Rooted in the past: Historical legacies and memory policy debates in post-authoritarian Portugal

This article investigates how the most significantly involved political actors in the official commemorations of the fiftieth anniversary of the April 25th 1974 revolution retrieved the role of the Catholic Church at the end of the authoritarian regime and in the process of transition to democracy. After a brief account of the historical context that situates the events evoked by the commemorations, the mobilization of the subject is explored. It is argued that the projected representation benefits a bloc of the political spectrum, namely the left, and that it obeyed purely political objectives, without inscribing or representing any change in the institutional relationship of public powers, that is, of the State with the Catholic Church. The aim of this article is to provide a starting point for research on the political uses of the past regarding religion and, in particular, Portuguese Catholicism.