard t popular Catholicism festivals, spread across the Amazônia.

Amerindian Perspectivism in the Mythicized Discourses of Popular Catholicism in the Amazon

This article aims to problematize, through the theoretical contributions of the post-colonial studies, the catholic church’s colonization project towards the Amapaense Amazon’s popular catholicism - such as the Myth of Cobra Grande - constituted as a project evolved around eurocentric and judeo-christian assumptions to the detriment of afro-amerindian cultural, identity and religious expressions, of catholic communities in the urban and rural areas of the brazilian Amazon. The amazonian population develops strategies of resistance and re-existence in order to maintain their religious traditions around festa dos santos (festival of saints), pilgrimages, festivities, rosaries, quermesses, and other activities as forms of origins establishment or origins return for the foundation of a narrative identity..

Expressões do catolicismo no Brasil 50 anos depois. Releitura do artigo “Para uma tipologia do catolicismo no Brasil”, de José Comblin

Este texto pretende apresentar novos elementos acerca do catolicismo atual no Brasil a partir da releitura dos elementos apresentados por José Comblin em seu artigo “Para uma tipologia do catolicismo no Brasil”, que completou 50 anos em 2018. Isso será feito a partir de três chaves principais: a) identificação da complexidade da realidade; b) compreensão dos elementos religiosos que se mantiveram, dos que se transformaram ou que desapareceram ao longo do tempo; e c) identificação da influência do catolicismo popular em tempos de modernidade.Abstract:The objective of this text is to introduce new elements about today’s Catholicism in Brazil based on a rereading of the elements presented by José Comblin in his now fifty years old article “For a typology of Catholicism in Brazil”. This will be done with the help of three main keys: a) the identification of the complexity of reality b) the comprehension of the religious elements that were maintained, of those that changed or have disappeared over time; and c) identification of the influence of popular Catholicism in modern times.Keywords: Comblin; Catholicism; Origins; Modern times; Religiosities.

A Man of Faith and Sorcery

Eight years after settling in Recife, Rufino is arrested and investigated as a suspect for involvement in a slave plot. He answers his interrogators “calmly and frankly,” according to a witness. He claimed to be 45 years old, although he was described as an old man. He told his questioners that he was a diviner and a Muslim preacher, his clientele included not only Muslims but also people of mixed race, and even some whites, for whom he predicted the future, cured a range of ailments, removed evil spells, and prepared amulets. Rufino adapted some aspects of Brazilian popular Catholicism to his magical-religious arsenal. One of his main differences to other non-Christian religious leaders was his use of the written word. Some of his Arabic manuscript prayers were sent to Rio de Janeiro for translation, but only notes for a marriage ceremony survived.