About the Project

Nationalisms and populisms represent some of the most significant political and social phenomena shaping contemporary societies on a global scale. Despite a substantial body of scholarship on these topics, the connections with religious factors—especially when examined comparatively and transnationally—remain less explored, particularly during the crucial period of the Second World War and its aftermath. This project addresses precisely these gaps, investigating how religious actors, institutions, and discourses intersected with nationalist and populist dynamics across different contexts.

The CATO‑POPULISMOS project is a wide‑ranging scholarly initiative that mobilizes the newly opened Pius XII archives—released in March 2020 and covering the pontificate of Eugenio Pacelli (1939–1958)—to investigate how Catholic actors formulated, circulated, and interpreted ideas about nationalism and populism across Europe and Latin America. It examines how these debates took shape both within local Churches and within Vatican diplomacy. The project focuses in particular on the intersections between populism, nationalism, and Catholicism in Salazarism, Varguism, Francoism, and Peronism, exploring their ideological, cultural, pastoral, and political dimensions. More broadly, CATO‑POPULISMOS aims to analyze the role of the Catholic Church in relation to nationalist and populist movements in Portugal, Spain, Brazil, and Argentina. It also studies the language and resemanticization of devotional practices in these four contexts—both those encouraged by the Holy See (Marian devotions, Eucharistic worship, the social kingship of Christ) and those emerging locally, linked to national cults and, in some cases, to antisemitic elements within Catholic liturgy.