THE CATHEDRAL CRISTO REI OF BH: and the socio-religious repositioning

To reposition itself socially and change the picture of continuous losses - of faithful, prestige and power -, the Catholic Church strives to create strategies of re-elaboration/reaffirmation of religious memory and to reposition itself socially. An example of this is the Metropolitan Cathedral Cristo Rei, under construction in the city of Belo Horizonte (MG). The megathemple is officially presented as a place of spirituality, encounter, service, dialogue that "brings together the different, weaving unity in difference"; an "artistic and citizen place", "response to the many needs stamped on the scenarios of contemporary societies", as published on the website www.catedralcristoreibh.com.br. To achieve these purposes, the Church needed to review its relationship with the media, giving them a new dimension and making them tools for the dissemination of religious and other contents related to the support of the cathedral project. With this, it seeks to (re)constitute symbolically the union of the Catholic people, the religious memory and the identity threatened by collective forgetfulness, by religious mobilization and by the privatization of religion.