The Cause of Catholic Enlightenment in 18Thcentury Spain

LUCES POR LA FE: THE CAUSE OF CATHOLIC ENLIGHTENMENT IN 18THCENTURY SPAIN

Andrea J. Smidt

Th e cause of luces (lights) in Spain meant a purifi cation, or “enlighten- ing,” of the Catholic faith rather than its abolition. Th us, the Spanish Enlightenment is more Catholic than the standard image associated with France. While a number of Catholic (or at least non anti- Catholic) Enlightenments existed, the Spanish monarchy sponsored the predominant mode. Associated with “progress”, it focused on the educated elite of Spanish society. Th e Spanish monarchy found it in its interests to promote such progress in “science,” associated with the Benedictine monk Benito Jerónimo Feijoo (1676–1764), and in the growth of civility and economic productivity, particularly through the regalist program of increased political centralization advanced by the court lawyers in Madrid, especially under the monarchy of Charles III (1716–1788). Furthermore, this Enlightenment under Charles III coincided with many of the objectives of the Catholic movement known as Jansenism. While in the 17th century Jansenism was a movement originating in the southern Netherlands and extending to France, which theologi- cally affi rmed the Catholic Church’s Augustinian tenets regarding the role of grace over that of good works in salvation, by the 18th century it had extended its reach to Spain and other parts of Catholic Europe and became more focused on political and legalistic matters involv- ing the support of episcopal jurisdiction and authority at the expense of papal supremacy. As it became less linked to theological concerns it was condemned as pseudo-Calvinist and was declared heterodox in the bull Unigenitus (1713). Th e late or “second” Jansenism of the 18th century attracted the attention of Catholic princes such as the Bourbons of Spain who sought to extend their monarchical authority over church aff airs (regalism).1 Starting in the early 18th century with the victory of the Bourbon dynasty in the War of Spanish

1 Th e term “second Jansenism” is borrowed from the synthesis of William Doyle, Jansenism: Catholic Resistance to Authority from the Reformation to the French 404 andrea j. smidt

Succession, regalism in the Spanish context became associated with a turn towards a more French or “Gallican” style of royal control over the church, a tendency that, over the course of the century, led to the confi rmation of royal authority over the Spanish church in every pos- sible political opportunity.2 Especially during the reign of Charles III (1759–1788), the eff orts of regalism took on more Jansenist, or at least philo-Jansenist, traits in matters of religion, as seen in the revival of patristic theology over that of Jesuit moral theology, a drive to purify the Catholic faith from all that was considered “superstition,” and a push for greater independence of national churches, episcopacies, and secular, parish clergy at the expense of the Roman hierarchy.3 Oft en- times, then, the causes of Jansenism and regalism in Spain supported each other in a mutually benefi cial relationship.4 Overall, however, the exact relationship is hard to pinpoint since the relationship developed gradually over the 18th century, constantly varied depending on the particular balance of interests at stake at any given moment, and led to unique coalitions of political and religious partners for each measure or act emanating from Madrid. To date, most comprehensive studies of Enlightenment in Spain (and by extension its Catholic nature) have focused primarily, if not exclusively, on the predominant mode sponsored by the Span- ish monarchy as “the Enlightenment” in Spain—an Enlightenment whose Catholicity proceeded indirectly from the fact that most agents

Revolution (New York: 2000). See the annotated bibliography of the study for a great list of the secondary literature available on the subject. 2 For a brief summary of regalist trends in Spain as part of the larger context of continental Catholic Europe see the chapter of Nigel Aston in Stewart J. Brown and Timothy Tackett (eds.), Th e Cambridge History of Christianity, Volume VII: Enlighten- ment, Reawakening and Revolution, 1660–1815 (Cambridge: 2006), 24–25. 3 William J. Callahan fi nds that the “Caroline Church” considered popular religious practices outside those of the church proper as something to suppress, or at best a necessary evil. William J. Callahan, Church, Politics, and Society in Spain, 1750–1874 (Cambridge, MA: 1984). 4 Charles Noel details this relationship (discussed below) in “Clerics and Crown in Bourbon Spain 1700–1808: Jesuits, Jansenists, and Enlightened Reformers”, in James E. Bradley and Dale K. Van Kley (eds.), Religion and Politics in Enlightenment Europe (Notre Dame: 2001), 119–153. Th is relationship is discussed specifi cally in the context of Barcelona during the episcopacy of Josep Climent i Avinent in Andrea J. Smidt, “Piedad e ilustración en relación armónica. Josep Climent i Avinent, obispo de Barce- lona, 1766–1775,” Manuscrits. Revista d’Història Moderna 20 (2002): 91–109.