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Portugal The Salazar Regime
Under the dictatorship of António de Oliveira Salazar
(r.
1928-68), the church experienced a revival
(see The New State
, ch. 1). Salazar was himself deeply religious and infused
with
Roman Catholic precepts. Before studying law he had been a
seminarian; his roommate at the University of Coimbra,
Manuel
Gonçalves Cerejeira, later became cardinal patriarch of
Lisbon.
In addition, Salazar's corporative principles and his
constitution and labor statute of 1933 were infused with
Roman
Catholic precepts from the papal encyclicals Rerum
Novarum
(1891) and Quadragesimo Anno (1931).
Salazar's state was established on the principles of
traditional Roman Catholicism, with an emphasis on order,
discipline, and authority. Class relations were supposed
to be
based on harmony rather than the Marxist concept of
conflict. The
family, the parish, and Christianity were said to be the
foundations of the state. Salazar went considerably beyond
these
principles, however, and established a full-fledged
dictatorship.
His corporative state continued about equal blends of
Roman
Catholic principles and Mussolini-like fascism.
In 1940 a concordat governing church-state relations
was
signed between Portugal and the Vatican. The church was to
be
"separate" from the state but to enjoy a special position.
The
Concordat of 1940 reversed many of the anticlerical
policies
undertaken during the republic, and the Roman Catholic
Church was
given exclusive control over religious instruction in the
public
schools. Only Catholic clergy could serve as chaplains in
the
armed forces. Divorce, which had been legalized by the
republic,
was again made illegal for those married in a church
service. The
church was given formal "juridical personality," enabling
it to
incorporate and hold property.
Under Salazar, church and state in Portugal maintained
a
comfortable and mutually reinforcing relationship. While
assisting the church in many ways, however, Salazar
insisted that
it stay out of politics--unless it praised his regime.
Dissent
and criticism were forbidden; those clergy who stepped out
of
line--an occasional parish priest and once the bishop of
Porto--were silenced or forced to leave the country.
Data as of January 1993
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