Catholic Racial Democracy: Social Imaginaries and Anti-Protestantism in Interwar Brazil

This article analyzes a lesser-known source of the popularization of the notion of racial democracy in interwar Brazil: the Brazilian Catholic Church's anti-Protestant campaign. Although the historiography of comparative race relations in the Americas, influenced heavily by the writings of Gilberto Freyre, has posited religion as a key differentiator between Anglo and Latin America, contemporary Brazilian Catholic officials’ contributions to this racial ideology have been overlooked. Tarring Protestantism as a US import antithetical to the cultural traditions of Brazil, Catholic publications counterposed the church's promotion of racial harmony to Protestant-sanctioned racial segregation and violence in the United States. Unlike Freyre, however, who further credited interracial, extramarital unions in the formation of Brazil's multiracial society, moral dictates of Catholic racial democracy limited its appeal as a form of popular nationalism. Approaching racial democracy as a multifaceted claims-making strategy, this article bridges historiographies of racial thought and religion in Latin America.