Journal of Contemporary History, 12 (1977), 345-362

The Religious Question

and the Catholic Revival
in Portugal, 1900-30

R. A. H. Robinson

Fortunato de Almeida, in the preface to his monumental history of th

Church in Portugal, wrote: 'To aspire to study the historical evolution
of the Portuguese people by first removing its religious life and the
mission of the regular and secular clergy, would be tantamount t
trying to understand the circulatory system without the blood-vessels
and his strictures would seem to apply most emphatically to the time at
which he was writing --- 1910. Traditional interpretations of Portugues
history stress that the emergence of the independent nation in the
twelfth century was a by-product of the Christian Reconquest of the
Peninsula from the Moors and that the Church played an indispensable
role in assuring independence by making Afonso Henriques the Pope's
vassal and subsequently recognizing the rulers of Portugal as king
under Papal suzerainty and protection. As was the case elsewhere
successive kings were determined to assert royal power against excessive
ecclesiastical claims; by the end of the thirteenth century the question
of rival jurisdictions had been so settled, in general terms, as to last
until the eighteenth century. The ties between Portugal and the Papacy
were strengthened by the diffusion of the Faith in the wake of the
Discoveries and by the intellectual and social dominance, after the
middle of the sixteenth century, of the Inquisition and the Jesuits.
The break with the old tradition came with Pombal, who ushered in a
new era of State supremacy which severely weakened the status and
influence of the Church in Portugal.
To put the religious question and the Catholic revival of the early
twentieth century into perspective, it is necessary to bear in mind not
only this ancient tradition of close Church-State cooperation but also
to appreciate the straits to which the Church was reduced in the nine

345
346 Journal of Contemporary History

teenth century after the victory of the liberal Constitutionalists in the

dynastic wars. The most notable act of these liberals was, of course,
to decree the dissolution in 1834 of 'all convents, monasteries, colleges,
hospices and any other houses of the Regular Orders', and the con-
fiscation of their property. Although the Orders were by then some-
what decayed, this measure nevertheless had the effect of attenuating
the religious life of the country, especially in the south where perhaps
three or four friars had maintained the ecclesiastical presence in many
communities: in such places a tradition was broken which would be
very difficult to re-establish. In other ways the liberal-monarchical
regime's control over the Church's administrative life was so great as
to make of Portugal a sort of semi-autonomous Greek Exarchate. The
royal placet, definitively established under Pombal, was upheld in nine-
teenth-century constitutions and thus free communications between
the Papacy and the Church in Portugal were non-existent; in addition,
pastorals were subject to governmental approval. The bishops were
appointed by the State and were therefore effectively ecclesiastical
civil servants: the removal of Miguelist-appointed bishops not only
brought about the confusion of a schism but also amply demonstrated
the dependence of the clergy upon the State's pleasure. The State also
took it upon itself to nominate parish priests and this grip was
tightened by a decree of 1862 making appointments dependent on the
result of a civil examination conducted by the Ministry of Ecclesiastical
Affairs. At all levels, then, ecclesiastical appointments were subject to
the same pressures of corruption, friendship, patronage and suitability
of political opinions as secular bureaucratic appointments: the
Episcopate consisted only of shadows of bishops. Furthermore, with
the amortization of property prohibited, the clergy depended on the
State for their stipends; priests were controlled by parish councils of
which they were not members by right.
Church and State remained united for the protection of the Catholic
religion, but canonical penalties had no legal force and it was a crime
for anybody to challenge the State's rights in ecclesiastical matters.
Such State control undoubtedly contributed to the decline of religion,
but many of the clergy would also seem to have been accomplices.
When sees were not vacant, bishops were often absentee - the average
nineteenth-century prelate having little contact with clergy or people
and caring little for pastoral visitations or the standards or training of
priests. No diocesan synods were held and the foundation of seminaries
proceeded only slowly in the second half of the century, when the
State's ban was ended. Parish clergy often saw their calling simply as
Robinson: The Catholic Revival in Portugal, 1900-1930 347

the means of making a meagre livelihood; absenteeism, ignorance and

neglect were the norm, with the result that catechizing fell into
abeyance and the whole religious life of the country atrophied. These
factors, when added to the loss of social status through impoverish-
ment, discouraged vocations. It seemed symbolic that only four
Portuguese bishops should attend the Vatican Council of 1869-70. The
review Eco de Roma at that time summed up the extent of
de-Christianization in doleful terms: 'Religion and its practice for many
mere formality and convention, without the mass of the people yet
ceasing to be Catholic and religious. Everything secularised, overrun,
disorganised, and in a slow agony, with no beacons to shine out and
provide the Lord's flock with a firm and clear light. If some good be
done, it is mainly the work of a few good priests and of the faithful,
and without this, desolation would be almost complete.'1
The first indication of a revival of Portuguese Catholicism for
Fortunato de Almeida was the protest of clergymen and laity
against the Italian seizure of Rome in 1870, but the revival cannot
really be considered as under way until the end of the century.
A Papal Brief of 1872 urged Portuguese Catholics to organize in
defence of religion, but the Catholic Associations then created in
four cities proved ineffective; the only lasting achievement was the
foundation of A Palavra in Oporto, the main Catholic newspaper until
1911. In an encyclical letter of 1886, Pope Leo XIII exhorted
Portuguese Catholics to unite to regain the liberties of the Church
but there were no immediate results of significance. In the 1880s
diocesan boundaries were redrawn and cathedral chapters showed
renewed signs of life and a number of Catholic congresses were held
from 1889; these were initially ineffectual, while the seventh
centenary celebrations for St. Antony, held in Lisbon in 1895,
ended in fiasco when anticlericals broke up the main procession.
The principal cause of revival lay, in fact, in the gradual return of the
Orders, which in turn rekindled anticlerical passions, and in the
foundation of a network of seminaries which was complete by the
1890s. Though short of funds and often providing instruction of an
unsatisfactory standard, the seminaries nevertheless did help to
raise the quality of the clergy, including the Episcopate, towards the
end of the century, while problems of recruitment were eased with
the establishment of preparatory schools. The Faculty of Theology at
Coimbra stagnated, but this was to some extent offset by the
foundation of the Portuguese College in Rome in 1899.
The Orders began to reappear in Portugal from the 1850s and in
348 Journal of Contemporary History

1910 they possessed or controlled some 164 establishments.2 Un-

doubtedly the most important was the Society of Jesus, which in 1880
found it worthwhile to create a Portuguese Province. Its educational
influence was evidenced in the colleges of Campolide and Sao Fiel, the
best boys' schools in the country, and its members were active in
furthering the growth of a Catholic press; in 1902 the Society started
a prestigious review of the natural sciences, Broteria. The Jesuits, like
the other Orders making a clandestine return (Franciscans,
Benedictines, Little Sisters of the Poor, etc.), were responsible for
getting the Catholic movement going where the secular clergy had failed
and nowhere was their achievement more clearly visible than in the
Association of the Apostolate of Prayer, which in 1909 had 1,501
branches and claimed a membership of over two million - about half
the total population.3 The 1890s witnessed an important increase in
the number of religious institutes, including almshouses, orphanages,
hospitals, colleges, missionary bodies and convent schools, which were
almost the only girls' schools in the country at that time. Clerical
authors noted also, with some relief, the recrudescence of popular
piety after the 1870s, the Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Conception
being especially favoured for devotion.
Two more manifestations of the revival at the turn of the century
were the Nationalist Party and the Centro Academico de Democracia
Crista (CADC). The significance of the foundation of a small Catholic
student society in Coimbra lay in the fact that the Catholic students
of previous decades had never thought of such a thing; they had
simply got on with their studies and endured the anti-Christian ethos
of radical humanism, anarchism and republicanism created by the
militant minority. The foundation of the club by Professor Sousa
Gomes betokened the modest beginnings of the reconquest of the
bourgeois elite from erroneous doctrines and also a new and more com-
bative spirit. The club took the title CADC in 1903 in deference to
the social 'democratic' reformism advocated in Leo XIII's recent
Graves de Communi, and was something of a ginger group in Cat
circles. It aimed at organizing Catholic students, at propagating Pa
social teaching and at helping the Society of St. Vincent de Paul (wh
was just starting to make headway), as well as the Catholic Worki
men's Clubs which were then being formed. It cooperated also
other nascent bodies such as the Good Press Crusade, the catechizi
League of Social Action, the Catholic Youth movement and the Lea
against Blasphemy. Through its periodical, Estudos Sociaes, it soug
to keep Portuguese Catholics abreast of the Catholic and Thom
Robinson: The Catholic Revival in Portugal, 1900-1930 349

revival which was further advanced in other countries - notably

France - by study of foreign models of organization. Instaurare omnia
in Christo became the neo-Thomist motto of Portuguese as of other
Catholics: religious and social issues were more important than forms
of government.
A political Centro Nacional, drawing its inspiration from Germany
and Belgium, appeared in the 1890s but it was not until 1903 that the
desire to propagate Papal doctrines and re-Christianize public life led
to the definitive establishment of the Nationalist Party. This was an
attempt to rally Catholics for political action beneath the banner of
'Country and Religion' within the framework of the existing regime.
Its patrons were the bishops and it incorporated Legitimists and was
always controversial. Its leader, Jacinto Candido da Silva (a former
Regenerator Minister), insisted on its non-confessional character as a
political party but most of its other proponents, like its political
adversaries, preferred to see it as a specifically Catholic party - indeed,
as the Catholic party. Its aim was the re-Christianization of
institutions and national and social regeneration through adherence to
Papal principles. It claimed to be a disinterested anti-party in the
parliamentary arena and collaborated with Joao Franco's administra-
tive dictatorship. Although it was never a strong parliamentary force,
its social programme of more justice for peasants and workers was
seen as a challenge by Republicans in particular. By 1910 it had
become the bete noire of Republican propaganda with its supporters'
talk of a Portuguese Kulturkampf and the obligation of all Catholics
to join it as the best bulwark of religion in danger.
To ask which came first - the Catholic revival or the anticlerical
revival -- is like asking whether the hen or the egg came first. Pombal
and then the liberals had changed the status quo in the eighteenth and
early nineteenth centuries and now, towards the end of the nineteenth
century, it was the turn of the Catholics to react against the prevailing
climate of positivistic liberalism. The 'religious question' really came to
the fore in public life in 1901 and was the issue around which opinions
polarized for the remaining years of the Monarchy (especially after
1908); but just as a reinvigoration of Catholic life with the return of the
Orders can be discerned before this date, so laicism and anticlericalism
among Monarchists and Republicans existed earlier. The Republican
movement was traditionally anticlerical and its political programmes
always called for separation of Church and State, the abolition of
religious educatioo in schools, civil marriage and civil registration.
Campaigns and scandals were frequent and usually involved charges
350 Journal of Contemporary History

of moral turpitude against clerics: Jesuits were accused of kidnapping

children to extract human oil from them and in 1891 a nun was alleged
to have poisoned a young girl for unsavoury reasons. From 1901, how-
ever, the temperature rose and militant Catholics and anticlericals each
fed upon the rumoured misdeeds of the other. The occasion that
brought the 'religious question' to the forefront of politics was the
'Calmon affair' of February 1901: the daughter of the Brazilian Consul
in Oporto wanted to enter a convent but her father was against it, so
after mass one morning she tried to make a break from her parents with
clerical connivance. The minor commotion was made into a national
scandal and led to some rioting, a reassertion of his liberalism from
King Carlos, the closure of seventeen religious houses and the pro-
mulgation of a controverisal decree by Hintze Ribeiro's government in
April 1901, which sought to establish a via media. Governmental
authorization was required for religious associations, which could
engage in charitable, educational, welfare or missionary work, but
cloisters were specifically prohibited; such associations had to be
subject to Portuguese ecclesiastical authority and to State super-
intendence.
The Decree satisfied neither side: Catholic annoyance prompted the
foundation of the Nationalist Party and the CADC and generally led
to increased militancy, while anticlericals formed Juntas Liberais
to agitate for full and strict enforcement of all legislation concerning
the Church and the Orders. Both sides henceforth sought to enlist pop-
ular sympathies and minor incidents were magnified into national
crises. In 1904 the Bishop of Braganza closed his seminary and expelled
some alumni following an internal riot, but he omitted to inform the
government: the Minister of Justice, Alpoim, was quick to invoke the
law of 1845 which stated that such matters came under civil
jurisdiction. In 1908 the most celebrated scandal broke over t
seminary at Beja, which had been run by the lax clerical AnSa broth
the new Bishop sacked them, whereupon the reprobate broth
obtained the backing of the Minister of Justice and launched
scurrilous campaign about the Bishop's private life. The Bishop ref
to reinstate the brothers and the Minister resigned when his cabin
colleagues decided not to take sterner action. Republican papers
Mundo and A Lanterna inveighed against the 'black legend' and rea
of Jesuitism, ultramontane plots, enslaving clerical reaction
Papolatry, while Catholic organs such as Portugal and O Petar
replied in kind, denouncing the satanic Masonic subversion of
demagogic Republican dogs, bandits, hypocrites and riff-raff.
Robinson: The Catholic Revival in Portugal, 1900-1930 351

Monarchy of King Manuel became an integral part of the controversy

and popular rumours alleged that the Queen-Mother often travelled by
coach between the Jesuit College of Campolide and the Paso das
Necessidades through a secret underground passage.4 There were in
fact no Jesuits in the royal household but this was not important to
Republicans who applied the term to any Catholic. In 1910, in an
effort to save the Monarchy, Teixeira de Sousa's government tried to
stem the Republican tide by dissolving the community of Spanish and
pro-Nationalist Marian Fathers at Aldeia da Ponte; plans to move
against the Jesuit front association 'Faith and Country' were apparently
overtaken by the Republican revolution of 5 October. These policies
cooled the ardour of Nationalists for the Monarchy while stimulating
ideas of saving the King from himself.
By 1910, then, the religious question had become the most
important political issue and was inextricably intertwined with the
question of regime. As Afonso Costa explained: 'Political reaction went
hand in hand with religious reaction. The country was a dependency of
Jesuitism, which dominated King Manuel.'s According to Republicans
the Church, manipulated by the Jesuits, was the enemy of civilization,
but the natural course of history would permit the progress of science
and reason to cause the withering away of the superstition that was
religion. The Catholic revivial was consequently seen as a conspiracy to
pervert the course of history and stern action was justifiable in the
face of this unwelcome aberration. Anti-Catholics certainly believed
in the reality of the progress made by the Catholic movement, but saw
it as artificially stimulated by sinister minds. From the Catholic stand-
point the revival had indeed grown to significant proportions by 1910,
even though the less complacent were aware of weaknesses: in Portugal
it possessed no great thinker and no greater organizer; energy and
enthusiasm were frittered away on too broad a front because there was
no overall strategy - a lack of leadership for which only the Hierarchy,
still generally satisfied with the liberal Monarchy, could be held
responsible. Nor was the revival immune from a native weakness for
complacency springing from an over-emphasis on externals: for
example, to translate the statutes of a foreign workers' club was not
the same as creating a genuine Catholic workers' organization.6
With the Republic in being, the anticlericals quickly set about the
juridical implementation of their programme, while urban mobs
smashed up some Catholic clubs and newspaper offices. From October
1910 to February 1911 decree-laws were issued expelling the Jesuits -
fewer than 400 in number in all Portuguese territories - and dissolving
352 Journal of Contemporary History

all other Orders and expropriating their property; abolishing religious

oaths; closing the Faculty of Theology and ending religious teaching
in schools; banning the wearing of cassocks (talares) and allowing
divorce; and making civil registration of births, marriages and deaths
compulsory: only civil marriage was henceforth legally valid.7 The
initial ecclesiastical response was temperate, several bishops and the
Catholic press publicly accepting the Republic, but the first clash
soon came, in February 1911, over the reading of a collective pastoral
without prior governmental authorization. This prompted the govern-
ment to exile the Bishop of Oporto from his diocese and declare the
see vacant; many priests were arrested, but pardoned if they promised
to be good boys in future.
In their pastoral the Episcopate declared their collective indifference
to forms of government and instructed Catholics loyally to obey the
constituted powers without mental reservations, although at the same
time they protested against the 'anti-Catholic' decrees and reminded
the faithful: lex injusta, nulla lex.8 In a letter dated 15 March the
Pope, St. Pius X, expressed his approval of this episcopal policy of
accepting the regime but rejecting unjust laws.9 Some clerical
spokesmen, however, still voiced hopes for 'a free Church in a free
State' and cited the examples of Brazil and the USA as suitable models.
It was noted too that separation had benefited the Church in France,
though Republicans were reminded that the Pope had condemned
the associations cultuelles created by the French law.1 0
The Republicans seemed satisfied that there had been no great
popular reaction to the suppression of the Orders and so went ahead
with their plans to exorcise the international clerical spectre and thus
allow Catholicism to die a natural death in Portugal in the next two or
three generations. Costa's Decree-Law for the Separation of the State
from the Churches appeared on 20 April 1911 and proclaimed
complete religious liberty, the Roman Church henceforth being on an
equal footing with other sects. Religion was to be firmly under State
control: each parish was to have a lay Corpora ao encarregada do
culto which could be appointed by the local authority and of which
ministers of religion could not be members. All Church property was
nationalized, but such churches and ornaments as the State deemed
necessary for the practice of religion could still be used for acts of
worship, albeit in the presence of a government agent. There were
severe restrictions on worship after sunset, on bell-ringing, processions,
religious funerals, the public display of religious emblems, communi-
cations between priests and clerical freedom of movement. Cemeteries
Robinson: The Catholic Revival in Portugal, 1900-1930 353

were secularized, the number of seminaries reduced to five and put

under government control without preparatory schools, foreign and
foreign-trained priests banned, and censorship of ecclesiastical pro-
nouncements enforced. The State, not the Church, was responsible for
ecclesiastical discipline and could redraw parish boundaries. Priests with
a clean record -- criticism of the authorities themselves or their rights
or actions was forbidden - were eligible for State stipends (pensoes) to
be paid through the cultuais, and free accommodation was a condition
of acceptance. It was a tough law, but one which Republicans agreed
was the lei basilar of their regime; claiming that it was not hostile to
Catholicism, they insisted that it met a social need in protecting
Portugal from clerical oppression.
The episcopal response was to reiterate their continued respect for
authority and obedience to the constituted powers insomuch as these
were compatible with their ecclesiastical duties; but to accept the Law
meant apostasy and the only attitude possible was therefore non
possumus. The prelates, nevertheless, emphasized that they considered
themselves 'plaintiffs' and not 'rebels', although the Law, which could
be summed up in the four words 'injustice, oppression, spoliation,
mockery', invaded the spiritual sphere and signified enslavement and
persecution rather than separation. The Pope, in two encyclicals which
were denied the placet, fully endorsed the Episcopate's stand.'1
Catholic resistance to the Law was, in general, non-violent and often
took the form of a clerical strike and straightforward non-cooperation.
The opposition would seem to have been strongest in rural areas,
particularly in parts of the north, where the Church was still the focus
of social life and whence came limited clerical and popular support for
the Monarchist incursions of 1911-12. In southern regions it would
seem that indifference was the prevailing attitude to both clericalism
and anticlericalism: life went on much as before, though it was often
found more convenient and cheaper not to bother with religious
marriage ceremonies. Enforcement of the Law was ultimately depen-
dent on local authorities and the degree of their anticlerical zeal varied.
Successive governments, in fact, had little success in overcoming
Catholic disobedience, even though by spring 1912 all the bishops on
the mainland (except the senile Bishop of Coimbra) had been exiled
from their dioceses for instructing their clergy not to cooperate,
especially regarding the schismatic cultuais. The disciplining of priests
and threats to close and confiscate churches were eventually abandoned
as counter-productive, while the deadlines for accepting pensoes and
forming cultuais were extended again and again. Of about 4,000 clergy
354 Journal of Contemporary History

in Portugal, 791 were officially listed as provisional pensionistas by

December 1913; the figures showed that acceptance of pensoes was
highest in the distritos of Beja (66), Angra do Heroismo (40) and
Evora (35), and lowest in Oporto (4), Braga (6) and Viana do Castelo
(10). It must be remembered, however, that pensoes were to be paid
through cultuais, and only 234 of these, many of them allegedly staffed
by anticlericals, had been set up by October 1913.12 With the failure
of Costa's government of 1913-14 to produce results, there came a
general Republican realization that they had been checkmated by
what Costa himself called 'ultramontane fanatics'.1 3 President Manuel
de Arriaga and Premier Bernardino Machado began to move in the
direction of conciliation with an amnesty for all those who had in-
fringed the Law's provisions; the bishops returned to their sees, except
for the Bishop of Beja who, in 1910, had sought refuge in Spain and
then been deposed by the government.
Minimal Catholic demands were for the restoration of internal
self-government to the Church, notably by abolition of the schismati
cultuais - priests who accepted these were liable to excommunication
the return of all churches and ornaments; ecclesiastical control over
seminaries; more freedom for religious teaching; abolition of the placet;
and an end to the pensoes, at least in their existing form.1 4 To bring
pressure to bear in furtherance of these demands, the Episcopate issued
an appeal to the faithful on 10 July 1913, the day the Republic broke
off relations with the Holy See. The bishops discerned 'symptoms of
Catholic revival' in increased devotion, particularly among women,
and increased church attendance and taking of the Sacraments in some
regions, including the capital. The clergy, 'apart from rare and
deplorable exceptions', had resisted nobly, and youth associations
were spreading. However many of the Catholics 'constituting the great
majority of the Portuguese nation' were still not doing their bit and it
was for this reason that the Hierarchy propounded an organizational
strategy of 'union' to make for greater strength. Farmers, businessmen,
journalists, indeed all social classes, should follow the examples of
French, German, Belgian and Italian Catholics: God would help those
who helped themselves. They should enrol in 'a sort of moral
federation' for activity in all spheres under episcopal leadership.
The new organization was simply to be called Uniao Catolica and it
aspired in the long term to instaurare Lusitaniam in Christo.1 5
Evaluation of the success of this episcopal strategy may be sought
under two broad headings: legislative revision and political activity;
and socio-religious activity.
Robinson: The Catholic Revival in Portugal, 1900-1930 355

With regard to Church-State relations, the years 1915-40 saw pro-

gressive revision of the legislation of 1910-11. In general, the dominant
Democratic Republicans opposed this process, while other Republican
groups sought to soothe Catholic feelings without abandoning civil
supremacy. Moderate Republicans saw by 1913-14 that harassment of
the Church was counter-productive and they justified revision of the
juridical status quo on the grounds that this was the best way to
consolidate Republic institutions. President Arriaga's appeasement
policy began to be implemented by the extra-parliamentary government
of Pimenta de Castro in February 1915 when some churches previously
closed were reopened, another amnesty was announced and it was
decreed that cultuais could only consist of practising Catholics.1 6
The return of the Democrats with the revolution of 14 May 1915
halted further concessions, but the need for national unity during the
Great War emphasized the desirability of some rapprochement, as in
France. During A.J. de Almeida's government of (secular) 'sacred
union' in 1916-17, the regime initiated contacts with the Vatican with
a view to a settlement. However, these were ended under Costa's
government of April-December 1917 and harassment of Catholics began
again; by December two bishops, the Primate and the Cardinal-
Patriarch, had been expelled from their dioceses for minor infringements
of the Law of Separation. A deaf ear was turned to the Hierarchy's
requests for chaplains to serve with the fighting forces. An end to the
exile of the prelates came with the overthrow of the Democrats by
Sidonio Pais in December 1917 and Catholics hailed the dawn in
Portugal of that new age of religiosity towards which they believed the
'sublime and terrible holocaust' of world war would lead.1 7
The Unionist Moura Pinto's Decree of 22 February 1918 relaxed the
State's control over the formation of cultuais and restrictions on
brotherhoods, permitted acts of worship outside churches and the
wearing of talares, gave more guarantees for the free use of churches
and ornaments, allowed the creation under ecclesiastical supervision of
seminaries with preparatory schools, and ended both the placet and the
offensive strings attached to pensoes. Catholic opinion was
disappointed at the small scale of the modifications, but found some
solace in a satisfactory solution to the problem of military chaplains
and, in July, the reopening of the Republic's relations with the Holy
See.1 8
Anticlericals fulminated against such betrayals of the essence of the
Republic, but Sid6nio Pais had created a situation in which the Papacy
would be prepared to insist on the faithful's fuller acceptance of the
356 Journal of Contemporary History

Republic in return for juridical concessions. Although the outlook

again appeared black after Sidonio's assassination and the abortive
Monarchist revolution of 1919, the returning Democrats found that
Sidonio's surgery had removed the worst sources of conflict. While they
were themselves opposed to further retreats, their moderate Republican
adversaries all advocated more revisions. The anticlerical temperature
of the 1920s was generally lower than in the previous decade. Agree-
ments were reached about overseas missions, bishops and ministers
were seen and heard to exchange greetings and, in 1923, President
Almeida, who recognized that 'almost the whole of the nation follows
the Catholic creed', placed the Cardinal's hat on the Nuncio's head in
the traditional manner of preceding kings. 9 Although Catholic
revindications had not been satisfied, President Machado felt able to
declare in February 1926 that, thanks to the Pope, Church-State
conflict was a thing of the past.20
The Military Dictatorship, brought in by the revolution of 28 May
1926, implemented the programme of conservative Republicans by
giving juridical recognition and rights, under State supervision, to the
cultuais, for which the bishops were now to be responsible; more
property was handed back to the Church for its use and administration;
state pension rights were extended to all clergy, processions were
allowed and religious education in private schools definitively
permitted, while the Missionary Statute filled out earlier legislation.2 1
The Episcopate expressed their gratitude for the introduction of this
state of 'relative liberty', but still stuck to their demands for full
recognition of the juridical personality of the Church, as of religious
associations and religious marriage, and the return of religious instruc-
tion to all schools.22 For these they had to wait until the New State
and the Concordat of 1940, and even then their aspirations were not
fully satisfied. The Concordat retained juridical separation in harmony
with the State, which in some respects upheld the regalist tradition.
There was no compensation for the spoliation of 1911; as the present
Cardinal-Patriarch has observed, 'the Portuguese Church did not wait
for the (Second Vatican) Council to be poor.'23
The progress made towards the recovery of the Church's liberties
was largely a reflection of the faithful's will to resist the anticlerical
laws and to press for their revision. The Episcopate's Appeal of 1913
called for union, and the manifestation of the Uniao Catolica in the
political sphere was the Centro Catolico Portugues (CCP), an
autonomous non-party pressure group dependent on the Hierarchy and
seeking to organize Catholics for the re-Christianization of public life
Robinson: The Catholic Revival in Portugal, 1900-1930 357

by legal means in obedience to the existing regime. It was founded in

February 1915 in Oporto and its leaders in the first phase of its
existence included former Nationalists, such as Alberto Pinheiro Torres,
who were willing temporarily to set aside their Monarchist convictions
for their higher duty to the Church, as well as priests and members of
the CADC. It sought to ally with like-minded conservatives to achieve its
aims, and two priests were returned to Parliament in 1915.
In November 1919, the CCP was remodelled under episcopal super-
vision so as to reassert its separate identity and loyalty to the
constituted powers. The experience of Monarchist political conduct
in 1918-19, the beginnings of rapprochement with the Holy See, and
the pressures of the Nuncio to demonstrate Catholic willingness to
accept the Republic through a policy of ralliement specifically urged
by Pope Benedict XV, forced Catholic Monarchists either to submit or
go their separate way. In a stern collective pastoral in September 1922,
aimed at removing any possible doubts and misunderstandings, the
bishops exhorted the faithful unconditionally to follow the Vatican's
line and never to attack CCP policy.24 Many Catholics, most notably
the former CCP leader Fernando de Sousa (editor of the main
Catholic daily A Epoca), strongly objected to the 'hermeneutic
evolution' of episcopal texts and accused CCP leaders like Lino Neto
and Oliveira Salazar of unjustified adesivismo (adherence to the
Republic). They argued that it was equally licit to work for the
Hierarchy's objectives by advocating restoration of the Monarchy on
condition that the latter respected the full liberties of the Church;
the Royalist leader Alfredo Pimenta even used Papal texts to
demonstrate that the Hierarchy and the Pope were in error on this
point.25 Nonetheless, the bishops and the CCP insisted on a policy of
l'tglise d'abord in matters in any way related to religion, and
formally reproved A Epoca for its alleged 'work of treason'. The
Episcopate welcomed the Papal condemnation of Maurrassian doctrines
of politique d'abord in 1926 and solemnly informed Portuguese
Catholics, among whom such doctrines were influential in the 1920s,
that the condemnation of such errors was not confined to France
alone.26
The CCP's parliamentary representation never exceeded seven; its
electoral successes were always confined to the Minho, Beira and
Madeira, and it failed to rally all Catholics to its standard, but by 1926
it had become an important pressure group and political proof of the
Hierarchy's loyalty to the Republic. If few positive achievements could
be attributed to it, its negative function was of great significance: by its
358 Journal of Contemporary History

existence and the consequent creation of divisions within families, it

prevented the emergence of a united Catholic-Monarchist opposition to
the Republic and thereby played an important role in safeguarding
Republican institutions before and after 1926. It also provided a useful
training-ground for a new generation of politicians emanating from the
CADC, whose leadership fought off an Integralist take-over bid in the
mid-1920s. Albeit as individuals, Oliveira Salazar and others turned the
Military Dictatorship to their advantage and effected a change in the
government elite and its ideology which marked the end of the liberal
century. The intellectual influence and Thomist propaganda of the
CADC during the First Republic laid the foundations for the New
State, while CADC members contributed a great deal to the general
re-Christianization of public life which then took place.2 7
Changes in the juridical relationship of Church and State, in
institutions and in the official ethos were important, but what the
Episcopate in 1913 had considered of greater importance were the
intensification of religious life and the spiritual reconquest of
Portuguese society as the basis for a Christian social order. The bishops'
organizational strategy aimed at the creation of an infrastructure of lay
bodies to aid the secular clergy in their apostolate. In the two decades
following the Appeal, most of the bodies active before 1910 took on a
new lease of life and new ones were added, often thanks to the
activities of CADC members who performed the functions of an elite
in this as in other spheres. Among the organizations revivified were the
Catholic Youth movement, the women's League of Christian Social
Action (which launched the Crusade of Prayers and Communions in
1911), the Society of St. Vincent de Paul and the Good Press League.
In the years following 1913 there was a marked increase in the number
of Catholic publications and all dioceses started to issue bulletins.
However, the question of a national daily posed problems. Liberdade
and A Ordem met the need for a time in Oporto and Lisbon
respectively, but the reappearance of A Ordem as A Epoca in 1920
led to difficulties as it was critical of the bishops' policy; not until 1923
was Novidades founded as the official organ of the Hierarchy. New
organizations formed after 1913 included the Obra de Sao Jose (to
help poor and sick clergy), a Catholic students' federation, a national
boy scout corps, and the vital Congregations of Christian Doctrine for
catechizing. Portuguese Catholic Action was organized in 1933-34.
Outward signs of religious intensification included such events as
the Beatification of Nun'Alvares in 1918 and the Consecration of the
Nation to the Sacred Heart in 1928 as an act of national reparation,
Robinson: The Catholic Revival in Portugal, 1900-1930 359

while in 1918 the first diocesan synod since 1761 was held in Braga;
it was followed by the first National Eucharistic Congress in 1925 and
the Portuguese Plenary Council in 1926. There was also renewed
interest in liturgy and ecclesiastical studies. The intensification of
popular devotion was evidence of a general revival and this came to
focus increasingly on the controversial appearances of Our Lady of
the Rosary near Fatima in 1917. Although the ecclesiastical authorities
and educated Catholics were initially sceptical, popular belief in the
visions led the new Bishop of Leiria to announce the possibility of a
miracle in 1922. The official Republican response was to attempt to
ban pilgrimages to Fatima, while one unofficial answer was to dynamite
the chapel at Cova da fria: both, as could be expected, proved
singularly counter-productive and the cult continued to grow. In 1930
the Church officially permitted the cult and declared the visions
'worthy of credence.'2 8
One of the key indices of the extent of the religious revival lay in the
recruitment of clergy, and episcopal exhortations rightly stressed the
need for higher clerical standards, catechizing and vocations. Between
1911 and 1918 the number of seminaries was legally reduced to five,
but in most dioceses semi-clandestine arrangements allowed a measure
of continuity. Republican actions seem to have been responsible for
an initial loss of seminarists: the Episcopal Seminary of Oporto found
its first-year intake more than halved between 1910 and 1915 (from 42
to 15).29 The ecclesiastical authorities were faced by the problems of
finding new buildings and funds; the latter was always a worry despite
the faithful's contributions and the use of the proceeds from the
Pontifical Indulgences, because most seminarists were too poor to
help towards their own maintenance. It was in the early 1920s that the
seminaries really got under way again and this meant that there was
lost ground to be recovered. Given the length of time necessary to
train priests, there was bound to be a time-lag before the revival bore
fruit; in the meantime the average age of the priesthood would rise, with
the attendant difficulties of sickness and mortality: in 1930 three-
quarters of the priests in the Patriarchate of Lisbon were over fifty.30
These factors left out of account the unforeseeable, such as the world
influenza epidemic of 1918 which carried off 24 clergy in the diocese
of Braganza alone - around one-seventh of the total number.31
Rudimentary statistics for the period circa 1910-40 reflect the
crisis and continuing insufficiency of numbers. The number of
ordinations in the diocese of Oporto was 256 in the decade 1899-
1909, 159 from 1910 to 1918, and 128 from 1919 to 1930. With
360 Journal of Contemporary History

its 287 ordinations, Oporto was the premier diocese in the years
1910-30, followed by Braga (273) and Coimbra (117); the least
productive as could be expected, were Beja (2), the Algarve (13)
and Evora (14).32 The total number of ordinations for the period
1910-30 was equivalent to between a quarter and a third of the total
number of clergy on the mainland (3,765 in 1932). The 1930s
were in part a decade of stagnation: in 1932, some 2,556 of the 3,857
parishes on the mainland had a priest, whereas the figure for 1940
was 2,576 out of 3,861 parishes. However, the number of seminarists
rose in the same period from 2,551 to 3,263. The figures suggest
that the dioceses best provided with clergy, apart from Funchal and
Angra do Heroismo, were Portalegre, Leiria, Oporto and Braga, while
by far the worst were Beja and Evora, followed by the Algarve and
Braganza.33 There are indications that the overall quality of the clergy
somewhat improved, as did that of the bishops.
In general, it may be said that Portugal shared in the Western
European Catholic revival of the early twentieth century. Whether
the anticlerical measures of 1910-11 stimulated revival through
adversity or merely interrupted an established trend by bringing
temporary dislocation is a difficult question to answer, but it may
be noted that contemporaries - clerical and anticlerical alike -
generally favoured the former interpretation, while the encourage-
ment of the Orders was absent after 1910. There was a reinvigoration
of ecclesiastical life and increased devotion, particularly among women
and the rural population in northern areas. As in France, juridical
separation proved in many ways beneficial to the life of the Church.
As in France too, the social significance of religious revival would seem
to have resided mainly in the spiritual reconquest of important
sections of the bourgeoisie and intelligentsia. The reconversion of a
considerable part of the elite meant sweeping changes in official
attitudes to religion.
However, it would seem that relative success did not prove an al-
together unmixed blessing. The changes in institutions led to some
complacency among Portuguese Catholics about the state of religion
in their country. Little progress was made in regard to the re-
Christianization of the south or the urban working class. In 1951
a luminary of the CADC wondered whether the religious state of the
nation had not been better fifty years before, while in the mid-1950s
one priest concerned with the shortcomings of the Catholic press com-
plained: 'Portuguese Catholics do not have Catholic minds and
characters . . . Our Catholics share the bourgeois sentiments of the
Robinson: The Catholic Revival in Portugal, 1900-1930 361

majority: "Everything's going all right . .. We are Catholics because our

forefathers were. And we don't want to know about any other reasons
for being so."'34 The revival had its limitations and fell short of that
profound re-Christianization of the whole of society that was the theme
of the Episcopate's Appeal in 1913. As the most eminent Portuguese
ecclesiastic of the century has said, 'there was a real Portuguese spring
.. but there was also a certain falta de preparafao.'3 5

NOTES

The author wishes to express his gratitude to the Calouste Gulben

Foundation (Lisbon) for granting hims a bolsa in 1973, thus allowing h
carry out research into the subject of this paper, which was first read
Workshop Conference on Modern Portugal held at the University of
Hampshire, Durham, N.H., in October 1973.

1. Quoted by Fortunato de Almeida, Hist6ria da Igreja em Port

(Coimbra 1910-24), vol IV-ii, 215 - this is still the monumental standard w
on the Church. A shorter and more modern account is P. Miguel de Oli
Hist6ria eclesiastica de Portugal (4th ed., Lisbon 1968).
2. For details see A.H.de Oliveira Marques, A Primeira Republica Portug
(Lisbon 1971?), 162-63.
3. Eurico de Seabra, A Egreja, as Congrega;oes e a Republica (2nd Ed.,
Lisbon, 1914?), 292.
4. Rocha Martins, D. Manuel II: Memorias para a Hist6ria do seu reinado
(Lisbon 1916?), vol II, 92.
5. Seabra, op. cit, 487-88.
6. Cf. Manuel I. Abindio da Silva, Nacionalismo e acVao catholica (Oporto
1909).

7. The most useful compendium for the laicizing legislation is Augusto

Oliveira, Lei da Separacao: Subsidios p..:a o estudo das relaCoes do Estado com
as igrejas sob a regime republicano (Lisbon 1914).
8. C6nego Joaquim Maria Lourenco, Situacao juridica da Igreja em
Portugal (Coimbra, 1943), 119; also O Mundo (Lisbon), 23-II-1911, and O
Seculo (Lisbon), 24-II-1911.
9. Echos do Minho (Braga), 1-X-1911.
10. P. Santos Farinha, Egreja Livre: Conferencia (Lisbon 1911).
11. Lourenco,op.cit, 171-81.
362 Journal of Contemporary History

12. Seabra, op. cit, 796-98 - a quasi-official Republican source.

13. Preface to Carlos de Oliveira (ed), Lei da Separa9ao do Estado das
Igrejas (Oporto 1914).
14. Domingos Pinto Coelho, A Separaaio: As reclama9oes dos catholicos
(Lisbon 1913).
15. Appello do Episcopado aos cath6licos portugueses (Guarda 1913);
16. Damiao Peres, Hist6ria de Portugal - Suplemento (Oporto 1954), 82.
17. J. Fernando de Souza, A Grande Guerra (Lisbon 1918); D. Manuel
Mendes da ConceiSao Santos (Bispo de Portalegre), Oradao funebre proferida
na Se Patriarchal por alma dos soldados portugueses mortos no campo de
batalha (Lisbon 1918).
18. Lourenco, op. cit, 197-209.
19. Ant6nio Jose de Almeida, Quarenta anos de vida literiria e politica
(Lisbon, 1933-34), vol IV, 291-300.
20. Lourenco, op. cit, 220-21.
21. Ibid, 225-33 & 485-94.
22. A Uniao (Lisbon), IV-1927 & XII-1929.
23. Statement by D. Ant6nio Ribeiro to Vatican Radio, in A Capital
(Lisbon), 23-III-1973. Text of Concordat in LourenSo, op. cit, 494-502.
24. Centro Catolico Portugues: sua organizaSao, funcionamento,
caracteristicas, e documentos respectivos (Lisbon 1928).
25. J. Fernando de .Souza, Accao cath6lica e politica nacional (Oporto
1922?); Alfredo Pimenta, A Repuiblica Portugueza em face da Igreja Cath6lica
e a polftica do Centro Catholico (Lisbon 1925).
26. Novidades (Lisbon), 18-II-1925 & 21-IV-1927.
27. Cf. Estudos (Coimbra), nos 4748 (1926), 182 (1939) & 298-301 (1951).
28. D. Jose Alves Correia da Silva (Bispo de Leiria), Carta pastoral sobre o
culto de Nossa Senhora de Fatima (Lisbon 1930).
29. P. Ant6nio Ferreira Pinto, Memoria historica e comemorativa da
fundacao, mudan:a e restauraCao do Seminario Episcopal do Porto (Oporto
1915), 111-13.
30. D. Manuel Goncalves Cerejeira (Cardial Patriarca de Lisboa), Obras
pastorais (Lisbon, 1936-71), vol I, 144.
31. F. de Almeida, op. cit, vol IV-iii, 83.
32. C6nego Ant6nio Ferreira Pinto, D. Ant6nio Barroso (Oporto 1931),
92-93.
33. Statistics from Anuario Catolico de Portugal, nos 3 &4 (Lisbon 1933 &
1941), 410-12 & 497-98 respectively.
34. P. Zacarias de Oliveira, A Imprensa catolica: Conferencia (Coimbra
1956), 22.
35. Statement by Cardinal Cerejeira to the author, Benfica, 5-IV-1973.