A Man Just Like Other Men? Masculinity and Clergy in Spain during Late Francoism (1960–1975)

Abstract

While the notion of masculinity has been incorporated by European and North American research into the field of study of religious history, in Spain its introduction is still in its infancy. This article reflects on the contribution of religious discourses and the experiences of male clergy to the construction of different identity models of masculinity within a very plural Catholicism, at a time of social mobilisation, political transition, sexual liberation, and religious secularisation. These changes questioned the Catholic masculine ideal of the first decades of Franco dictatorship (1939–1975) to propose new profiles of the virile religious archetype. The article states that the crisis of the priest, which is part of the religious crisis of the 1960s, can be interpreted as a struggle between different models of Catholic masculinity. At the same time, this crisis regarding the figure of the priest influenced religious, social, and political changes in Spain.