Compaixao em processos sociais e mudancas institucionais : o caso do vicariato episcopal do povo da rua em Sao Paulo

Fernando Altemeyer Junior

The main hypothesis of this thesis is that compassion can be a methodological and interpretive guide for the social work developed by the S. Paulo Archdiocesan Vicariate for Street People. The thesis is divided into three parts: memories, theoretical approaches and practical paradoxes. In the first part, I have collected the remembrances of four people over the last thirteen years [1993 2005]. I trace the face and the shape of São Paulo City and situate the street people in this context. I have chose an epistemology of compassion as the axis to overcome invisibility and social exclusion. In the second part, I confront the Vicariates discourses with its practical history in the context of the São Paulo metropolis. Thus I verify that there were changes both in the aid programs and in the Churchs political action methods. I also verified a maturation process present in the streets that began with beingwith- the-other. This action began with OAF [The Organization of Fraternal Aid], the popular missions and the soup kitchens. The second influence was the House of Prayer and the spaces for reflection and articulation. This process led to the Contestation Days, to political demonstrations in the streets of downtown São Paulo and to municipal legislation for street people. Recently, temporary shelters and jobs have been offered and above all, there was the creation of a Cooperative for recyclable materials, organized and run by the Street People themselves. These inhabitants of our streets have passed from being thousands of solitary individuals to being active participants in the struggle for a public policy and an autonomous exercise of citizenship. The use of compassion as an analytic and hermeneutical category, according to the thought of Michel Henry, shows itself to be prolific as an explanation of the whole process. To do this it was necessary to enlarge our semantic map to include some operative concepts: subjectivity, autonomy, inclusion and exclusion, solidarity and liberation. Also it was necessary to include liberty, democracy, resistance, active nonviolence and witness. I accomplished this methodological research in flux, trying to guarantee the necessary sociological rigor. Those who inhabit the streets were gradually involved in the fundamental task of constructing their own social history. The record of this progression was preserved in the pages of the newspaper O Trecheiro that was a helpful source in this study. In the third part of this thesis I show that the public organs and services have actually changed their policies destined to serve this population. This has created serious contradictions and possibilities. I conclude that these institutional and social changes have altered the Churchs vocabulary and methods of pastoral activity, anticipating utopias and active solidarity. The Vicariate is one part of number of social forces that make up the whole of civil society. There are differences in methodology, but there is a common effort among the groups that deal with the problem to seek solidarity and to articulate together. The attitudes of Archbishop Luciano Mendes de Almeida, Monsignor Julio Renato Lancellotti, Sister Dalva Ivete de Jesus, Cardinal Paulo Evaristo Arns and Sister Regina Maria Manoel, together with the exemplary lives of Nenuca, Alfredinho and dom Bagaço, have become signs of a new way of pastoral action for a significant part of the Church in São Paulo. This action is compassions born and open to collective and utopian horizons.

Compaixao em processos sociais e mudancas institucionais : o caso do vicariato episcopal do povo da rua em Sao Paulo

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