Beyond the hagiographic writing: Catholic biographies and historical culture in Brazil in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth

Abstract

The Catholic Church in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century was involved in different theological-political projects of reform and strengthening of the institutional identity. Ecclesiastical writing has become a privileged tool for the achievement of these projects, and the Catholic biographies were one of the most used modalities. This article aims to analyze some Catholic biographies in Brazil, written in the Archdiocese of Mariana, trying to understand how this narrative style was established as a project to strengthen the memory and the institutional and sacerdotal identity, in a dialog with the contents and enunciations of hagio-biographies and Brazilian historiographical culture from that time