|
Portugal Roman Catholic Church
Like the armed forces, the Roman Catholic Church in
Portugal
had also declined in influence during the 1980s. The
church,
along with the military, had been one of the
historical
corporate units in society, long predating the state and
existing
parallel to it. As a result, Portugal was historically a
Roman
Catholic nation. Roman Catholicism was not only the sole
religion
of the country, but Roman Catholic beliefs also permeated
the
culture, the legal system, the society, and the polity.
Salazar
derived many of his corporatist beliefs from the papal
encyclicals, and during his long rule the church served as
an
indispensable pillar of the regime.
In recent decades, however, the church came to play a
lesser
role in people's lives as society became more secularized.
During
the 1974-76 period, the church helped turn the population
away
from the appeals of communism and radicalism, but since
those
tumultuous years the church has been quiescent
politically. The
church has, however, expressed itself on some issues, such
as the
legalization of abortion, on which it felt morally obliged
to
take a public stance. Polls of Portuguese showed that the
church's ranking among main interest groups had fallen
from
second- or third-most influential to seventh- or
eighth-most
influential.
Data as of January 1993
|
