Roman Catholicism and Religious Pluralities in Portuguese (Iberian) History

Abstract

Abstract The religious history of Portugal is usually told as the history of a monolithic Catholic belief-system that excludes other religious options. Contrasting this tendency, there is also a political—anticlerical—construction that regards the Catholic tradition as the origin of economic, intellectual, or even ethical backwardness. Taken together, these presuppositions make it difficult to provide an impartial description of the religious situation in Portugal, both contemporary and historical. The present article intends to challenge those theological and political agendas and to replace their historical narratives with a more pluralistic picture of religion in Portugal.