This research analizes the social practice of the Northeast’s Pastoral Land Commission (CPT NE 2), a lay organization of the Catholic Church, in the Northeast region. Serving rural workers and landless people, in the struggle for agrarian reform, the organization operates in the septentrional part of the sugar-cane zone of the state of Pernambuco (Brazil). The analysis covers the period from 1988, the year of its foundation, and early 2000s, when its participation in land conflicts and occupancy movements decreases. The central issue is intended to question the actions of CPT in rural areas to understand whether it is an unprecedented form of social engagement or, as their own actors state, "a new way of being Church." In order to do so, we analyze, at first, from the standpoint of former Catholic organizations, created in the early 1960s, in the context of Rural Catholic Action. Comparing between JAC, MEB, SORPE, ACR, MER, on one side, and PR NE 2 and CPT, on another, which is the portion of continuities and disruptions? Then, the organization is discussed in terms of its engagement in the struggle for the agrarian reform, the social movements it participates and its relationship with other social actors: MST, STRs, FETAPE, the political sphere and public authorities, to identify its performance and define its originality. Finally, its practice is examined from the social environment, the socio-religious matrixes from which its actors and mediators who transmit the social memory of the Church in the region. At last, the research also aims to define how and to what extent the performance and the actors of CPT NE 2 result from the mobilization strategies of the New Social Movements (NMS) that operate in Latin America and, especially in Brazil, as of the 1980s.
