O clero paroquial e a I República: nova abordagem à querela das pensões (1910-1917)

The process of identity reconfiguration of the parish priests was a crucial element of the social, political and religious dispute in the transition from the monarchy to the republican regime in Portugal The State laicization led to a profound change in the identity, roles and institutional framework of the parish priests, who until then were both ecclesiastical and civil agents This article, resuming from new sources a subject disputed by the protagonists and never satisfactorily addressed by historiography, aims to measure the impact that the sustenance model proposed by the Law of Separation - pensions - had on parish activity It is intended to consider this dispute in a broader chronological scope which allows to: understand the relationship between the ecclesiastical identity and its sustenance; clarify the diversity of motives presented by the parish priests to accept or decline the pension; determine the consequences of those attitudes in the context of the identity transformation of the Portuguese State and of the Catholic Church in Portugal, which occurred simultaneously.