Religion and Politics

Brazil is the largest Roman Catholic country in the world. Despite the success of Protestant churches in the past hundred years and a centuries-old background of African religion, no one can doubt the fundamental role that the Catholic Church plays. It is the religion of the ruling elite, as well as of the rural peasantry. Immigration patterns have affected the religious identity of the Brazilian community in Canada. The filtering of immigrants through the point system and the requirement of a basic knowledge of English has limited movement mainly to upper- and middle-class individuals and those with a European background and largely excluded the lower classes. Further, the new wave of immigration after 1987 brought individuals largely from the south and southeast of Brazil, especially the states of São Paulo and Minas Gerais. These are the most notable regions of the established churches, Roman Catholic and Protestant, in the country. Thus the Catholic Church is well represented among the community in Canada, as are the Pentecostal and other Protestant churches. These organizations helped the wave of penniless immigrants during the exodus of 1987–88.

Canada already had a number of Portuguese priests and pastors who attended to the needs of that community, particularly in Toronto. For a generation, Brazilian priests have ministered to both Portuguese and Brazilian people. In 1994 there were three Brazilian priests in the archdiocese of Toronto. A number of Brazilian and Portuguese-Brazilian congregations have been established. These have become basic social institutions helping to build communities out of isolated individuals in the cities. At the same time, the Catholic faith that was brought to Canada was centralized and Roman and lacked the magical popular beliefs of the rural folk. Excluded were immigrants of African background from the northeastern states, such as Bahia and Pernambuco, as well as the poverty-stricken populations of the favelas in the cities. Thus some of the more distinctive and popular forms of Brazilian religion, the African elements such as candomblé, umbanda, xangô, and batuque, find little direct expression in Canada, even though Brazilian music, also Africa’s offspring, has had expression here.

Brazilians are paradoxically both intensely political and deeply pessimistic about politics. In their homeland, most live and breathe local affairs, but formal organizations of government, even law and the police, are subordinated to kin and friendship networks. Life is a constant series of petty negotiated agreements with these networks, where family, neighbourhood, friends, and community outweigh formal rights and obligations. This pattern is changing, especially in the developed south and southeast, but it still largely holds for most of the north and northeast, as well as for the centre of the country and the peripheral areas of cities, where many of the immigrants come from. Hence Brazilians of all classes are intensely interested in politics, especially local affairs, which have the greatest impact on their lives. They love to talk politics, but at the same time they are deeply pessimistic about political reform because their hopes have been shattered many times. Only a fraction of the eligible voters cast ballots. In Canada, groups and individuals will speak out as they often do in Brazil about issues of specific interest to them, such as changes in the immigration laws, but Brazilians have not been effective in organizing political pressure groups, except perhaps in business. An ingrained political fatalism inevitably wins out, and little is done. The Brazilian community, moreover, is too small to have an impact on electoral politics in Canada.