Document of the week! Relations between the Catholic Church and the military leadership during the dictatorship

Check out the full document in our collection: Telegram from William M. Rountree to the Secretary of State regarding Archbishop Dom Avelar Brandão's speech at the Escola Superior de Guerra

Relations between the Catholic Church and the military leadership during the dictatorship

In September 1971, the government Medici resigned from the management of Higher School of War (ESG) – among other things, a traditional forum for discussion between military and civilian leaders during the dictatorship – the general Rodrigo Octávio Jordão, one of the military leaders most identified with the ultranationalist general Albuquerque Lima, who had just been retired against his own will by the Médici government. 

The dismissal of Gen. Rodrigo Jordão was motivated by a singular fact: a speech presented at ESG by the archbishop of Salvador, Dom Avelar Brandão, in which the religious man asked young people for greater understanding from the military and warned of the danger of considering any type of opposition to the regime as subversion, capable of being treated as punishment for an internal enemy. 

This week's document shows two very interesting things: first, the degree of articulation of the high Catholic hierarchy in preparing Dom Avelar's speech (the president of the National Commission of Bishops of Brazil, CNBB, participated in its formulation); and, second, the iron fist with which the Medici government treated the opposition in the military, suppressing any attempt to weaken its authority right from the beginning.

The document also shows another crucial element. The information received by the Americans came from a report given by Cândido Mendes de Almeida, undersecretary of the CNBB and founder of the University Research Institute of Rio de Janeiro (IUPERJ). According to Cândido Mendes de Almeida, Dom Brandão's speech would be just the first salvo in a medium-term strategy to bring to light the theme of the country's redemocratization. In this too, of course, the Médici government would shoot down before taking off, pointing to a structurally conflictive relationship between the State and the high Catholic hierarchy in Brazil.

Prof. Dr. Felipe Loureiro,

Deputy coordinator of NACE CNV-Brazil,

Institute of International Relations at the University of São Paulo