This historical social study relates the fight of catholic nurses for superior stations in the area of education and nursing practice in Brazil. Its specific objectives were to describe the circumstances that made the catholic nurses organize themselves politically; to analyze the creation of the Union of Catholic Nurses of Brazil as it organizes the fight of the catholic; and to comment on the importance of the Union for the area of education and nursing practice. Primary sources were written documents and verbal deposition. Secondary sources were books, articles, theses and dissertations that were similar in thematic tone. The Union was created with the finality of congregating both religious nurses as well as catholic laymen in a single association of class, and has contributed a great deal to the fortification of catholic nursing within the area of education and nursing practice. Also, it contributed towards the increase in the number of catholic nursing schools in the 1940's and 1950's, and thus the inculcation of religious habits in the catholic nurses, instituting a new model of catholic nursing.
Nursing; Nursing research; School's nursing
