The Catholic Church in Chile and The Social Question in the 1930s: The Political Pedagogical Discourse of Fernando Vives Del Solar, S.J.

The author examines the political pedagogical discourse of Chilean Jesuit Fernando Vives del Solar (1871–1935), focusing on the conceptual field configuring his discourse. Of particular relevance are his repudiation of injustice as a central element of his religious calling, his religious and political formation influenced by European developments, his reading of Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum, his role in the Social League (Liga Social), and his confrontations with sectors of the church hierarchy and the Conservative Party. His social work and the crisis leading to his dismissal from the Catholic Action can be understood in the context of new political configurations and a renewed Catholic Christian social language, which were eventually manifested in the Falange Nacional and the Christian Democratic Party.