Paper short abstract:

The aim of this research is to discuss the opening process of the catholic church, in Brazil, to Afro- Brazilian religions. I will focus on the "enculturated" liturgies (afro masses, baptisms and marriages) in which elements from Afro- Brazilian religions (mainly from Candomblé) are adopted.

Paper long abstract:

Although the use of symbols in liturgic actions has always been a constant in the ritual of the Catholic mass; from the second half of the XXth century and with the development of the Theology of Liberation, several elements from the people's everyday, which kept a close relationship with other religious codes, came to be incorporated in the liturgy. It is the central question this text: how some Afro-Brazilian religious symbols participate in the "enculturated" Catholic liturgy, what meanings they assume, and what are its contributions to the dialogue that this two religious systems have been establishing? In São Paulo, for example, the icon of those celebrations is the "mass of the black mother", which happens in March and approximates Catholic imaginaries (such as Nossa Senhora Aparecida) to the heritage of readings about the mother and the woman during slavery. The research is been performed in two churches, in the city of São Paulo: Nossa Senhora do Rosário dos Homens Pretos, in the Largo do Paissandú and Nossa Senhora Achiropita in Bela Vista. These churches are emblematic: the former would represent the "appropriation" of the Catholicism by the black, and the later the "appropriation" of Afro religions by Catholicism. Thus, the Catholic Church would be delivering itself, in the liturgical and theological space of the church to a process of "culturalization" of these religions. This can be verified in the national society in a wider mode.

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