Catholic Connections, South-North Solidarities: The Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family, and Property from Latin America to Europe and North America

From the 1950’s to the 1980’s, Catholic lay political organizations formed coalitions, affiliated with one another, and campaigned on behalf of their foreign brethren in a thus far understudied network of solidarity and ideological mixing. These connections eschew the dominant North-South narrative of postwar political influence, and reveal the power and place of South-North connections.

The political solidarities and connections forged in the Cold War crossed territorial and political boundaries in ways that upend common understandings of the imperialist or hegemonic power of the United States or the Soviet Union.

Closely examining the foundation and spread of the Society for the Defense of Family, Tradition, and Property (SDTFP) reveals a different map of international organizing and political connection informed by histories of conservatism, Catholic theology, and anti-communism. Founded by Catholic theological and lay leader Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira in Brazil on the announcement of the Second Vatican Council, the SDTFP quickly grew beyond the border of Brazil and spread to Chile, Argentina, Colombia, and elsewhere in Latin America. Later chapters appeared in France, Italy, Spain, South Africa, and the United States, either newly founded or by the affiliation of pre-existing organizations. This international organization played a large role in the opposition to the government of Salvador Allende in Chile, in the World Anti-Communist League, and was deeply connected with the forces that birthed the New Right in the United States. It is an ideal case-study of the power of South-North political influence, of transnational right-wing organizing, and of the place of religion in shaping modern politics in the West.