El club católico de montevideo: Confesionalidad, sociabilidad y polémica (1875-1893). Una biografía colectiva

This article examines the organization of the Catholic cultural elite of Montevideo during the last quarter of the 19th Century, in the context of secularization and of the progressive articulation of academics and intellectuals, who were taking distance from the Catholic Church. The Catholic Club was born as a cultural center and as a space of intellectual sociability, which progressively showed its confessional profile. There are two interesting aspects in addition to the academic activity, the controversy as a constant item and the unquestioned Catholic profile: the emphasis on Christianity as the foundations of «civilization» and the connection of its activities with the definition of the national sentiment.