ABSTRACT

In this chapter, I analyze Father Antonio Sorio’s actions within the religious and political fields in order to apprehend the diversity of strategies that he employed to build his prestige among his countrymen. When in 1885 he became the Silveira Martins parish priest, Antonio Sorio initiated a personal politics, the purpose of which was to consolidate status and power within the community. Among other things, he began to actively intervene in matters connected to local politics, creating spaces of sociability and mediating relationships between families, communities and external spheres of control.