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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Portugal
Index
In the Portuguese constitution of 1976, church and
state were
again formally separated. The church continues to have a
special
place in Portugal, but for the most part it has been
disestablished. Other religions are now free to organize
and
practice their beliefs.
In addition to constitutional changes, Portugal became
a more
secular society. Traditional Roman Catholicism flourished
while
Portugal was overwhelmingly poor, rural, and illiterate,
but as
the country became more urban, literate, and secular, the
practice of religion declined. The number of men becoming
priests
fell, as did charitable offerings and attendance at mass.
By the
early 1990s, most Portuguese still considered themselves
Roman
Catholic in a vaguely cultural and religious sense, but
only
about one-third of them attended mass regularly.
Indifference to
religion was most likely among men and young people.
Regular
churchgoers were most often women and young children.
The church no longer had its former social influence.
During
the nineteenth century and on into the Salazar regime, the
church
was one of the most powerful institutions in the
country--along
with the army and the economic elite. In fact, military,
economic, governmental, and religious influences in
Portugal were
closely intertwined and interrelated, often literally so.
Traditionally, the first son of elite families inherited
land,
the second went into the army, and the third became a
bishop. By
the early 1990s, however, the Roman Catholic Church no
longer
enjoyed this preeminence but had fallen to seventh or
eighth
place in power among Portuguese interest groups.
By the 1980s, the church seldom tried to influence how
Portuguese voted, knowing such attempts would probably
backfire.
During the height of the revolutionary turmoil in the
mid-1970s,
the church urged its communicants to vote for centrist and
conservative candidates and to repudiate communists,
especially
in northern Portugal, but after that the church refrained
from
such an overt political role. The church was not able to
prevent
the enactment of the constitution of 1976, which separated
church
and state, nor could it block legislation liberalizing
divorce
and abortion, issues it regarded as moral and within the
realm of
its responsibility.
Data as of January 1993
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