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Baroque Catholicism As Openness to Earth Religions Anthony M Comparative Civilizations Review Volume 49 Article 6 Number 49 Fall 2003 10-1-2003 Earth Religions and Book Religions: Baroque Catholicism as Openness to Earth Religions Anthony M. Stevens-Arroyo Brooklyn College Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/ccr Recommended Citation Stevens-Arroyo, Anthony M. (2003) "Earth Religions and Book Religions: Baroque Catholicism as Openness to Earth Religions," Comparative Civilizations Review: Vol. 49 : No. 49 , Article 6. Available at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/ccr/vol49/iss49/6 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the All Journals at BYU ScholarsArchive. It has been accepted for inclusion in Comparative Civilizations Review by an authorized editor of BYU ScholarsArchive. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. Stevens-Arroyo: Earth Religions and Book Religions: Baroque Catholicism as Openne 54 Comparative Civilizations Review No. 49 EARTH RELIGIONS AND BOOK RELIGIONS: BAROQUE CATHOLICISM AS OPENNESS TO EARTH RELIGIONS PART II TO: EARTH RELIGIONS AND BOOK RELIGIONS: THE RELIGIOUS DOOR TO CIVILIZATIONAL ENCOUNTER ANTHONY M. STEVENS-ARROYO BROOKLYN COLLEGE The Catholic Baroque as Mentalite Baroque Catholicism was a unique theological period in the histo- ry of Christianity because of its openness to newly encountered earth religions in Asia and the Americas. The Catholic Baroque begins during the reign of Felipe II and ends with the reforms of the Spanish Empire by the House of Bourbon after 1750.' As in all periodization, there is not a complete convergence of political, religious, and cultural movements, so that it is more accurate to speak of a "Catholic Baroque mentalite" than to pretend that everyone thinks and acts alike during any period of human history (Maravall, 1975/1986; Schrumm, 1998). Nonetheless, the Catholic Baroque, particularly when focused by examining the Mediterranean and Iberian- American polity created by Spanish Catholic hegemony throughout most of the 17th century. With that focus, the Catholic baroque mentalite approximates what Berry called in one place a "mystique" and in another a "spirituality" and which civ- ilizationists call "Weltanschauung." Certainly these aspects of religion have always been important to civilizational analysis. However, as was explained in the preceeding Part I of this exploration of earth religion, the ongoing nature of reli- gious change has not always been incorporated into the study of the civ- ilizational process. I hope to show that although Baroque Catholicism was directly connected to the Christianity of previous epochs, it demon- strated enough differences to be reconsidered. It is in this sense that the Protestant Reformation which splintered the unity of Christendom cre- ated new variations (denominations) such as Lutheranism and Calvinism. But at the same time, the loss of Christian unity also great- ly affected that segment of the Christian religion that conceived of itself as the inheritor and guarantor of Medieval Christendom. Thus, the Catholic Christianity that appears after Luther's break with the papacy generates a different mentalite from the Christianity, also Catholic, that preceded the Reformation. Catholic reformers, who had a high moment in the decrees of the Council of Trent, defined the traditional Christian Published by BYU ScholarsArchive, 2003 1 Comparative Civilizations Review, Vol. 49 [2003], No. 49, Art. 6 Anthony M. Stevens-Arroyo 55 beliefs against the background of a polemic with Protestants. While their effort to refute Protestants emphasized the Catholic continuity with the past, all these formulations and decrees placed new emphasis upon the beliefs that had been assailed. Thus, while Christendom had always recognized that St. Peter had a successor called the pope and that the Blessed Virgin Mary had been honored, the new formulations made Marian devotionalism and loyalty to the papacy hallmarks of a Christian practice that was different from Protestant Christianity. I call this the "Invention of Roman Catholicism" and I argue that with the affirmation of this new form of belief, civilizational analysis needs to revisit the adapations this new form of religion produced in 16th centu- ry Latin America. It is important to distinguish the Baroque from the Renaissance which proceeded it, although it is unsatisfying to classify the Baroque as "the darker side of the Renaissance" (Mignolo, 1995). The discovery and initial colonization of the Americas by Iberians occurred before the onset of the Baroque and were marked by different attitudes towards earth religion, social organization and the methods for evangelization (Stevens-Arroyo, 1989; 1993). Thus, the "extirpation of idolatries" found in the efforts of evangelization took on different meanings as the- ology was confronted with new circumstances. The Baroque coincided with the formation of a national awareness within criollo society that they were different from Europeans, displacing in part a previous con- cern of how to treat indigeneous peoples. The contours of the baroque mentalite have been extensively stud- ied in literary and cultural scholarship during the past three decades (see Maravall, 1975/1986). In terms of religion, several traits merit attention. The Baroque revivified medieval piety (Moser, 1998: 73ff.) and chal- lenged the Reformation by rekindling past devotions, expunging accre- tions of magic, denouncing a corrupting commercialism (Echevarrfa, 1998). Thus reconstructured, the traditions of medieval Christendom were held up as proof that Protestant rejection of past piety was erro- neous. The shadow of the Reformation loomed large over the Catholic mentalite, so much so that the period is sometimes characterized as "the Counter-Reformation," suggesting that Catholic initiatives were present only as a response to a rising Protestantism. But even if one agrees that this view is exaggerated (Delumeau, 1971/1977), the emergence of Protestantism created a need for an apologetic that spun out a form of Catholic providentialism. In the tangle that identified Catholicism with Spain and Spain with https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/ccr/vol49/iss49/6 2 Stevens-Arroyo: Earth Religions and Book Religions: Baroque Catholicism as Openne 56 Comparative Civilizations Review No. 49 Catholicism, the colonization of the Americas became a sign of God's favor on the Spanish Empire because it also permitted the evangeliza- tion of tens of millions of New World peoples who would take the places in heaven of the Europeans who had become Protestants (Wright, 1991). The encounter world-wide with religious systems among the peoples of the Americas and of Asia who had been included in the Spanish Empire by the exploits of the conquistadores required a theo- logical and canonically legal justification for incorporating remote lands and peoples into the Iberian polity. Dialogical Nationhood In the Spanish Empire During the Baroque The juxtaposition of religion and law was as frequent in the politi- cal documents of the Baroque as the pairing of religion with art and lit- erature. The civilizational encounter with the indigenous religions of the Americas fell under a theological mantle that had both to legitimate contact, regulate interaction and determine legitimacy. In large measure, the promoters and defenders of the civilizational encounter of Iberia and America were the Jesuits. Not incidentaly, the Society of Jesus became a paragon of baroque thinking, their churches examples of baroque art and architecture, their schools incubators of baroque piety (Echevarrfa, 1998). The theological explanation of international rights in De Legibus by the 17th century Jesuit theologian, Francisco Suarez, can be cited as the most elaborate of the Jesuit baroque theologies addressing the encounter with the Americas. Suarez expanded the existing norm of lex gentium — modified from Roman law — into a theory of international rights. The repository of social and cultural rights was the nation, under- stood by Suarez not as a political entity such as a state, but rather as a collective that shared common values, language and traditions. Many nations existed within a single political entity such as the Spanish Empire, but did not lose their special social and cultural distinctiveness on that account. Moreover, argued Suarez, it was a violation of interna- tional rights for one nation to try to extinguish or to subvert the values, language and traditions of another nation. Rebutting the notion of a divine right of kings to rule, Suarez placed himself in the opinion of the Schoolmen that social and political power flowed from the people and should be revoked if a ruler became a tyrant. The legitimacy of armed violence to overthrow a tyrant was described as a measure of self- defense of the life of the nation and could escalate in proportion to the violent repression directed against the national will (Stevens-Arroyo, 1996). Published by BYU ScholarsArchive, 2003 3 Comparative Civilizations Review, Vol. 49 [2003], No. 49, Art. 6 Anthony M. Stevens-Arroyo 57 This perspective on the sovereignty of the nation is directly tied to the issue of syncretism through the prominence given in the Suarezian thought to tradition. Because it is the living law of a nation and reser- voir of their collective identity, tradition takes precedence over positive law. Suarez stated that a ruler could not abolish any tradition of a nation under his jurisdiction by decree. Even if the traditions
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