Catholic and monarchist nationalism in twentieth-century Portugal

Abstract

The subject of this article is Christian nationalism in twentieth-century Portugal in its two ideological and organizational crystallizations. The first is the Nationalist Party (Partido Nacionalista), operating in the late period of constitutional liberal monarchy, founded in 1903 on the basis of Catholic circles, whose initiator, leader, and main theoretician was Jacinto Cândido da Silva (1857–1926). The second is the metapolitical movement created after overthrowing the monarchy in 1914, aimed against the Republic, called Integralismo Lusitano. Its leader and main thinker was António Sardinha (1887–1925), and after his untimely death — Hipólito Raposo. Both organizations united nationalist doctrine with Catholic universalism, declaring subordination to the idea of national Christian ethics and the social doctrine of the Catholic Church. The difference between them, however, was that, although the party led by Cândido was founded, i.a., to save the monarchy, after its collapse, it doubted the sense of combining the defence of Catholicism against the militant secularism of the Republic with monarchism. Lusitanian integralists, on the other hand, saw the salvation of national tradition and Christian civilization in the restoration of monarchy — not liberal, but organic, traditionalist, anti-parliamentary, anti-liberal, and legitimistic. Eventually, the Nationalist Party gave rise to the Catholic-social movement from which an António Salazar’s corporate New State (Estado Novo, 1889–1970) originated, while Lusitanian Integralism was the Portuguese quintessential reactionary counter-revolution, for which Salazarism was also too modernist.