School, religion and community: elements to the comprehension of the “immigrant Catholicism”

This paper focuses on the relations between the process of Catholic institutional readaptation and the phenomenon of non-Portuguese European immigration in the Brazilian State of Rio Grande do Sul. The following aspects are highlighted in the analysis: the dynamic of the religious framework strategically built amidst the “immigration” zones and its effects on rural populations composed mainly by “German” and “Italian” descendants since late XIXth century; the context of primary religious socialization of future Church professionals; and the role of the Catholic school system in the formation of various dominant groups