Catholic Electoral League
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Catholic Electoral League (LEC - Liga Eleitoral Catolica) was a Brazilian political pressure group functioning from 1932–1937 under the direct auspices of the Catholic Church. It was formed as part of a larger Church effort to "re-Catholicize" Brazil after a period of increased secularism and liberalism in Brazilian society in the aftermath of World War I.[1]
In the late 1920s and early 1930s Brazil was beset by several crises. The Great Depression led to the crash of the coffee market in 1929, leading to a financial collapse in which much of the rural aristocracy lost most of their wealth. Society was becoming more urbanized, with large cities overtaking the more traditional rural regions in political influence. In 1930 a liberal, communist-backed revolution overthrew conservative president Washington Luís. The early populist policies of the new government under Getúlio Vargas (1930–1945) accelerated the decline of the traditional authority of the landed aristocracy and the Church.[2]
In 1932, the upper classes from the state of São Paulo rebelled in an attempt to stop this political slide. Their Constitutionalist Revolution failed, but in response, Getúlio Vargas convoked a constitutional assembly to revamp the country's political organization.
