Relations between the Holy See and Portugal

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Relations between the Holy See and Portugal
Relations between the Holy See and Portugal (Europe)
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Portugal Holy See

The relations between the Holy See and Portugal, describe the intergovernmental relationship between the Holy See and the Republic of Portugal . They traditionally maintain close, albeit changeable, relationships, based on the historically strong roots of the Roman Catholic Church in Portugal since the country's history.

John XXI. was Pope from September 15, 1276 until his death on May 20, 1277 , so far the only Portuguese in this office (as of 2017). A number of Catholic theologians, founders of orders and saints also came from Portugal, including Antonius of Padua , one of the 36 Church Doctors of the Roman Catholic Church.

history

Until the 15th century

Since the early 4th century AD, as in the entire Roman Empire , Christianization took place in today's Portugal , which was continued by the following Germanic tribes from the early 5th century. In the course of the Moorish invasion in 711, the Christian faith became an essential source of resistance against the new Muslim rulers. Despite extensive phases of exchange and peaceful coexistence between Arabs on the one hand and Mozarabs and Christians on the other, the Christian Reconquista predominantly determined the time of the Moorish presence.

The Christ Monastery in Tomar, founded by the Templars in 1162

With the help of Christian crusaders , the Arab territory was increasingly pushed back. Despite bitter conflict, especially with the Christian Kingdom of León and the Kingdom of Castile (today Spain), D. Afonso Henriques finally succeeded in establishing the independent Kingdom of Portugal in 1143 . With the papal bull Manifestis probatum of May 23, 1179, the Vatican recognized under Pope Alexander III. to independence and pronounced the legality of the Portuguese royal title.

King Alfonso III In 1279, with a renewed oath of allegiance to the Holy See, assured the subordination of the Portuguese kingdom. He thus settled the power struggle with the Holy See, which had reached a climax with the Bull Inter alia desiderabilia of 1245 and the excommunication of King Sancho II .

The papal bull Ad ea ex quibus legalized the establishment of the Christ Order in Portugal in 1319 , with which significant parts of the wealthy Templar Order , which had been dissolved since 1312, found a new home.

In connection with the expansion of the Portuguese voyages of discovery since the beginning of the 15th century, the papal bull dum diversas allowed the Portuguese to conquer non-Christian countries in 1452 , followed by the monopoly of trade and proselytization in 1455 with the bull Romanus Pontifex . The progressive expansion of the Portuguese colonial empire and the rise of the likewise Catholic Spain to a rival world power brought a number of new areas of conflict with them, which were clarified in further bulls, including 1493 Inter caetera , the 1494 the Treaty of Tordesillas and thus the division of the world into one Portuguese and a Spanish sphere of interest made possible.

From the 16th century to the middle of the first republic in 1919

After Portugal fell to Spain through succession in 1580, the country regained its independence in the Restoration War from 1640 onwards. With the Bull Ex Literis , Pope Clement X confirmed the independence of the Kingdom of Portugal in 1670.

Under King John V , Portugal began to move closer to the Holy See in the early 18th century, but then came into conflict with Rome as a result of its absolutist politics and especially its growing influence on the Church in Portugal. In 1728 diplomatic relations were interrupted. On November 17, 1732, a nuncio in Lisbon took up his work again. In 1738, King João V signed a concordat that further normalized relations.

The successful uprising on October 5, 1910 brought the Portuguese monarchy down and made the First Portuguese Republic possible , which initially had strong anti-clerical features.

After the devastating earthquake in Lisbon in 1755 , Portugal under King Joseph developed increasingly enlightened and absolutist . Above all, the influential Prime Minister Sebastião José de Carvalho e Mello (from 1769 as Marquês de Pombal) modernized the country in the spirit of the Enlightenment . Portugal came into conflict with the church again, so that between 1760 and 1770 diplomatic relations were suspended.

The Liberal Revolution in Portugal from 1821 onwards finally established anti-clerical currents in the country. The first liberal constitution (1821-1824) abolished the Inquisition and numerous special rights in Portugal and expropriated church orders in the country. The civil war that followed softened some of these measures, but the position of the church remained noticeably weaker than before.

In the course of the second half of the 19th century, social and republican ideas grew stronger in Portugal, which increasingly also bore anti-clerical features, especially among the predominantly anarcho-syndicalist working classes, but also in parts of bourgeois circles. This prompted Pope Leo XIII. , with his encyclical Pergrata nobis of September 14, 1886, to praise the country as a loyal Catholic companion and to urge the protection of the Church there.

With the proclamation of the First Portuguese Republic on October 5, 1910, the separation between church and state in Portugal was finally resolved and enshrined in the decree of April 20, 1911. There were u. a. the remaining Jesuit monasteries were closed and a large number of clergy were imprisoned. As a result, tensions between the new Portuguese government and the Holy See increased. With the encyclical Iamdudum in Lusitania of May 24, 1911, Pius X condemned the separation of church and state as oppression. Diplomatic relations were broken off on July 1, 1912. With the establishment of the dictatorship under Sidónio Pais at the end of 1917 and the withdrawal of the toughest anti-church measures by the Republicans, relations improved again and were resumed on July 9, 1918. On July 29, 1919, the Vatican recognized under Pope Benedict XV. the Portuguese Republic officially.

Since the Estado Novo regime in 1932

Salazar in 1940, the year of the Concordat: Portugal's dictator came from the Catholic extreme right
Portugal's President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa with Pope Francis, state visit 2016

With the rise of the Catholic clerical fascist economist Salazar to dictator, the situation of the Church in Portugal improved significantly, although Salazar de facto pursued a strict separation of state and church and the 1933 constitution continued to guarantee religious freedom. The concordat of his Estado Novo with the Holy See in 1940 was nevertheless a high point of his ongoing rapprochement with the Catholic Church, which, in addition to a few privileges (including compulsory religious instruction, active missionary work in overseas territories, return of earlier confiscations of church property), above all was official and social Gained anchoring and remained protected from liberal and anti-clerical movements. In return, the Vatican undertook u. a. to name only politically unobjectionable bishops for Portugal who were previously checked by the Salazar government.

On July 18, 1950, the Salazar regime and the Vatican concluded a new agreement that de facto ended the previous Portuguese missionary sovereignty in the Far East.

The authoritarian regime in Portugal ended with the left-wing Carnation Revolution in 1974. A possible conversion of the country to the Eastern bloc did not materialize afterwards, since only a minority in the left revolution was Soviet communist oriented, in which also left Catholic forces were active. At the latest after the bourgeois forces prevailed in the Portuguese revolution in 1975, Portugal oriented itself clearly to the west. Relations between Lisbon and the Vatican have steadily improved since then.

In 2004, representatives of the Holy See and the Portuguese government signed a new concordat in Rome, replacing the old agreement of 1940.

Portuguese heads of government regularly visit the Vatican, most recently President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa , who, following his appointment on March 9, 2016, made a state visit to the Holy See on March 17.

The Portuguese Cardinal José Tolentino Mendonça has headed the Vatican Apostolic Archives and the Vatican Apostolic Library since 2018 .

Pope visits

John Paul II in Fátima, one of numerous pope statues in the country

Popes frequented Portugal and the pilgrimage site of Fátima . Benedict XVI. visited Fátima from May 11 to 14, 2010 on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the beatification of the visionary children Francisco and Jacinta Marto .

Before that, John Paul II was there a total of four times. a. 1982, when the Spaniard and radical Catholic traditionalist Juan María Fernández y Krohn carried out a failed assassination attempt on him.

Pope Francis last visited Fátima on May 12 and 13, 2017, on the 100th anniversary of the Marian apparitions there.

diplomacy

An apostolic nuncio is based in Lisbon . The current nuncio, Rino Passigato , was founded on November 8, 2008 by Pope Benedict XVI. appointed.

Portugal also has its own embassy to the Holy See . Ambassador to the Vatican State in Rome has been António José Emauz de Almeida Lima since November 25, 2017 .

Web links

Commons : Relations between the Holy See and Portugal  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h Overview of diplomatic relations with the Holy See at the Diplomatic Institute in the Portuguese Ministry of Foreign Affairs , accessed on May 4, 2019
  2. ^ A b Walther L. Bernecker, Horst Pietschmann: History of Portugal. CH Beck, Munich 2001, p. 93ff
  3. ↑ António Henrique de Oliveira Marques : History of Portugal and the Portuguese Empire (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 385). Translated from the Portuguese by Michael von Killisch-Horn. Kröner, Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 3-520-38501-5 , pp. 557ff.
  4. ↑ Walther L. Bernecker, Horst Pietschmann: History of Portugal. CH Beck, Munich 2001, p. 111f