O encontro da pedagogia do oprimido com a teologia da libertação nas comunidades eclesiais de base: formação de lideranças em perspectiva ética e política

Abstract

This article, resulting from bibliographic research, aims to reflect on the potential contribution of the religious phenomenon called Liberation Christianity and its theoretical-philosophical arm - Liberation Theology - to the formative assumptions of community leaders in the environment of CEBs - Ecclesiastical Communities of Base of the Catholic Church, which had its period of greatest effervescence between the 1970s and 1990s. The relevance of the research lies in the possibility of understanding a libertarian religious phenomenon and its eventual formative and educational potential from an ethical and policy. Thus, an analysis was carried out of the theorists who investigate the themes pertinent to Liberation Christianity to identify, from a specific case - that of the Ecclesial Base Community (CEBs) Nossa Senhora das Merçês of Bairro Macaúbas da Paróquia São José in the municipality de Muzambinho (MG) - how this thought contributes in a pedagogical way to the formation of leaders and to community development. Therefore, the proposed research initially appropriated a theoretical framework based on the work of Michael Löwy - a social scientist who endeavors to understand this phenomenon. The proposal is to interweave such reference to the educational thought of Paulo Freire and to that case study, constituted from semi-structured interviews, testimonies and documents related to CEB Nossa Senhora das Mercês, where the engagement of its community leader was crucial in the development of collective projects - associative, cooperative and solidary - that produced social impacts in that location. The analysis of the results of the case study carried out in the light of the proposed theoretical framework answers how the theoretical thinking and concreteness confirm the presumption about the educational potential of Liberation Christianity practices as training community leaders engaged in social causes and the encounter of such practices with Paulo Freire's libertarian pedagogy.