Natal’s archdiocese and radio schools (Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil)

Abstract

After the II World War in Natal’s city, Rio Grande do Norte’s capital, faces serious problems of social and economical order. In this context, Natal’s Archdiocese began new pastoral practices that went beyond the purely individual worship, turning to social practices, particularly with the creation of the Rural-SAR Assistance Service in 1949. Therefore, the Archdiocese directed its educational activities to the rural areas, in the field of non-formal education, in which developments resulted in an apostolate different of till then practiced. It were created rural missions, craft productions cooperatives, the rural trade union, literacy school by the radio, innovative forms of community organization. The entry in the field of young and adult literacy, in 1958, provided the conformation of a new field of diffusion of the Catholic ideology with the creation of the Radio Schools, bringing the basic education to rural regions of the State. The success of the literacy experience caused the creation of the Basic Education Movement – MEB, under an agreement between MEC and the CNBB in 1961, expanding the experience to undeveloped areas of North, Northeast and Midwest. The MEB acted in a developmental line, preaching the growth of national economy as a way out of the brazilian crisis. Due to this pedagogical connotation to its actions the Church preserved the hegemony in the faithful community of rural area, neutralizing the communist influence, through an evangelization proposal, which was implied the raising of the living level of rural populations, although in harmony with the current capitalist order.