The Postwar Period in Spain in the Italian and Vatican Papers: the Hypothesis of a Spanish Christian Democracy in the Perspective of the Monarchical Transition (1945-1950)

Abstract

The Postwar Period in Spain in the Italian and Vatican Papers: the Hypothesis of a Spanish Christian Democracy in the Perspective of the Monarchical Transition (1945-1950)

After the Second World War, Catholics are called to undo the problematic and unresolved knot of the relationship between religious vision and democracy. This process appears particularly complex in the context of Spain – a Mediterranean outpost of Catholicism and anti-communism – conditioned both by religious dynamics and by international interdependencies. This contribution, based on the documentation of the Vatican Secretariat of State, available for consultation from March 2020 after the opening of the archives of the Pontificate of Pius XII, and of that of the Embassy of Italy to the Holy See (not published in the Diplomatic Documents series Italians), analyzes the attitude of the Holy See towards the Spanish situation, suspended between different and incompatible political options: the recognition of the republican government in exile, the acceptance of Franco’s status quo, the monarchical transition. The contribution focuses above all on the hypothesis of the creation of a Spanish Christian Democracy on the Italian model; hypothesis considered with particular interest by the diplomacy of the Farnesina.

Received: 06/12/2020

Admitted: 24/04/2021