Fé e vida: ação educativa para participação social nas comunidades eclesiais de base rurais da paróquia São Sebastião, em Montes Claros, Norte das Gerais

Abstract

St. Sebastian's Parish, located in the municipality ofMontes Claros, in the State ofMinas Gerais, characterizes itselfby its planning and by its apostolic pastoral work, directing its efforts towards integrating faith and life. The '80s and '90s were marked by intense rural worker participation in the Basic Ecclesial Communities (BECs) and by popular education with a view to human, and therefore community, promotion. This case study, of an interpretative nature, sought to verify, by participative observation and by interview transcripts, if the manner of the Jesuits' intervention, through the BECs, was educational(with popular appeal) or tutorial (with an authoritarian hallmark). In addition it sought to investigate if therewasa relationship between participation in parochial activities and those developed in the associations, in the trade union and in the community itself, as well as if this involvement favored the emergence ofpractices of sustainable development in the scenario researched. The answers to the questions were givenby the social agents themselves, that is, domestic producers, residents, the Jesuits, pastoral workers, and interpreted by the investigator. Educational intervention for social participation in the communities providedpersonal, community and regional growth, contributingto development derived from people's involvement as protagonists in the solution of their problems in ali áreas, and in the search for sustainable altematives to economic models that exclude development.