Faithfuls to Church or Loyals to Perón? Dilemmas of Catamarca Catholicism on the Eve of 1955 Coup

Abstract

This paper aims to address some changes and continuities in the relationship between Catamarca Peronism and the Catholic Church, as a direct consequence of the national conflict that erupted in late 1954, when President Perón denounced in a virulent radio speech that groups of Catholic priests and laypeople throughout the country were participating in an attempted coup against his government. The repercussions of this accusation had a deep impact on Catamarca society, as three local parsons were included in the long list of defendants. This event marked the beginning of an unexpected tensions period between two institutional actors that had set up a field of common interests in the province since 1945. During the first months of 1955, a series of anti-clerical decrees generated even more discontent among a significant number of Catamarcans who, until then, had unquestioningly accepted their Peronist and Catholic status. Some positionings and decisions about Perón vs. Church conflict -that characterized the Catholic world in Catamarca during this period of study- are recovered through analysis of a corpus comprised by series of documents from Diocese of Catamarca Archive and articles from La Unión newspaper, Stella and Árbol magazines.