The Catholic Church

Abstract

This brief account demonstrates the political and cultural significance of the Catholic Church and the extent to which the conditions for Catholicism’s continuing influence had been established at an earlier period. Both the history of the divorce law and that of abortion are histories in which the Church itself, the arena of Catholic belief and custom and the wider circulation of views associated with Catholicism are closely linked. The Church’s interest in the position of women, sexuality and the family remains significant in all these areas. Equally significant are the material bases through which the Church has consolidated and disseminated these views beyond the pulpit. To examine the social and legal relations existing around the family and women’s place as mothers, is to come up against the Church’s institutional strength, the history of its relations with the State and its vast cultural influence.