Conservatives and Catholic Social Action in Early Twentieth-Century Colombia

The Catholic Church in Colombia had long exercised the principle role in the dispensation of charity and was deemed paramount to the late nineteenth-century project of “Catholic modernity” under the Regeneration regimes. In the early twentieth century, particularly after the devastating influenza epidemic of 1918, numerous physicians, social reformers, and Liberal politicians increasingly clamored for a more organized system of social assistance administered by the state. This paper will explore resistance to state-administered programs of social assistance particularly through an examination of progressive Catholic Social Action programs and the activities of the Círculo de Obreros in the early twentieth century that were designed to create harmony.  In particular, the paper will explore the nature and objectives of these programs in order to analyze the extent to which traditional notions of charity continued despite efforts to secularize and modernize charity and social assistance. Furthermore, the paper will investigate the degree to which Liberals and Conservatives collided on the matter of charity and social assistance in the early twentieth century.