La cuestión religiosa como factor de conflictividad política durante la Segunda República

The Second Republic did not try to put an end to religion and the Catholic Church, but to lay the foundations for the laicization of the State and the secularization of society. The measures adopted in this sense, nevertheless, turned to be a failure. And that was not because their content was inappropriate, but because they achieved a polemical nature within the fragmented party system. In this way, the religious problem served as a symbolic agent of affirmation and consolidation of the different political organizations. The dynamic of the parliamentary regime, characterized by the predominance of the Cortes within the interorganic relations, strengthened the controversial dimension of the religious question: political parties developed a confrontation strategy in Parliament that negatively affected the efficacy of the legislation approved. Only the Government and the Presidency of the Republic looked for an agreed solution. However, the weakness of the consecutive Cabinets and the restricted capacity for mediation recognized to the president in the 1931 Constitution hampered the triumph of a commitment strategy that would have corrected the outcome of events.