Freemasonry and anticlericalism in <i>O Livre Pensador</i> Newspaper

Abstract

This paper discusses how anticlericalism was expressed in the newspaper O Livre Pensador, first published in Sao Paulo, Brazil in 1903, and its relationship with Freemasonry. In its pages one can identify on one hand, the peculiarities of anticlericalism within a national and international scope and contrast its relationship with other ideological manifestations such as socialism and positivism. On the other hand, one can also analyze both their relationship with workers' organizations and the clashes between anti-clerics and the Catholic Church in the First Republic.