Catholic Politics in Latin America and Western Europe: political secularization from a comparative perspective.

MARTÍN O. CASTRO

Oxford

Workshop; 5th Meeting of “Democracy Reading Group”, Somerville College, University of Oxford; 2011

Democracy Reading Group, University of Oxford

This presentation analyses the interpretations offered by recent historiography of different national developments based on the Catholic social doctrine, the organisational efforts made to oppose political secularisation and the transfer (successful or limited) of the mobilisation of Catholic organisational networks to the electoral arena with the consequent creation of confessional parties which were not always well-received by the Catholic hierarchy. The expansion of political participation and the emergence of democratic political systems between the last quarter of the 19th century and the inter-war period created the context for the processes of religious political mobilisation that originated in the attempt to defend the interests of the Church (and which responded to the clerical/anticlerical cleavage) but which gave shape to confessional parties, and led to greater autonomy of the lay leaders and, paradoxically, contributed to the secularisation of party politics and, in certain cases, to the expansion of liberal democracy. This paper attempts to explore the interpretations of the processes of political secularisation and the creation of confessional parties in Latin America and Western Europe between the end of the 19th century and the inter-war by looking at the different historiographical perspectives and the contribution of political science and sociology of religion.