Expanding the Mystical Body of Christ and Serving the Empire: Colonial Geopolitics of the Portuguese and Spanish Catholic Church (1933-1975)

Abstract

This paper explores the geopolitical imagination of the Catholic Church, particularly in relation to the former colonies of Portugal and Spain during the late imperial period (1930–1975). At that time, authoritarian dictators with strong Catholic ideology ruled both countries. However, the relationship between the Catholic missionaries and the colonial authorities of the Iberian imperial states was not always in harmony. There were sometimes contradictions between them. The geopolitics of the Catholic Church and the colonial geopolitics of the Iberian states were convergent but not always coincident. This paper describes and analyses the Spanish and Portuguese states’ policies towards the missions. It also studies the missionary discourse in the metropolis, and its impact and reflection in the colonies.