LISBON — POLITICS & VIRTUE

The All Saints Day earthquake of 1755, with a magnitude of 8.6, still defines Lisbon. Locals often talk about it as if it happened only yesterday. It was the perfect storm of a natural disaster.

Candles had been lit throughout the city to honor God on the holiest of days, and when the earthquake struck, the whole town caught fire. The terrified people ran to the waterfront and then got hit by a deadly tsunami. Most of the city was destroyed, and over 100,000 people died. God sure has a sadistic sense of humor, doesn’t he?

To this day, there are no tall skyscrapers in Lisbon due to potential earthquakes, and the preventive design standards adopted 350 years ago still hold sway. Talk about living in the past!

Portugal’s past shadows the present. Its politics and royal intrigue are “Game of Thrones” worthy and best exemplified by the various King Pedros who litter Portuguese history.

Pedro the 1st (1357–1367) is known as “the Justicier” or “the Cruel”. He is legendary for his secret marriage to Inês de Castro, who was murdered by order of his father, King Afonso IV. Upon becoming king, Pedro allegedly exhumed her body, crowned her queen, and forced the court to kiss her decomposing hand. Their tombs in the Alcobaça Monastery face each other so they may see one another first at the Last Judgment.

Then there was Pedro IV (1826), known as Don Pedro I, the first Emperor of Brazil. He reigned in Portugal for only two months before abdicating in favor of his daughter, Maria II. He is remembered as “the Liberator” for his role in securing Brazilian independence and promoting liberal constitutionalism.

But there’s way more to the sordid story. Pedro fled Napoleon in 1807 when he was only nine. Interestingly, whenever the Portuguese government falls, the former rulers always flee to their former colony, Brazil. After spending his teenage years whoring it up in South America, young Prince Pedro sided with a bunch of wild and crazy Brazilian revolutionaries who were trying to overthrow the government. They ended up winning and, in gratitude to their young royal patron, the new government anointed him Emperor Pedro I of Brazil. When Napoleon was driven out of Portugal a few years later, Emperor Pedro liked Brazil way too much to return home. Even after his dad died and he became the king of Portugal, he set up his 7-year-old sister as the Queen in waiting and tried to marry her off to her uncle, Pedro’s worthless and much older brother. The Pope blessed the marriage, but the deal fell apart, forcing Pedro to finally return to Portugal, wage war against his brutal brother, and, after a bloody victory, become King Pedro IV of Portugal. But his heart was never in it, and he quickly ceded power to his young daughter and headed back to the sultry beauties of Brazil.

Portugal is fervently Catholic. According to the official 2021 Census data, there are approximately 7,043,016 Catholic people in Portugal. This means that 80.2% of the population aged 15 and older identifies as Roman Catholic. But it isn’t that simple. Studies indicate that many view the religion primarily as a cultural identity. Only about 19% to 29% of the population regularly attend Mass and actively take the sacraments. Regardless, you can’t swing a cat without hitting a magnificent stone church from the distant past, dripping with looted gold and jewels from the Americas.

St. Dominick’s church was my favorite of the bunch. There’s a running feud among the Lisbon Catholics over whether the church is blessed or cursed. Some say it’s cursed because it has been destroyed several times, during earthquakes and multiple fires. After numerous rebuilds, they decided to leave it in God’s hands. Because it still stands today, many worshippers believe the church is blessed.

Personally, I know it’s definitely cursed because of its reprehensible history with the Jews of Lisbon.

Here’s something that often gets glossed over by the local tour guides that deserves a little airing out. At the time of the 1497 Forced Conversion Decree, Portugal had one of the largest Jewish populations in Europe, swelled by roughly 93,000 Spanish Jews who had fled the Alhambra Decree just five years earlier, in 1492. This wasn’t a small or marginal community. The jews were woven into the very fabric of Portuguese life.

Following Spain’s sordid lead, King Manuel I gave the Jews of Portugal an impossible choice: convert to Christianity or leave. Most converted — becoming what were known as “New Christians”. But conversion didn’t buy them safety. It brought them suspicion, discrimination, and identity pins that marked them as different. The Inquisition was always watching.

Then came 1506. The plague and a severe drought had people scared and looking for someone to blame. During a Sunday service at St. Dominick’s, someone claimed to see an image of Jesus on the wall. A New Christian — one of the forcibly converted Jews — suggested that perhaps the man’s eyes were playing tricks on him. That single act of skepticism was enough. The priest whipped the congregation into a murderous frenzy, and a three-day massacre followed in which thousands of New Christians were slaughtered in the streets of Lisbon.

King Manuel, it should be noted, wasn’t even in Lisbon at the time — he was in Abrantes, having fled the plague himself. When he returned and saw what had happened, he was furious. He had the instigating Dominican friars executed, shuttered the church for eight years, and punished the perpetrators. Cold comfort for the dead, but worth noting that the crown itself wasn’t the villain of this particular chapter.

Let’s fast-forward to the 1755 earthquake. By the time the earthquake struck, the Inquisition had been operating in Portugal for over two centuries. There were no openly practicing Jews left in Lisbon. They had been forcibly converted, driven underground, or killed in the generations following 1497. The community, once one of the largest in Europe, had been effectively erased from public life long before the first tremor hit.

As a bang-up twist of fate, the Lisbon earthquake destroyed the church that had been the site of the 1506 Jewish massacre. Whether that qualifies as cosmic justice or simply as geology doing what geology does, I will leave to the theologians.

You won’t hear anybody mention it these days, but there are still no synagogues in the Alfama part of Lisbon. Some silences speak louder than buildings.

Originally, the people of Lisbon lived in and around the castle on the hilltop above the harbor because it provided superior defense from invaders. In 1498, King Emanuel moved the royal residence from the São Jorge Castle to the Tagus River. This was during the Age of Discovery, and Lisbon was fast becoming a global trade hub. Moving to the waterfront allowed the crown to be closer to the maritime activities, shipyards, and the Casa da Índia, which managed the empire’s international trade.

The old castle crumbled away after many years of neglect, and between 1938 and 1944, they built a make-believe castle and perimeter walls to cater to the blossoming tourist trade. Basically, it’s a Disney World castle that rakes in a lot of money.

Lisbon is a city of grand squares — more than any city I have ever seen — and they aren’t just pretty places for people to gather and meet their tour guide. There’s a commonsense reason for their proliferation. They are meant to be safe communal spaces in the event of an earthquake.

Lisbon prides itself on being a copycat city. They like to steal other towns’ grand ideas.

The Sanctuary of Christ the King is a massive Catholic monument and shrine located in Almada, overlooking Lisbon from across the Tagus River. Inspired by the famous Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro, which came first and remains the larger of the two, the statue was inaugurated on May 17, 1959, as a symbol of national gratitude for Portugal being spared the direct devastation of World War II.

Then there’s the 25th of April Bridge, often called Lisbon’s most distinctive landmark. This red suspension bridge is frequently compared to the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco because of its color and design. It is a double-decker bridge with six road lanes on the upper level and two train tracks on the lower level.

And then there’s the Santa Justa Lift, Lisbon’s most famous iconic iron structure in the heart of the city. This 45-meter-tall Neo-Gothic iron tower provides a direct vertical connection between the lower streets of Baixa and the higher Largo do Carmo. It was built in 1902 by engineer Raoul Mesnier du Ponsard, whose design draws clear inspiration from the Eiffel Tower, though the direct student connection often cited in tourist literature is more legend than documented fact — much like those upside-down tiles.

Guess who the Portuguese dislike the most these days? It’s the Chinese. And that’s weird because you see very few Chinese roaming around. But they are apparently tearing the housing fabric apart by buying up all the property and building Airbnbs. This relentless turnover is jacking up housing prices and pricing locals out. The new Chinese landlords rarely stay in these rentals; it’s purely an investment. It would be simple to stop if the Portuguese government required owners to live in their homes for an extended period each year. But the government seems oblivious, and resentment is building.

In fact, Portugal is starting to experience the same anti-immigration hostility as the U.S. and Europe.

The popularity of right-wing parties in Portugal has surged dramatically in recent years, fundamentally altering the country’s long-standing two-party system. As of early 2026, right-wing forces now command nearly half of the parliamentary representation.

Chega (Far-Right/Populist), led by André Ventura, is the fastest-growing political force in Portuguese history. It nearly tripled its support in a single year, jumping from 7.2% in 2022 to nearly 23% in May 2025, winning 60 seats out of 230 in Parliament.

Chega’s platform is built on a nationalist, anti-establishment, and populist agenda. Its official slogan, “God, Country, Family, and Work,” is a direct modernization of the motto used by the country’s vilified former dictator, António de Oliveira Salazar. I guess all roads really do lead to Rome.

Chega’s message is essentially the same as every other pissed-off nationalist party in every country: immigrants are taking our jobs and using up the social services, so they need to leave right away, and the drawbridges need to be pulled up behind them. It’s time to get tough on crime, including the implementation of chemical castration and the death penalty. Lower taxes and eliminate tolls on highways. Oppose all gender ideology.

It’s the same old song, blasting a strategic mix of traditionalist anthems, nostalgic Eurovision hits, and modern social media-friendly tracks used to target younger voters.

Living in Portugal could soon become very tricky for outsiders unless you bring a big suitcase of cash. The times they are a-changing!

Speaking of which, travelers heading to Portugal in June are being warned to expect delays and disruption as cabin crew, rail workers, and metro staff prepare for a nationwide strike that could affect hundreds of flights and public transport services across the country. BUCKLE UP!