Heads, delegates, candidates, and groups in the Juventud de Acción Católica Argentina (JAC), 1940-1950

Abstract

This study deals with how the profile of young Catholic activists was constructed within the ranks of the Juventud de Acción Católica (JAC) in the 1940s and the 1950s, based on a set of publications for the training of the jacistas. The experience undergone by the Catholic youth is defined in terms of a prescriptive cosmovision about the earthly world, the spiritual world, and eternal life that was implicit in the language, the mentalities, and the representations of this world of shared beliefs. The focus is on the discursive/formative constructs of the groups and their respective hierarchies –heads, delegates and candidates– who would renew Catholicism’s ability to re-Christianize society under the precepts of the Catholic Church in the future. In a society dominated by the political engineering of liberal policies, the alleged danger of Marxism, and the expansion of capitalist consumption, youth was conceived of in terms of vitality, renewal, and spiritual strength.