Catholicism in the Second Spanish Republic : religion and politics in Salamanca, 1930-1936
The research for this thesis has been confined in space and time in order to facilitate an investigation of the Church at several levels: the study is as concerned with the faith and the faithful as with the official presence of the hierarchy. It examines questions of religious identity in an area of high Catholic practice, conservative politics and, eventually, genuine popular support for the Nationalist rising. The province of Salamanca, in the north west of Spain, is a particularly appropriate focus for such a study. Part of the Castilian heartland of traditional Spain, it was the home province of Jose Maria Gil Robles and a major area of strength for the parliamentary Catholic right, which mobilised here before anywhere else in Spain. This has led to Salamanca receiving some attention from historians. Scholars such as Paul Preston and Juan Jose Castillo use it to provide examples of the Catholic right's techniques and rhetoric, arguing that the innate conservatism of the Castilian smallholders was manipulated by the great landlords. However, perhaps the most interesting feature of the history of the province in the 1930s is how its story differed from that laid out in Madrid. The historiography of the Second Republic has concentrated - perhaps inevitably - on political and parliamentary struggles. While issues such as disestablishment and the fate of the religious orders were of crucial importance at institutional and governmental level, the impact they had outside the professional circles of church and state is far less certain. This study has moved outside the administrative world of the capital to investigate the impact of the Republic on ordinary Catholic citizens. The minutiae of church/ state relations and the undoubted injustice of the treatment of the religious orders may have outraged the Catholic deputies representing Salamanca in the Cortes, but their Catholic constituents had different concerns. By examining these concerns, this thesis throws new light on the process of breakdown of the Second Republic.
Religious apparitions and the Cold War in Southern Europe
Durante la II Guerra Mundial, catolicos y comunistas se prepararon para disputarse el poder politico en la posguerra. La Iglesia, al recurrir a la Virgen de Fatima como simbolo del anticomunismo, provoco en Europa meridional y central visiones imitativas, experimentadas sobre todo por ninos. Esas visiones continuaron produciendose a lo largo de la guerra fria. En Espana, los videntes fueron a menudo hijos de familias que en la Guerra Civil se habian situado en el bando republicano.
Moving crucifixes in modern Spain
Why are religious visions believed only in certain times and places? In this book William Christian investigates the settings and responses to a series of group visions reported by Spaniards in rural Galicia, Valencia, Cantabria and Navarre in the early part of this century - the most notable one involving the crucifix at Limpia, where Jesus was first seen agonizing on the cross during a mission service in March of 1991. In light of the social strife and strong anti-clerical movements of the period, the author examines how gender and religious politics influenced the experiences of seers and the interpretation of their visions by church officials, journalists and the public.