La Iglesia frente a la crisis de la década de 1930 en Perú: catolicismo social, movimientos revolucionarios y cambio constitucional

Abstract

This paper analyzes the actions of prominent Catholic leaders of Peru
to exert influence on two fronts of national politics following the fall of
Augusto Leguía’s regime in 1930: on the one hand, in the design of a new
constitutional order and, on the other, to counter the anticlerical agendas
of the new mass revolutionary movements, including the APRA party, the
Unión Revolucionaria, and the Communist Party. This study focuses onthree initiatives that show the complexity of the positions of Catholic leaders
regarding the political and social issues of that time: the formation of the
Unión Popular party, the interventions of the Episcopal Assembly of Peru
after the 1931 elections, and the role of Catholics, especially of Víctor Andrés
Belaunde, in the Constituent Assembly of 1932 and 1933.
Keywords: Catholic political parties in Peru; Víctor Andrés Belaunde;
Catholic Church and revolutionary movements; Social Catholicism; Episcopal
Assembly of Peru