¿Qué es el nacionalcatolicismo y por qué importa hoy?
National-Catholicism is not a vestige of the past; it is an ideological current that structures religion, nation, and historical memory, and it has become a core analytical category for studying the contemporary right. Its reappearance in public debate is not accidental; it is part of a political strategy by certain right-wing organizations and political parties that articulate religion, nation, and historical memory as devices for political and emotional mobilization, thereby fostering the expansion of their political projects.
From a sociological perspective, National-Catholicism cannot be reduced to a simple instrumentalization of the religious; it is a modern way of conceiving the nation in which the entire political and social order is legitimized based on a historical continuity rooted in a transcendent morality—particularly that of Catholicism—generating a symbiosis between the religious and the political. The nation is presented as a reality that precedes the individual, endowed with a providential sense, standing in opposition to the concepts of the social contract, popular sovereignty, or pluralism, which are more closely aligned with liberalism. Thus, it presents itself as a modern alternative that reconfigures the religious in a national key.
Spain: The Invention of Tradition and National-Catholic Memory
In the Spanish case, this ideological matrix is clearly observed in the reinterpretation of events such as the Reconquista, Hispanidad, or the War of Independence, which form part of the invention of tradition by political projects, following Eric Hobsbawm. They are used by right-wing exponents, as in the case of Vox, to ground their political confrontation against those they perceive as enemies of the nation. These episodes function as political myths that are selected, utilized, and resignified to structure a homogeneous national narrative and advance their political project, flying the Catholic flag to the detriment of those they perceive as enemies of their national imaginary. History, in this sense, is not researched; it is administered and politicized. Clear exponents of the study of National-Catholicism in Spain have been Alfonso Botti, to understand its mutations, and César Rina, to delve into identity processes.
Historical memory as a political strategy: myths, borders, and legitimation.
The political use of the past responds to a core logic within nationalism, which consists of understanding the past from the present and in accordance with the needs of the political project to generate its own consensus and hegemony—an issue highlighted by Enzo Traverso. Historical memory becomes a space of dispute for legitimation, generating symbolic borders between "us" and "them": between the "real" members of the nation, their values, their morality, and their history, and those who are perceived as an identity, cultural, and moral threat, reconfiguring the political in terms of Carl Schmitt’s friend-enemy distinction.
History is used for political purposes, and myths are rearticulated; in the Spanish case, the Reconquista is used to extrapolate it to the current enemies of the nation, which include Muslims, communists, progressives, migrants, and any negative otherness. It is worth noting, following Tzvetan Todorov, that any identity, whatever it may be, will always be structured in relation to others and to who we are—we define ourselves in relation to what we are not. The difference with certain projects is that they view otherness as a threat to their very existence, which must therefore be reduced or, in the most extreme cases, eradicated.
Mexico: Catholic nation, ideological enemies, and modern conspiracies.
The Mexican experience shows that this phenomenon is not exclusive to the European context. Organizations, as well as political and social movements, have drawn National-Catholic inspiration in both their discourses and practices, understanding the nation as essentially Catholic and considering secularization and alternative political projects to represent an illegitimate alternative. Within these discourses, liberalism, socialism, Marxism, and communism are constructed as common enemies of a civilization perceived to be in danger, occasionally under the belief of a "Judeo-Masonic-Communist conspiracy against Christian civilization." Within these projects, we can find everything from discrete-secret organizations—such as the Organización Nacional del Yunque, which has expanded to other countries, especially Spain—to public political movements that have argued that Mexico is an inherently Catholic nation that has been led by enemies of Catholicism who have attempted to destroy its Judeo-Christian roots.
¿Por qué regresa el nacionalcatolicismo en el siglo XXI?
The resurgence of National-Catholicism today must be understood as a response to the crisis of the hegemonic neoliberal model, particularly due to its disenchantment of the world, its social fragmentation, and the loss of stable normative references. In contrast, these proposals generate moral certainties, hierarchies, and a coherent historical narrative, promising order, identity, and transcendence in a turbulent world. Byung-Chul Han has been key to understanding the psychopolitics of neoliberalism—the way transcendence, hope, rituals, and individuality itself are disintegrated, reducing the human being to an enterprise unto oneself.
In response to this, national projects generate an alternative centered on a better future, forming a collective, a sense of camaraderie, and a transcendence endowed with historical features to join in the face of a world based on fragmentation and consumption. They defend roots, the national element, and the project with ancient heritage against globalization, global citizenship, global causes, and the project that had consolidated itself as hegemonic since the disintegration of the Soviet Union: neoliberalism twinned with liberal democracy. This project, as Francis Fukuyama wrote, was that of the end of history and the last man; Giovanni Sartori highlighted in the same decade that the wind of history was blowing in only one direction, toward liberal democracy.
Political religion and hegemony: the disciplinary function of Catholicism
The centrality of religion in these projects does not lie solely in religious vocation, but rather in its functionality to produce a disciplined political community and to endow political action and decisions aimed at building hegemony with sacrality—which is core to Emilio Gentile's work if we utilize his category of political religion. National-Catholicism operates in a key of politicization of religion, as Juan Linz would emphasize, where the sacred and the national blur together, generating a symbiosis between the political and the religious while leaving dogma and the Holy See aside. The national element stands above the Church, although this does not preclude individual hierarchy members or clerics from driving the political project through their own efforts.
The complexity of this lies in the fact that Catholicism is both collective and individual; it stems from a transcendence of life in which believers seek holiness, guiding their lives toward the perfection of their actions and turning away from sin to move closer to virtue. By mixing religious and political components, everything can be politicized—divine will can be conflated with the will of political leaderships. The tension, following Anthony D. Smith, is that the Catholic religion is universal, but the national project that politicizes the Catholic element does so in an exclusionary, identity-driven key.
Conclusion: history, identity, and the dispute over the nation
Analyzing National-Catholicism allows for an understanding of some of the reasons why contemporary right-wing movements do not limit themselves solely to electoral competition, but instead dispute the meaning of history by articulating new forms of identity and understanding of the nation in a religious key. Unlike other types of right-wing movements, National-Catholic projects locate the legitimation of their project within the politicization of religion, politicizing historical memory and perceiving themselves as instruments of providence to defend the kingdom of God on earth. This phenomenon must not be confused with historical fascism; although it shares elements such as the sacralization of politics and the mythical construction of the nation, it lacks, in principle, core components such as a totalitarian vocation, the militia-party, the aspiration to forge a "new man," the claim to be a third way, and the centrality of a charismatic leadership as an ordering principle. Clearly, the struggle is not just for institutional power—it is a hegemonic struggle situated at the very center of politics.
National-Catholicism can be understood as a political-religious articulation that sacralizes the nation by politicizing Catholicism, managing historical memory with the intention of generating identity, antagonism, and legitimacy for a project in times of crisis. In moments when a ruling class loses hegemony, a dispute arises over the legitimate definition of the past in order to conceive a possible future; hence the importance of its analysis.
Bibliography for further reading on the theoretical framework:
Fukuyama, F. (1992). The end of history and the last man. Free Press.
Gentile, E. (2006). Politics as religion (W. Vansant, Trad.). Princeton University Press.
Han, B.-C. (2024). El espíritu de la esperanza (A. Ciria, Trad.). Herder Editorial.
Han, B.-C. (2014). Psicopolítica: Neoliberalismo y nuevas técnicas de poder (A. Ciria, Trad.). Herder Editorial.
Hobsbawm, E., & Ranger, T. (Eds.). (2002). La invención de la tradición (O. Rodríguez, Trad.). Crítica.
Sartori, G. (1993). La democracia después del comunismo (S. Mastrangelo, Trad.). Alianza Editorial.
Schmitt, C. (2009). El concepto de lo político (D. Schilling, Trad.). Alianza Editorial.
Smith, A. D. (2004). Nacionalismo: Teoría, ideología, historia (M. Pino, Trad.). Alianza Editorial.
Todorov, T. (1991). Nosotros y los otros: Reflexión sobre la diversidad humana (M. Murillo, Trad.). Siglo XXI Editores.
Traverso, E. (2012). La historia como campo de batalla: Interpretar las violencias del siglo XX (M. Poy, Trad.). Fondo de Cultura Económica.
Bibliografía para profundizar en el nacionalcatolicismo:
Rina, C. (2021). La construcción de los imaginarios franquistas y la religiosidad “popular”, 1931-1945. Pasado y Memoria: Revista de Historia Contemporánea, (22), 223-252.
Botti, A. (1992). Cielo y dinero: El nacionalcatolicismo en España (1881-1975). Alianza Editorial.
Linz, J. J. (2006). El uso religioso de la política y/o el uso político de la religión: la ideología-sucedáneo versus la religión-sucedáneo. Revista Española de Investigaciones Sociológicas, (114), 11-35.
Rina, C. (2020). Fascismo, nacionalcatolicismo y religiosidad popular: Combates por la significación de la dictadura (1936-1940). Historia y Política: Ideas, Procesos y Movimientos Sociales, (44), 317-347.
Textos del autor:
Minutti Sierra, J. M., & Crivelli Minutti, E. (2025). Vox y su Agenda España en la crisis del globalismo. Relaciones Internacionales, (60), 184-202. https://doi.org/10.15366/relacionesinternacionales2025.60.00
Minutti, J. M. (2021). Del Front National a Rassemblement National: La transformación de la derecha francesa. Revista Mexicana de Estudios Electorales, 5(26), 115-144. http://rmee.org.mx/index.php/RMEstudiosElectorales/article/view/482
Minutti Sierra, J. M. (2023). El nacionalcatolicismo en Puebla: la Organización Nacional del Yunque (2011–2022) [Tesis de maestría, Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla]. Repositorio Institucional BUAP. https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12371/18923
Minutti Sierra, J. M. (2024). La cruzada hispánica de la organización nacional del Yunque. En J. R. de Andrés Martín & T. Hernández Vicencio (Coords.), A debate las relaciones internacionales entre España e Hispanoamérica en los siglos XIX y XX (pp. 203-224). Dykinson. https://doi.org/10.14679/2658
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