Legions of the Popes II: A Case Study in Social and Political Transformation

• Applicant: Privatdozent Dr. Mariano Barbato
• Subject Area: Political Science
• Term: from 2015 to 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 288978882

Legions of the Pope is a case study of a religious actor (papacy) and a religious practice (pilgrimage) that addresses major questions of political science. Interested in the shifting categories of nation states and world society, the project situates itself in the emerging field “Sociology of International Relations”. Therein the major focus is on the impact of the ongoing transformation processes of globalization and Europeanization on political power. Informed by a constructivist perspective, agency, practice and identity are seen as major factors that can explain structural order and power changes that go beyond economic and military capacity but rest on the sources of legitimate actorhood. The question of the role of religion is linked to the wider issues of nationalism and belonging, and the question how a social practice can turn ideas into power. The role of religious communities in a secular environment, here the pope in Europe, serves as a hard case to test actorness and agency. Pilgrim popes (popes travelling the world) and papal pilgrims (the masses of visitors to the pope in Rome or other places the pope travelled to) are analysed to show how mass mobilization can contribute to a revival of a declined great power as a transnational actor in a post-national society. The findings will shed light on the transformation of order and the question of agency within these transformations.Legions of the Pope examines how pilgrimages secure the public and political persistence of a religious community in the process of modernization and how they can influence public discourses and political decisions. Pilgrimage is a social practice that makes the faithful visible and enables the conversion of spiritual into political power: the pilgrims are the legions of the pope visible on parade. Pilgrimage is a special type of parade because it enables processes of identity construction that rest on experience, discourse and imagination. Pilgrimage is an important factor for modern identity construction. Benedict Anderson showed in his seminal “Imagined communities” (Anderson 1983) how important a secular version of pilgrimage was to establish a common identity of national communities in former colonies. Legions of the Pope shows how a religious version of pilgrimage was re-invented by the papacy in order to construct a new imagined community of faithful supporters. Through the experience of pilgrimage and the imaginations and narratives which are held true, interpreted and transported during and after such an experience, the identity and belonging of individuals and communities are reassured and stabilized and can even be re-invented. These experiences have a public and political impact. Like in Anderson’s case where nationalism lends credit and legitimacy to the state, religious pilgrimage lends credit and legitimacy to religious institutions.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants