“LET THE CHILDREN COME TO ME; DO NOT HINDER THEM, FOR TO SUCH BELONGS THE KINGDOM OF GOD” – PORTUGUESE CHILDHOOD RELIGIOSITY AND ITS PORTRAYAL IN VALTER HUGO MÃE’S O NOSSO REINO
“LET THE CHILDREN COME TO ME; DO NOT HINDER THEM, FOR TO SUCH BELONGS THE KINGDOM OF GOD” – PORTUGUESE CHILDHOOD RELIGIOSITY AND ITS PORTRAYAL IN VALTER HUGO MÃE’S O NOSSO REINO

Summary/Abstract: Religion has always been a huge factor of Portuguese national identity and wasstrongly emphasised and enforced as essential to it under the Estado Novo (1933-1974). Howeverthe protagonist of Valter Hugo Mãe’s O nosso reino (2004), even at the early age of eight, orperhaps because of it, questions the apparent omnipotence of the Church and the infallibility ofreligion. His distrust of Church officials demonstrates how his innocence allows him to seethrough the corruption afflicting the Portuguese Church. His faith appears to be pure anduntouched by societal expectations, which apparently means that he can faithfully interpret God’smessage, and so is perceived to be a type of angel by those around him, forcing him to confrontwhat Freud terms his “primary narcissism”. At other times he is also interpreted as some kind ofdemonic force, which certainly demonstrates a restrictive binary identity that superficially appearsto be emblematic of religious belief. His decision to become a saint means that he can be seen torepresent Erik Erikson’s homo religious, who is “always older, or in early years suddenlybecomes older, than his playmates or even his parents and teachers and focuses in a precociousway on what it takes others a lifetime to gain a mere inkling of: the questions of how to escapecorruption in living and how in death to give meaning to life” (Erikson 261). This paper willexamine how Valter Hugo Mãe is portraying the instability of definitive religious categories withinPortuguese society, particularly when the beliefs that shape those categories are manipulatedaccording to the political desires of the State and their allies within the Church.

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