LAITY AND SECULARISM IN CONTEMPORARY BRAZILIAN PLURALISM

Abstract

This article describes the postulates that guided Republican laity and Catholic secularism processes until the first half of the twentieth century and their current transformation under the impact of the intensification of religious diversity and their renewed public presence. We sought to demonstrate that, despite measures to establish a lay Brazilian state since the beginning of the Republican regime, the Catholic religion and, more recently, religions in general have not entirely lost their moral-political influence.