DIPLOMÁTICO SIN ESTADO, PASTOR SIN REBAÑO. EL DELEGADO APOSTÓLICO LUIGI MATERA Y LOS VERICUETOS DE LA DIPLOMACIA PONTIFICIA EN ARGENTINA Y URUGUAY, 1880-1885

This article examines the challenges of pontifical diplomacy in the Southern Cone, focusing on the mission of the Apostolic Delegate Luigi Matera in Argentina and Uruguay between 1880 and 1885. It explores the public debates on the delegate’s powers and functions, his relations with the national governments, and his ties with the local hierarchy. The research draws from ecclesiastical and civil archives in the Vatican City, Buenos Aires, Montevideo, and Santiago de Chile, as well as newspaper collections and ministerial reports from Argentina and Uruguay. The paper aims to demonstrate that the dramatic outcome of Matera’s mission, which included his expulsion from Buenos Aires and official indifference in Montevideo, was linked to the construction of nation states in South America and the reconfiguration of papal power on a global scale during this period. On the one hand, governments were suspicious of the obstacles that the undefined religious faculties of the delegates’ authority might pose to the laicist reforms they were promoting. On the other hand, the erratic Roman policy towards the South American churches clashed with the strategies of the local hierarchies, which were oriented towards strengthening diocesan authority, that combined ultramontane attitudes and episcopalist rooted habits.