A Severance of Union. Catholicism, Social Transformations, and State–Church Relations in Peru in the Late Twentieth Century

Abstract

This article explores how in Peru, where a close union between the state and the Catholic Church endured until the mid-twentieth century, and where the latter exerted a strong influence in the public sphere, various developments in society and within Catholicism during the second half of the century brought an end, on both the legal and public levels, to this state of affairs. Events and processes are analyzed based on the source material and arguments proposed in order to understand the process of change. The study can contribute to a discussion about the significance of the processes of change whereby societies, amid multiple transformations, can shift from contexts of state-backed and protected faith to institutional separations. It can also enrich the debate around the characteristics of secularization in Latin America.