“POR QUE A HYDRA DO JESUITISMO PERMANECE DE PÉ”: Uma análise das representações antijesuíticas em meio aos embates da questão religiosa (1872-1875) no Maranhão

Abstract

The relationship between the Catholic Church and the Brazilian State during the 19th century is extremely troubled. The apex of the disagreements occurred with the Religious Question (1872-1875), the result of a broad process, on the one hand, of structuring the Brazilian Imperial State that sought more and more autonomy, and on the other hand the Church and Catholicism, also seeking the maintenance of its project of religious hegemony with ancient roots. In this environment, the liberal political positions of the 19th century, despite the amplitude of the movement, intended religion in a private sphere, and secularism, referring to the formation of a State unrelated to any religious group, pressured the Catholic Church, which responded with the ultramontanism, a movement adopted in part by the Church and by Bishops in order to solidify a direct connection with Rome, aiming to face the imperial regalism that, unilaterally, increasingly regulated the actions of the Church. The newspapers of the period, major vehicles of political debate at the end of the 19th century, set the stage for all these debates, articulating various political concepts in order to largely discredit the ultramontane positions, also said to be conservative, and place themselves in favor of liberalism. To ultramontanism, they associated Jesuitism as a synonym of retrograde, conservative, dangerous and conspiratorial political conceptions, for which a firm debate was needed in search of illustration. We deepen here all these concepts as well as the way they were instrumentalized in the political debate at the end of the 19th century in the Maranhão press vehicles.