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 on three 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.