Framing ‘gender ideology’: religious populism in the Croatian Catholic Church

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the role of the Catholic Church in the articulation of populist discourse. By analysing the frames in Catholic doctrines and their dissemination by the Croatian clergy, I make three contributions. Firstly, in contrast to research on the populist radical right, which demonstrates the manipulation of religion committed by secular actors, I identify the Church as an influential source and producer of the populist master frame. Secondly, I demonstrate how the bridging of the ‘gender ideology’ frame to this populist master frame allows the national Church to articulate traditionalist stances on morality policies. Thirdly, I identify the local-level argumentation strategies, empowered by frame bridging with anti-communist, nationalist, and sovereignist themes typical of radical-right populism. Focusing on religious actors’ agency allows us to improve theories rooted in the secular world of populist politics that neglect churches as important sources of populist discourse and mobilisation.

KEYWORDS:

• Religious populism
• populist radical right
• Catholic Church
• frame analysis
• anti-gender movements
• qualitative methods

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. The collective action of the Church and the anti-gender movement surrounding the IC’s ratification was one of the most prominent and the latest case of anti-gender mobilisation in Croatia, with conspicuous protest involvement of clergy members.