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Friar Casimiro Brochtrup OFM: An Experience of the Catholic Church in the Brazilian Urban Context (1891–1945)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 May 2025

Dirceu Marroquim Open the ORCID record for Dirceu Marroquim [Opens in a new window]
Dirceu Marroquim*
Affiliation:
Instituto Arqueológico, Histórico e Geográfico Pernambucano, Rua do Hospício, 130, Boa Vista, Recife, Pernambuco, Brasil, CEP: 50060-080.
*
E-mail: dirceu_marroquim@yahoo.com.br.
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Abstract

This article examines the role of the Catholic Church in the Brazilian city of Recife, in the aftermath of the Republic’s Proclamation and the subsequent separation of church and state in Brazil. The study focuses on Friar Casimiro Brochtrup, OFM, who arrived in Brazil in 1894 and settled in Recife. His efforts in the impoverished Santo Amaro neighbourhood, particularly at Sítio da Macacheira, involved founding a church, chapels, schools and associations. The study aims to understand the Catholic Church’s impact on urban territorialities amid ecclesiastical transformations and political shifts before the emergence of the theology of liberation in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It argues that the church’s expansion from the late nineteenth to the early twentieth century involved territorial boundary expansion and rationalization of social assets. Drawing on diverse sources, including newspapers, ecclesiastical documents, reports and personal correspondence, this article illuminates the dynamic interactions between the Catholic Church, urban development and societal changes in Brazil during this period.

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Type
Research Article
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Studies in Church History , Volume 61: MARGINS AND PERIPHERIES IN CHRISTIAN HISTORY , June 2025 , pp. 520 - 540
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© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Ecclesiastical History Society

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References

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2 For further details of these developments, see Solans, Francisco J. R., ‘The Creation of a Latin American Catholic Church: Vatican Authority and Political Imagination, 1854–1899’, JEH 71 (2020), 316–36Google Scholar.

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21 Ibid.

22 To provide a slightly broader picture, I have considered here the current north-eastern Brazilian states, together with Rio de Janeiro (both capital and state), São Paulo and Minas Gerais. All the figures, including the total number of priests and nuns presented below, refer to these states: see Beozzo, José Oscar, Decadência e morte, restauração e multiplicação das ordens e congregações religiosas no Brasil 1870–1930 (São Paulo, 1983), 107 Google Scholar.

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24 Ibid. 120.

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32 A Missão no Brasil, Revista Santo Antônio (Salvador, 1951), 393.

33 Leituras Religiosas, 12 December 1899, 555. Given his age, it is possible that Friar Ciríaco had fought in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1.

34 Matias Teves, OFM, Entre os Mocambos do Recife (Salvador, 1946), 29 Google Scholar.

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36 Ibid.

37 Ibid.

38 Ibid. 11.

39 Recife, Archive of the Província Franciscana de Santo Antônio do Brasil, Casimiro Brochtrup, ‘Crônica da Missão de S. Sebastião da Macaxeira’ (version 3, [1936/7]), 2. Three versions of this text exist, distinguished by additions, deletions and omissions. Here, I mainly use the first and third versions. The first, composed in c.1934, consists of pages with many erasures and corrected words, and is clearly an initial attempt to construct a narrative. The words referring to public administration and politicians are harsher and without moderation. A consolidated edition of the first chronicle was made in the second version, in around 1935. The third includes significant changes, and was clearly written later, as it reaches the year 1936, which is beyond the chronological scope of the previous texts. All three versions can be found in the Archive of the Franciscan Province of Santo Antônio do Brasil.

40 Teves, Entre os Mocambos do Recife, 35.

41 Brochtrup, ‘Crônica’ (version 3), 1. The description ‘spiritually abandoned’ (‘abandonados espiritualmente’) is not included in version 1 of the manuscript. The term nova-seita or ‘new sect’ refers to preachers, primarily Pentecostals, who attempted to increase their influence in the outskirts of urban areas. In modern Brazil, there has been a noticeable connection between impoverished regions and the prevalence of Pentecostals. This correlation can also be observed through a historical lens.

42 Brochtrup, ‘Crônica’ (version 3), 1. In versions 1 and 2, the protagonist was referred to as ‘poor’ without any mention of the term ‘worker’ (‘operários pobrezinhos’).

43 Recife, Archive of the Província Franciscana de Santo Antônio do Brasil, Casimiro Brochtrup, ‘Crônica da Missão de S. Sebastião da Macaxeira’ (version 1, [c.1934]), 3.

44 Brochtrup, ‘Crônica’ (version 3), 1.

45 Ibid.

46 Brochtrup, ‘Crônica’ (version 3), 1.

47 Ibid.

48 Recife, Pernambuco, Archive of the Parish of Nossa Senhora da Piedade, João Olympio, Livro de Tombo da Igreja Matriz da Piedade (Recife, 1928), 1: 85 Google Scholar.

49 Maria, July 1923, 10.

50 Ibid.

51 John Burdick, Blessed Anastácia (New York, 1998); R. Andrew Chesnut, Born Again in Brazil: The Pentecostal Boom and the Pathogens of Poverty (New Brunswick, 1997).

52 Jornal Pequeno, 6 October 1928, 1.

53 Ibid.

54 Brochtrup, ‘Crônica’ (version 1), 10.

55 Ibid.

56 Ibid.

57 Jornal Pequeno, 6 October 1928, 1.

58 For the Council, see Solans, ‘The Creation of a Latin American Catholic Church’, 332–5; Puntigliano, Andrés Rivarola, ‘The Geopolitics of the Catholic Church in Latin America’, Territory, Politics, Governance 9 (2019), 455–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 459.

59 These associations aimed to serve distinct groups, but they shared a common focus on providing care to poor populations through charitable action. Children and families received special attention in this context, particularly in the Association of the Infant Jesus of the Children and the League of the Most Holy Names of Jesus, Mary and Joseph: see Marroquim, Frei Casimiro Brochtrup, 190.

60 de Pernambuco, Estado, Anuário Estatístico de Pernambuco (Recife, 1931), 130 Google Scholar.

61 Teves, Entre os Mocambos do Recife, 75–97.

62 Jornal Pequeno, 15 April 1941, 3.

63 Teves, Entre os mocambos do Recife, 122.

64 Peréa, Romeu, Diálogos com Agamenon Magalhães (Recife, 1977), 20 Google Scholar. The ‘straw chapels’ were rough wooden constructions with straw roofs.

65 Recife, Arquivo da Província Franciscana de Santo Antônio do Brasil, 1º Livro de Crônicas do Convento de Santo Antônio do Recife (Recife, 1944), 202.

66 Diário de Pernambuco, 18 August 1952, 12.

67 For further references, see Maria, 8 October 1948, 33; Jornal Pequeno, 21 December 1944, 2.

68 Diário de Pernambuco, 30 July 1952, 3.

69 Gilberto Freyre, ‘Um franciscano talvez santo’ [‘A Franciscan perhaps a Saint’], Diário de Pernambuco, 10 March 1968, 2.