What role did Latin America play in Roman Catholicism’s Cold War? How did religion shape the global Cold War? This conference brings together members of the “Global Pontificate of Pius XII: Catholicism in a Divided World, 1945-1958” research network and leading scholars from three continents to discuss these questions across two days at the University of Oxford.

Despite being home to a plurality of the world’s Roman Catholics by the mid-twentieth century, Latin America has often been relegated to the peripheries of transnational accounts of Catholicism’s Cold War. Similarly, considering the role of religion broadly opens new understandings of the course of the Cold War. The assembled papers place Latin America at the center of transnational networks, conflicts, and discourses that structured the experience of a global faith tradition and institution of an equally global conflict.

Topics covered by the papers include Catholic Action and student movements; mass communications; Christian Democracy; missions and Indigenous peoples; Vatican diplomacy and outreach; the role of the US Catholic Church; and liberation theology. We invite anyone interested in the Cold War, the global twentieth century, or religion to join us in-person in Oxford or online for the related edition of the Latin American History seminar at the Latin American Centre.

No registration is required to attend the panels or the seminar in-person.
If you are attending the Latin American Centre Seminar via zoom, please register here:
us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIufuyqqzouH9Yn8Z4BnCIMc3lTHgicwOPN#/registration

This conference is sponsored by the German Historical Institute in Rome as well as the Faculty of History and the Latin American Centre at Oxford.