ANÁLISE COMPARATIVA ENTRE A IGREJA CATÓLICA ROMANA NO BRASIL E NA ITÁLIA À LUZ DO CONCEITO DE PLURALISMO RELIGIOSO DE PETER BERGER

Abstract

The conclusion work of a professional master's degree compared the Roman Catholic Church in Brazil and Italy in the light of the concept of religious pluralism proposed by the sociologist Peter Berger, a new paradigm of studies for understanding the composition of the religious field nowadays, given the empirical inefficiency of the ancient paradigm of secularization. In the panorama where the research is carried out, there is on one hand Italy, a developed European country, headquarter of the Vatican, the birthplace of Catholicism and a worldwide reference, based on the foundations of Roman Catholicism, the official State religion until 1984 and in which religious field has always predominated the Catholicism; on the other hand, Brazil a Latin American developing country, whose reality differs from the European context. This country, also established on traditional Catholic foundations, was enriched in the religious field by syncretism. Under the Berger's eye of the religious pluralism, the Catholic experiences in these two worlds will be compared. The aim is to demonstrate the change in attitude in the Church after the Vatican Council II, in which given the consequences imposed by modernity, it has abandoned the traditional strand and created an opening, through the work of several pastoral groups, to dialogue with the modern society. The methodology is interdisciplinary, as the study of the religious field and the established relations with the society do not only cover religion, but they extend over a range of fields of knowledge: Sociology, Philosophy, History and Social Sciences, among others. With this scope the research will be presented in three chapters. In the first the main secularist theories will be presented, as well as some of their main exponents. After it is intended to situate historically the reality of the Roman Catholic Church context in Brazil and Italy in a certain period, previously tracing a historical path of the institution of the Christian faith and its power relations, showing the influences and changes introduced by the secularization in this process of modernizing society. In the second chapter the modernization process of the Roman Catholic Church will be exposed before modern impositions. The attention will be focused mainly on the Vatican Council II and in the principle of religious freedom, demonstrating a radical change from the traditional stance. The Modernity now does not antagonize the Church, which seeks to establish paths of dialogue with this new global society. In the third and last chapter, it will be analyzed the new paradigm of religious pluralism proposed by Peter Berger, highlighting its way of articulating in the Catholic reality after the Vatican Council II, both in Brazil and in Italy, in a constant religious field transformed and adapted in modern society. The religious pluralism proposed by Berger, very stimulating, constitutes a very influential and rich reading key for many researchers and scientists of Religion, by inserting the modern religious field in the market perspective, keeping the horizon opened to new possibilities of researches and studies of the relations between religions and modern societies.