The Catholic Church and Neo-Gothic Architecture in Latin America: Scales for Their Analysis

Abstract

The construction of churches, temples and cathedrals in the neo-Gothic style in Latin America was a constant during the final quarter of the nineteenth century and the first three decades of the twentieth century. Their construction, beyond their architecture, became part of a solution serving the political and social needs of the Church. Through this idea we consider these structures as being symbols of the balance, sometimes conflicting, sometimes collaborative between the ecclesiastical hierarchy and the national governments at that historical moment. This chapter seeks to understand how the Catholic Church has taken this style and used it, directly or indirectly, as an additional element in a complex policy of integrating itself into societies of the then-new (nineteenth century) Latin American countries. We use the geographical concept of scale as the modulating element. It allows us to structure the role of the Church on the continent in the late nineteenth century using the neo-Gothic architectural style as a pretext through three scales attached to geographical and political notions: the nation or the state, the territory, and the local. This analysis allows us to offer an outline of the spatial impact of the Catholic Church throughout the continent in the late nineteenth century.