Abstract
In this introduction, A. Nesti lays out the principle characte ristics of the nature and dialectic of contemporary Spanish Catho licism: the dependence of Spain on foreign investments, the role of the monarchy at the time of the change in regime, the forma tion of a political class for whom the anti-Franco struggle was unknown, the impulse in favour of change within the boundaries of civil society and the Church, and the europeanization of the Iberian peninsula.