ABSTRACT
The purpose of this chapter is to serve as a conclusion to the series of national case studies presented above and to reflect on some of the more general conclusions that it is possible to derive from the wealth of analysis they contain.1 Such an exercise must, given the very real diversity of Catholic political traditions and of the national political contexts in which they operated, be somewhat arbitrary. Catholic politics was too amorphous a phenomenon in the Europe of the 1920s and 1930s to be capable of reduction to a single satisfactory definition. Nevertheless, there is, I believe, a real virtue in engaging in a comparative analysis of this kind. During recent decades, there have been an impressive number of studies of Catholic political movements of the inter-war years that have enriched historical understanding of the complex mixture of spiritual, political and social impulses that underpinned their development. If there has, however, been a weakness in these excellent studies, it is that they have often been reluctant to reflect on the broader significance of their subject matter. Written within national historiographical traditions, they have understandably tended to emphasize national specificities at the expense of the broader trends shaping European Catholicism.2 Moreover, the affiliation of many of their authors to a consciously Catholic tradition of historical research has led them to accept the nature of their subject as self-evident. Seen from this perspective, the existence of a distinctive Catholic political culture has been assumed rather than questioned; unifying factors have taken precedence over internal divisions; and continuities have appeared more important than ruptures. There is much that is valid in what one might term this ‘organic’ interpretation of Catholic political development.3 Nevertheless, in attempting a comparative analysis of Catholic political movements, there is some value in seeking to transcend these implicit or explicit frontiers. Political Catholicism of the inter-war years needs to be viewed not merely from national and confessional perspectives, but also as a complex, rapidly shifting and European phenomenon.
