Catholicism and public space: practices of religious appropriation during holy week in Francisco Sá (MG)

Abstract

Public spaces are meeting places for the various groups that make up the city. Squares are examples of spaces that present a mix of uses and appropriations (meetings, leisure, political, cultural and religious manifestations). That said, the objective of this work is to understand the appropriation of public spaces in the city of Francisco Sá (Minas Gerais/Brazil), especially squares, as places of religious manifestation, especially Catholicism. To this end, the following methodology was used: bibliographic review, cartographic survey using QGIS 3.26 software and fieldwork with an ethnographic focus. The activities took place on April 13 and 18, 2025 — dates that are part of the celebration of Holy Week — during the day and night, with participant observation, use of a logbook and iconographic recording for more credible and well-founded analyses. It is considered that, during the celebrations of Holy Week, the appropriation of a square in Francisco Sá, namely Praça da Matriz, by the Igreja Matriz de São Gonçalo is noticeable. This square becomes a territory of devotion, memory and cultural resistance. Thus, the celebrations of Holy Week in Francisco Sá refer to the construction of a geography of faith, where the territory is not only a physical support, but an expression of shared values ​​and symbolic disputes.