Historian Larissa Rosa Corrêa, professor in the History Department at PUC-Rio, launches this Tuesday (8), at 7 PM, at Janela Livraria de Laranjeiras, in Rio de Janeiro, the book "Work as Mission" (FGV Editora). The work recounts the history of the worker-priests movement between the 1940s and 1979, analyzing how religion influenced worker mobilization in Brazil and Europe.
The concept of worker-priest emerged in post-war Europe as a response to the massive distance of the urban working class from the Church. Priests such as the Frenchman Jacques Loew argued that it was not enough to observe the working class from the outside: it was necessary to immerse oneself in the workers' routine, share the factory floor, and live off one's own salary.
In the book, Larissa Corrêa demonstrates how the movement crossed the Atlantic toward Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Upon arriving in Brazil, these religious figures brought with them a strong anti-colonial consciousness.
The work seeks to understand the relationship between religious faith and worker mobilization, showing how worker-priests challenged the traditional structures of the Church and, in the Brazilian context, also faced the repression of the military dictatorship by taking on manual labor and heavy routines in factories.
