A rare study of Catholicism in Latin American politics prior to Vatican II, this book presents a broad and powerfully argued challenge to standard interpretations of Argentine political history through an examination of the tensions between Enlightenment ideologies and the Catholic tradition.

Drawing on extensive first-hand research in Argentina and on wide reading in European history, politics and theology, the author traces the competition between liberalism and popular nationalism on the one hand, and the humanistic scholasticism informed by Catholic theology on the other. Particular emphasis is placed on the period 1930-60, when a broadly based religious revival challenged the assumptions of the Liberal Order and entered into an intense but competitive relationship with nationalism. The author shows that only by recognizing this competition can the popularity of Peronism, and subsequently its dictatorial tendencies, be fully understood.

The study concludes with some suggested explanations both of the fragility of Argentine liberal democracy and of the Enlightenment roots of political authoritarianism. This is a clearly argued and forceful contribution to Latin American politics and to differing religious and secular concepts of liberty, authority and justice in the western cultural tradition.