Corporal Works of Mercy in a Time of Austerity: The Contradictory Role of Religion in Contemporary Portugal

The overall concern of “Corporal Works of Mercy in a Time of Austerity: The Contradictory Role of Religion in Contemporary Portugal” is to account for the contradiction of how and why Catholicism is simultaneously disappearing and appearing in the Portuguese public square. On the one hand, an overall statistical drop in church membership, and the lack of religious practice by almost half of self-identified Roman Catholics, suggests that the future of the Catholic Church in Portugal will be very different from the past. On the other hand, the church’s support for democratic processes, the important social services it provides, and its educational establishment, have certainly been a positive factor in Portuguese associational life, and helped the larger process of democratic-regime consolidation since the Carnation Revolution of 1974. During the recent economic crisis, many vulnerable persons in Portugal have looked to the church for assistance. Social scientists need to move beyond the lens normally applied to the question of Catholicism in contemporary Portugal (i.e. it is a dying, anti-modern, anti-rational, conservative institution), and instead ought to consider how its vital societal contributions are reflective of its institutional mission and serve as a strategy for institutional survival. The paper will examine how the Santa Casa de Misericordia de Lisboa has responded to the politics of austerity, and offer a preliminary assessment as to whether or not Catholicism may remain a force in Portuguese associational life in the future.