Concordat of 1940

The Concordat of 1940 was an agreement between Portugal and the Holy See of the Catholic Church signed in the Vatican on 7 May 1940 under António de Oliveira Salazar's Estado Novo.

The text was re-ratified in 1975, after the Carnation Revolution, only slightly amended in order to allow civil divorce in Catholic marriages, while keeping all the other articles in force.

[2] There were difficulties in the negotiations which preceded the signing of the Concordat, demonstrating both how eager the Church remained to re-establish its influence, and how equally determined Salazar was to prevent any religious intervention within the political sphere, which he saw as the exclusive preserve of the State.

[a] The clergy were subject to military service but in the form of pastoral care to the armed forces and, in time of war, also to the medical units.

[5] One immediate result of the concordat was that on June 13, 1940, Pope Pius XII issued the encyclical Saeculo exeunte, which appealed to Portuguese national feelings.