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1. The 1998 and 2007 Referenda on Abortion in Portugal: Roman Catholicism, Secularization and the Recovery of Traditional Communal Values

Author:
Paul Christopher Manuel and Maurya N. Tollefsen
Publication Date:
01-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
In the thirty-three years since the April 25, 1974, Carnation Revolution, there have been sporadic efforts by progressive forces to legalize abortion in Portugal. This activity has intensified over the past nine years, culminating with two national referenda on the subject, one in 1998 which narrowly affirmed the ban on abortion, and the second in 2007 which allowed for the procedure during the first ten weeks of pregnancy. One reason that the abortion debate in Portugal attracted much interest in the world press was what it would potentially teach about the Roman Catholic Church's contemporary role in Portuguese society. That is, would the Church maintain its traditional influential role over public policy formation in a secularizing Portugal, especially related to its moral teaching? There is some controversy about the type of secularization which is taking place (i.e., Portuguese-style secularization may be of a different sort than that of Northern European countries), but there is little doubt that the Church's ability to define morality for its members has been reduced in recent years. The Church now competes with many secular voices to frame issues such as sexuality, marriage, divorce and abortion. The recent vote to legalize abortion—a move bitterly opposed by the Church—is but one of many examples symbolizing a drift in Portuguese society toward secularization. There was another dimension to the national debate over abortion as well: the pro-choice side successfully harmonized its rhetoric to certain traditional communal values found in Portuguese society—namely compassion, solidarity and support—and, in so doing, forged a recovery of those values.
Topic:
Civil Society and Religion
Political Geography:
Europe and Portugal

2. “Une Messe est Possible”: The Imbroglio of the Catholic Church in Contemporary Latin Europe

Author:
Paul Christopher Manuel and Margaret Mott
Publication Date:
04-2004
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
Throughout the contemporary period, the Church-State relationship in the nation-states of France, Italy, Spain and Portugal – which we will refer to as Latin Europe in this paper – has been a lively source of political conflict and societal cleavage, both on epistemological, and ontological grounds. Epistemological, in that the person living in Latin Europe has to decide whether his world view will be religious or secular; ontological, in that his mortality has kept some sense of the Catholic religion close to his heart and soul at the critical moments of his human reality. Secular views tend to define the European during ordinary periods of life, (“métro boulot dodo,”) while religious beliefs surge during the extraordinary times of life (birth, marriage, death,) as well as during the traditional ceremonial times (Christmas, Easter). This paper will approach the question on the role of the Catholic church in contemporary Latin Europe by first proposing three models of church-state relations in the region and their historical development, then looking at the role of the Vatican, followed by an examination of some recent Eurobarometer data on the views of contemporary Catholics in each country, and finishing with an analysis of selected public policy issues in each country. Throughout, it is interested in the dual questions of whether religion still plays an important role in Latin Europe, and whether or not the Catholic church is still able to influence the direction of public policies in the now democratic nation-states of France, Italy, Spain and Portugal.
Topic:
Politics and Religion
Political Geography:
Europe, France, Spain, Italy, and Portugal

3. The Marian Apparitions in Fátima as Political Reality: Religion and Politics in Twentieth-Century Portugal

Author:
Paul Christopher Manuel
Publication Date:
10-2002
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University
Abstract:
The reaction of the Catholic faithful to the supposed miraculous events at Fátima serves as an illustration of how religion can influence the political life of a country. In this instance the Virgin Mary is said to have appeared to three ordinary Portuguese country children over a six-month period starting on 13 May 1917. During these visits the children reported that she asked them to pray for the souls of sinners, for the soldiers in World War I, and for Russia. During and immediately after the Marian apparitions in Fátima, powerful conservative players in Lisbon seized on the symbolism of the event to discredit the anticlerical First Republic. As the situation unfolded, this religion-politics dynamic took the form of popular Catholic resistance in the countryside to an urban-based elite-driven secularization, setting the stage for the subsequent emergence of the Salazar regime. Some political scientists and historians have treated these events only as a case of popular reaction against modernity, without any enduring consequences. In this view, Fátima was not much more than a useful symbolic tool of conservative resistance to the First Republic, and it set the groundwork for the subsequent dictatorship. This paper, in line with recent scholarship offered by David Blackbourn, William Christian, Ruth Harris, and others, will suggest that social scientists need to treat the consequences of wide-scale popular religiosity more completely–not as a theological reality, but as a political one. Certainly, some cases have taken on more lasting political life than others, but all cases of popular devotion offer a revealing window into the political culture and life of a country.
Topic:
Religion
Political Geography:
Europe