Spain’s Catholic Internationalists
International Catholic organizations and networks provided a welcoming environment for Spanish intellectuals and experts, and a crucial conduit for Franco’s Spain to engage with the outside world in the aftermath of the Second World War. Health and humanitarian organizations played an important part in Spain’s post-war engagement with international Catholicism, particularly the nursing group Salus Informorum and the Catholic charity Caritas. Spanish women enjoyed a prominent role within these international activities, despite the political and professional marginalization of women in Franco’s Spain. But there were important limits to Spain’s involvement in post-war Catholic internationalism. During the immediate post-war period, therefore, Catholic internationalism represented one of the primary ways in which Franco’s Spain engaged with the outside world, at the same time as the country remained semi-detached from the global Catholic mainstream.