Out of Charity There Is No Religion: A Brief History of the Religious Competition between Catholicism and Kardecist Spiritism and its Social Works in the City of Juiz de Fora (1900-1960)

Abstract

This article discusses how the Christian concept of Charity, wich plays a central role in Catholicism and Kardecist Spiritualism, became a means by which each religion discredited the other and legitimized itself in the course of a long process of rivalry between the two faiths. We focus on the city of Juiz de Fora where several philantropic undertakings were sponsored by Catholics or Spiritists beginning at the end of the nineteenth century and during the first five decades of the twentieth century. Through these endeavors, the Catholics tried to hold on to their religious monopoly and the Spiritists attempted to again legitimacy in the wider society.