Chiesa, cattolicesimo e nazionalismo negli anni tra le due guerre. Introduzione

Beginning with some references to XIX century processes of Catholicism nationalisation, to the construction of the cultural concept of “Catholic nation” and to the relationship between the Church and new nationalisms from the end of the XIX century to WWI, this article examines the encyclical Ubi Arcano Dei (1922), questioning its efficacy as deterrent against nationalism. The hypothesis here verified in relation with the cases of Spain, Germany, Austria and Croatia is that the condemn of the “immoderate nationalism” in the encyclical and in other previous and successive ecclesiastical interventions kept the way opened to a tolerated nationalism that was translated into different, although all ascribable to the cate-gory of nationalcatholicism, political-ideological orientations. Regarding the historiographic debate, the article presents some considerations on the hermeneutic usefulness of the category of nationalcatholicism.