The First Portuguese Republic and the Catholic and lay missions in Angola: finance and power

Abstract

This article examines, through the prism of finance, the relations between the Portuguese state and both the Catholic and secular missions in the colony of Angola during the period of the Portuguese First Republic (1910-26). The continued funding of Catholic missions by the Republic, although acknowledged by the Military Dictatorship in 1926, was rapidly downplayed and then forgotten by Portuguese historiography. The First Republic had, after all, been notable for its atmosphere of hostility to religion, disestablishing Catholicism as the state religion and declaring the separation of church and state. It had also created secular missions as a state project for the colonies along the lines of the religious missions, while dropping any faith other than the «civic religion» of the Republic itself. It is not surprising, then, that the myth that the Republic, during its most anticlerical phase, was disinclined to finance the Catholic missions should have gained currency. However, the colonial budgets and the Vatican Archives tell a different story, one that brings other nuances into the debate over the religious and colonial questions in Portugal, as well as the policies of other European overseas empires, most notably the French Third Republic, from whose efforts at laicization the Portuguese Republic drew its inspiration.