Dom Sebastião Leme and the strategies of Catholicism in the 1930s

Abstract

The following lines intend to elaborate some notes on the performance of Cardinal Sebastião Leme as a representative of Brazilian Catholicism and the mechanisms used by the Catholic Church as a way of strengthening their bases in face of the challenges posed by the secular State. Allied to the laity and especially the leadership, such as Jackson de Figueiredo and Alceu Amoroso Lima, Dom Leme saw in the 1930s the need for the organization of the Brazilian clericate, as well as of the very foundations of the Church in Brazil, which had undergone transformations and needed more unity.