The Catholic Revival, 1920s–1950s

Abstract

Two factors were instrumental in wresting Catholicism from the complementary assumptions of clerical nationalism and the emasculated religious conceptions of the Iglesia National. The first was the defeat of De Andrea in the archiepiscopal controversy of 1923–24. For the first time since the restoration of relations with the Vatican in the 1860s, Rome refused the government ’ s nomination of an Archbishop, so provoking a constitutional crisis. Faithful to the regalist model, Alvear ’ s government insisted on the state ’ s supremacy, rejected the Vatican ’ s nomination of the Bishop of Santa Fe, and stood by their choice of De Andrea. The see remained vacant for two years before a compromise candidate was found, during which time the opposition of those who had resisted andreismo came to the fore.¹ De Andrea and his supporters later imputed Rome ’ s opposition to the campaigns of Christian Democrats and Jesuits; but they underestimated the importance to the Vatican of restoring the doctrinal basis of Catholicism in Argentina. The rejection of De Andrea was a decisive act by the Vatican to put an end to the Gallican tendencies of the Church hierarchy. Hereafter, the way was open for integral Catholicism.