«Pobreza» e «Caridade» no Portugal contemporâneo: O olhar (teológico) e a ação (social) de Padre Américo Monteiro de Aguiar

This study, which resumes and deepens a communication with the same title presented at the Permanent Seminar «Representations of the Poor: spirituality, aesthetics, sociology», promoted by the Group Societies, Practices and Forms of Religious Sentiment of CITCEM – University of Porto, has, in its genesis and structure, two fundamental and thus formulable objectives: first, to concretize an attempt to systematize the reflection around the concepts of «Poverty» and «Charity» carried out by Father Américo Monteiro de Aguiar, emphasizing, first of all, the intimate correlation between this exercise and that which is still today the most famous legacy and facet of the Author in question: the social dimension of his project, the «Obra da Rua - Casa do Gaiato». Second, from a more detailed analysis of such concepts and the formulation that the author reveals about them, show the «(non)» inscription (see José Gil) of such a conceptualization in the context of other universes of their peers. In this way, it will be tried to highlight not only the validity (and necessity) of a permanent deepening of the study and contextualized analysis of these issues, but also in a particular way of the importance and the (dis) framing of the conceptual proposal and of the corresponding social action) of the Author elected here in the contemporaneity in which his thinking and acting are grafted.