Abstract: Social scientists routinely characterize religious influence in electoral politics as conservative and left-wing parties as fundamentally secular. Against these claims, I argue that progressive Catholic bishops—who actively supported state-led redistribution—were essential to the mobilization of poor voters in favor of the left-wing Workers’ Party (PT) in Brazil. The paper uses a natural experiment stemming from Pope John Paul II’s appointment to the papacy in 1978, which generated plausibly as-if random variation in the length of progressive bishops’ tenures in office. I find that the PT gained electorally in municipalities with longer exposures to progressive bishops. Organizational linkages between progressive bishops and the PT allowed the party to grow its territorial presence and build an enduring electoral advantage. The findings suggest that religious leaders’ economic leanings can play an important role in shaping their political effects. They have important implications for theories of political party development and religion’s political influence.
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