121. Alternative diplomacy and the political role of clerical elites: The Roman Catholic Church as an ideological counterforce in interwar Banat
- Author:
- Mihai A. Panu
- Publication Date:
- 01-2019
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Polish Political Science Association (PPSA)
- Abstract:
- : In interwar Romania, non-political institutions played a decisive role in the process of containing the expansion of totalitarian ideologies. The two major colliding ideological forces, National Socialism and Communism, rapidly reshaped the European sociopolitical profile after World War I and caused an unprecedented long-term deterioration of various intergovernmental relations. The Banat region was systematically exposed to external ideological factors due to the fact that its heterogeneous ethno-cultural profile allowed a rapid proliferation of political ideas and programs. This paper attempts to analyze the public role played by the Roman-Catholic clergy of the diocese Timişoara, in the context of rising National Socialist propaganda pressure, between 1930 and 1944. The most important clerical personality, who acted as a veritable counter-ideological element and therefore as a symbolic social protecting power, was the former bishop of the diocese Timişoara, Dr. Augustin Pacha.
- Topic:
- International Affairs
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus