The Catholic Church Intervention and the Formation of Conservative Parties in Spain and Poland

The paper relates the transformation of nationalism in Poland and Spain and the Catholic Church interaction with political regimes in their respective transitions and consolidation of periods. The main point of the paper is that the decision of the Polish hierarchy to mobilize National Catholicism as a political identity in the early years of democracy had a lasting impact on the type of parties emerging on the right-wing spectrum. The effects of the engagement of the Polish church with National Catholic forces appear more vivid when compared with the neutrality of the Spanish Catholic church regarding political parties during the 1975-1982 transition.With no support from the Spanish hierarchy, Catholic political forces remained fragmented; the relevance of the religious dividedeclined and was no longer a source of disagreement among the right wing forces. The comparison between Spain and Poland highlights the importance of the politicization of religious identities for the development of party systems. Although the Catholic Church was a relevant actor in the transition to democracy of other countries in Southern and Central Europe, in no other cases its social and political weight was of such strategic relevance for the fate of the political divisions and the reformulation of these countries state nationalisms.