O ROSTO DA IGREJA NA CIDADE: A Igreja e a estrutura comunitária Paroquial no mundo urbano

Abstract

The parish, the community of the catholic faithful entrusted to the Parish Priest, emerged during the second century of the Christian Era. Throughout its history we can see that it little by little absorbed the bureaucratic structures and ideologically was used to maintain social and religious control. With the passing of time society has demanded that the parish becomes more integrated into the urban context. What are the challenges that emerge with this new era for the parish institution? What is the future of the parish in the city? This theses looks at the sociological challenges which the present places before the parish system. Research and data was collected in the city of Goiânia, with its 49 parishes which make up the archdiocese of Goiânia. This data is presented in a clear way as to demonstrate the problems of urbanisation to the parishes. The theoretical references for the analyses were woven from three classics from the Sociology of Religion: Max Weber, Pierre Bourdieu Emile Durkheim and Joseph Fichter as well as other more directly involved with the questions like José Comblin, Leonardo and Clovis Boff, Alberto Antoniazzi and others. For Weber the parish has over time become one of the structures of domination in society. For Bourdieu the parish has become an arena where the sacred has been placed into the hands of specialists. The contribution of Fichter is in the formulation of the parish from the diversity of social interaction. Durkeim defines the parish founded on a spatial concepts and sees the parish as one of the modes of presenting the concept. This is a deep analyses of the parish. At the end of this part there is some discussion about post modem sociology and how it contributes to the understanding of the urban parish. The conclusions that we arrived at with this research points to the difficulties that urban parishes face as they strive to interact with the urban problems. We conclude that the urban parishes as they are now do not answer urban societies religious needs. We believe that alterations need to be made so that this two thousand year institution can be more relevant in the modem urban society. To this end we make a series of suggestions which the parishes could adopt to make them more effective in the modern society. Amongst the suggestions are: interdisciplinary studies about the city, a change in the way the parishes needs are met, new time, celebrations etc. A suggestion that the parishes on the outskirts of the city could be organised into smaller communities inter-linked in a network. We don't suggest the extinction of the parish we request that they become aware of the multiple social reality in which they find themselves.