The Fabric of the Ordinary : The Council of Trent and the Governance of the Catholic Church in the Empire of Brazil (1840–1889)

Abstract

Much has been written about the political tension between ultramontanists and liberal jurisdictionalists in the Empire of Brazil during the reign of D. Pedro II (1840–1889), in view of the sui generis patronage regime of the country and, in particular, the scandal of the Religious Question in the 1870s. Among the commonplaces of this historiography is the idea that the Council of Trent was a normative set interpreted and implemented solely by the clergy and ultramontanists, if not a top-down imposition from Rome and standard to rally behind against liberal policies. But can we maintain this interpretation if, instead of the eloquent discourses in diplomatic correspondence and the press, we place ordinary administrative practices center stage? This book focuses on these practices – in the author’s words, this “fabric of the ordinary” – as they appear in two sets of sources: on the one hand, the consultations on ecclesiastical matters that local and central authorities submitted to the Brazilian Council of State; on the other, the cases sent by Brazilian actors to the Holy See and examined by the Congregation of the Council, the body of the Roman Curia in charge of interpreting the Council of Trent for the Catholic world. By investigating intersections between these sources, the author invites the reader to contemplate the Church as a structure of multilevel governance that involved multiple jurisdictions and a number of ecclesiastical and lay actors, all interacting in a scenario of intense multinormativity. As a consequence, when trying to resolve everyday doubts and problems, these entities resorted to a normative repertoire that certainly contained canon law, but at the same time comprised different ways of interpreting it as well as of combining it with other norms and normativities. The analysis allows us to see the Council of Trent as a very plastic resource in the hands of clerics, bureaucrats, and jurists. It took on roles not only as weapon, but also as model for other laws, rhetorical support, part of tradition, a negotiable and even dispensable resource. Furthermore, observing these practices yields the rather surprising conclusion that the polarisation between ultramontanists and jurisdictionalists was a precarious element within the governance of the Church in Brazil, often giving way to mechanisms for control of normative novelty and to a re-focusing on common objectives and concrete needs.