Performing Catholic Masculinity in Early Twentieth‐Century Spain: The International Eucharistic Congress of Madrid (1911)

Résumé En

This article seeks to establish a new perspective for the understanding of Catholic masculinity by relating men's devotional practices to urban space, to the development of mass culture and politics, and to the development of modern international Catholic spiritual trends. The study of men's piety in the International Eucharistic Congress (IEC) questions the clear-cut dichotomies with which some historians still tend to approach the study of religion, gender, and modernity. Men's presence in public and urban space has traditionally been studied from the perspective of their role as citizens participating in modern types of homosocial gatherings, protests, and political meetings. This view has tended to overlook other forms of social action, particularly new forms of "devotional activism." Firmly rooted in the wider Catholic revival movement, all-male processions are an interesting example of these "reinvented" forms of institutionalized piety with which the Hierarchy and Holy See hoped to reinforce Catholicism's presence in the public and urban spheres, as well as in the masculine universe. The first part of the article explains our specific hermeneutic perspective, in particular with relation to establishing a reconsideration of religion's relationship to urban space. The second part analyses the all-male procession in the IEC of Madrid (1911).