RELIGION AND THE STATE
Text by scribe Valdemir Mota de Menezes
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Article 5 of the Constitution of 1824 shows that Catholicism was the official religion of Brazil. It was not just a question of the state choose a religion, it was also an indirect way of preventing the practice of other religions. We see that the text of article five of this charter, not only gives prestige to the prerogative of the Roman Catholic Church, but also restricts the practice of other cults.
Religious freedom at that time was limited to the particular cult, home and should only be tolerated within the family. Expressly forbids the worship of the text in the public square, or even building temples or meeting places for the practice of another religion. So the literal words of the letter that says: "All other religions will be allowed" should be construed as a permission and tolerance for other religions could be practiced in Brazil.
Noting this text today, this text would be considered absurd, because it would represent the closure of hundreds of thousands of places of worship in evangelical churches, other Christian sects and countless other temples of various religions practiced in Brazil. However, when we look at this constitutional text being produced as early as a few centuries after the reform and counter-Reformation, we see a dramatic advance in Brazil.
Openness and freedom of worship guaranteed by the Brazilian Constitution ensured anyone the right to practice their religion without being arrested or killed. On August 24, 1572, just two and a half centuries before some 100,000 Huguenots were massacred in France, the famous Massacre of St. Bartholomew.
The bodies were thrown into the rivers and for a time no one ate fish, because the degree of contamination of water bodies in it cause of putrefaction. Therefore, observing the Brazilian constitution of 1824 we realized an advance and a guarantee that the Protestants of Europe could take refuge in Brazil, because there were government guarantees that nobody would be sentenced to death for practicing religion other than the Catholic. This constitution remained in force until the proclamation of the republic. The Constitution still bore vestiges of monarchical absolutism in times past, but also contained traces in modern liberalism
REFERENCES:
Available from Wikipedia, accessed 05/05/2011
Available in http://oglobo.globo.com/pais/noblat/luciahippolito/posts/2010/03/25/ access 05/05/2011
Available in http://www.brasilescola.com/historiab/primeira-constituicao.htm, accessed 05/05/2011
