Crowning Our Lady Aparecida: How Devotion, Art, and Politics Meet in Brazil

What is it about?

This chapter examines the aesthetics of Marian devotion in Brazilian Catholicism through the 2017 Jubilee celebrations at the National Shrine of Our Lady Aparecida. Drawing on ethnographic research during the jubilee year, as well as archival and historical sources on earlier coronations (especially 1904), it traces how the figure of Aparecida as “Queen” (and later “Patroness”) has been materially produced and politically re-signified over time. The analysis focuses on crowns and coronation rituals as sensory and visual devices—objects, styles, and public performances—through which the Catholic Church seeks to reposition itself within Brazil’s changing religious field. It also follows key twentieth- and twenty-first-century shifts, including Catholic–state realignments, the rise of evangelical competition, and the creation of the “jubilee crown” as an attempt to update Aparecida’s reign for new times.

Featured Image

Photo by Erica Viana on Unsplash

Photo by Erica Viana on Unsplash

Why is it important?

It shows how seemingly “decorative” religious objects (like the crowns of Our Lady Aparecida) work as political and aesthetic technologies through which the Catholic Church has historically tried to secure public authority, shape a national imaginary, and negotiate secular power in Brazil. By connecting the first coronation (1904) to the Jubilee coronation (2017), the chapter clarifies how Catholicism continually updates its symbols and sensory repertoires in response to long-term transformations, especially the sharp decline of self-identified Catholics and intensified competition in a more plural religious field.