CATHOLIC INTELLECTUALS, STATE AND CHILDREN'S RIGHTS (BRAZIL, 1980-1990)

Abstract

This research aims to understand the construction of children's Rights in Brazil and the participation of Catholic intellectuals into this process. The following hypotheses are examined: i) the agents of the Church acquired prestige at the time of the democratic opening in 1980, negotiating the legal production; and ii) in defense of the integral protection of children, Catholic leaders organized the social work of the clergy (Pastoral da Criança and Pastoral do Menor), mobilized public opinion and made political lobbying. Taking as object the promulgation of constitutional articles and the Law 8.069/1990 (ECA), the study will observe how children's Rights were legitimized by the state and by the actions of religious activists interested in this public acknowledgment. From the intersection of trajectories of Zilda Arns Neumann, D. Arns and D. Luciano Mendes de Almeida, the networks will be investigated, signed institutional pressures and commitments. Their ethos, habitus, discourses, practices, family backgrounds and capitals will be used to understand how personal, religious or public interests have been blurred in the production of legal rules. I will take as sources: biographical dictionaries, biographies, autobiographies, memoirs and other documents stored in the repositories of the Chamber, Federal Senate, File Edgard Leuenroth/Unicamp, Curia of São Paulo and CNBB.