Os Soldados de Cristo: igreja e migração para a Amazônia em tempos de guerra (1942-1943)

Abstract

This study examines the alliance between the State and the Catholic Church in the process of mobilizing workers in northeastern of Brazil, mainly in Ceará, to the Amazon, in the context of the World War II and the New State. Such articulation was permeated by devices of the political universe and the Catholic religion, whose inclusion in this scenario carries a whole complexity and density of socio-cultural and historical implications. In this way, we seek to study the institutionalization of its own policy of this joint, a belief in politics, an operation on faith and the social imaginary of mobilized Catholics, cultivating hope about the best destinations in which poor people and destitute of all luck could project images of an almost messianic place expected, desired with faith as a "holy land", "land of hope". For this purpose we used sources such as: newspapers; official documents; photographs; letters; interviews; literature; official speeches; papal encyclicals; among others.Thus, this study aims to collaborate with the different approaches regarding the Battle of Rubber, mainly with regard to the link between temporal power and spiritual power in wartime.