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During the 18th century, the Catholic Church in Spain was very powerful and was the government’s closest associated. More than a fifth of the church’s tithes were used to fund the government. Spain’s royal policy at the time was to have absolute control over the selection of church leaders including abbeys, bishops, and other key church officials. The Spanish government spent about 2.5 million pesos in bribing and paying the church leadership off, culminating into the concordat of 1753 where the pope allowed an increased royal control of the political class over the Catholic church.

Some of the forces behind the concordat of 1753 included Francisco Ravago, Jose Carvajal Lancaster who was the Pro-Jesuit secretary of state, and a youthful Manuel Ventura Figueroa. The Concordat effectively allowed the Spanish emperor to control all the remaining benefices. Basically, this concordat gave the monarchy the authority to appoint and this was deemed to be politically beneficial for the political class to serve in the Catholic Church offices in Spain.

During and after the Concordat of 1753, a grave issue arose concerning the Jesuits, who had direct associations to influential nobles but would not be trusted by the other ranks such as the Augustinians as well as the Dominicans. Rather than showing their loyalty to the king, the Jesuits owed it to the pope. As a result, the solution was to oust all the 5,000 Jesuits within Spain and its foreign empires, and this was done with speed and efficiency during the two-year period 1767-1768.

The philosophies which guided the Spanish policy from time to time are contained in Bernardo Tanucci’s. Correspondence during the times of Charles III in Naples. Charles ran his administration through Count Aranda, a Voltaire reader, as well as other liberals. The ouster of the entire Jesuit society was settled during a council meeting held on January 29, 1767. Consequently, secret instructions were sent to every magistrate in all towns where a Jesuit lived. This strategy worked efficiently and all the Jesuits were trekked like prisoners to the coast from where they were expatriated to the papal countries. By the year 1768, all the Jesuits across the Spanish dominations had been dispossessed.

There was a great effect particularly on the Spanish new world as the widely spread settlements were habitually controlled by missions. Within a very short time, the Jesuits vanished and were replaced by the Franciscans.

During the 1800s, secular groups and the forces against the clerics became gradually stronger. Another group of spiritualists arose and established a political identity. Catholic bishops criticized the spiritualists and said that their claim that they had ability to communicate with the deceased was heresy and faction since it could not be substantiated. Having a middle-class profile, the spiritualists were worried about the moral rejuvenation in Spain. They adopted rationalism and called for Catholic reform. These opinions brought them into contact with other rebellious groups, and they entered into the political field together. However, their heresies were not tolerated by the church during the era of restoration. Deliberations over making cemeteries secular, in particular, accorded the spiritualists some extent of legality and brought them into the circle of atheists who embraced republicanism.

The first case of violence against the clerics caused by the political conflict in the 1800s was experienced during the first Spanish civil war from 1820 to 1823. Twenty clergymen were murdered during Catalunya riots by liberal movement members who were retaliating against the decision of the Catholic Church to side with the autocratic supporters of Ferdinand VII. In the 1830s, Inquisition was called off, but there was no religious freedom in practice, only in theory. After the first Carlist war in 1836, major monasteries and convents were ended by the new government.

Catholicism did not become the state religion until the signing of another concordat in 1851 by the Vatican and the government. This concordant made Catholicism the sole religion of the Spanish nation for some time. By the ratification of the status quo, including disentailing of the concordat, the liberal state was accommodated. Nevertheless, the disentailing experience replaced, with a sense of uncertainty, the Catholic Church’s assumption of privilege. It took long before the church stopped seeking support and protection from the state to establish the Catholic Church as the only church of worship, thus denying Spaniards freedom of worship. In 1931, the church acknowledged the state’s secular jurisdiction, thus giving it some notion of national autonomy.

Towards the end of the 1800s, the Catholic Church upheld its support among the poor in a greater part of Spain. The church also enjoyed a restoration of those in the upper-class within the Spanish society, led by the noble women. They created several charitable and devotional organizations and resisted vices such as prostitution and others. They also made attempts to stop politicians who were against clerics. Union members and activists, as well as intellectuals, were increasingly infuriated by the renewed vigor of the Catholic Church at the upper echelons of the society.

In 1931, a republican regime took over the administration in Spain. This government was strongly opposed to clerical work, prohibited religious lessons in schools thus secularizing education, and ousted the Jesuits from Spain. Church properties, including convents, buildings, schools, and friaries were destroyed during attacks on the church in May 1931in Madrid, Levant, and Andalucia. All the properties belonging to the church such as parish houses, episcopal houses, monasteries, and seminaries were confiscated by the government. It was now a policy that if the church wanted to use these properties uninterrupted, they had to pay taxes and rent to the government. Other church items which were confiscated include religious robes, paintings, chalices, statuses, and other objects essential during worship.

Among the middle-class groups and most of the working class in urban areas opposing clerical work, the church was weak. However, it remained influential among the army and the wealthy elite. Its key foundation was the poor population in the rural areas of Spain. The Catholic Church in Spain had back up from diaspora members such as the Irish diaspora which was administratively influential within the United States. There were a number of middle-class Catholics whose women were mobilized by a group known as Women’s Catholic Action which was formed in 1920. This organization stressed the role of women as mothers and caregivers. Women were registered by presenting the vote as a way of fulfilling their responsibility of safeguarding religious and family values. By 1933, the Catholics started resisting by forming a Catholic party for the first time. The party was named the Confederation Espanola de Derechas Autonomas and was disbanded in 1937.

In 1936, there was an intense polarization of political ideologies, as both left and right saw massive evil schemes on the other side which had to be prevented. The core issue was the role played by the Catholic Church, which was seen by the left side as the chief adversary of modernism and the Spaniards. On the other hand, those on the right side viewed the role of the Catholic Church as the instrumental defender of the Spanish values. Power oscillated back and forth between 1931 and 1936 as the empire was overthrown and intricate coalitions created and disbanded. This culminated in a devastating civil war between 1936 and 1939, in which the conservative Nationalists backed by the army and the church with the support of Italy and Nazi Germany. The Nationalists, under the leadership of General Francisco Franco, with the support of the Soviet Union conquered the Republican Royalist coalition of liberals, anarchists, socialists, and communists.

Several thousands of churches were demolished and the Catholic clergy including nuns, priests, and notable laymen was violently attacked by the Republicans. In 1936, 6,800 out of the 30,000 Catholic monks and priests were killed, including 23 percent and 13 percent of the secular monks and priests respectively. During the same time, a total of 183 nuns and 13 bishops were murdered. About 50 percent of these executions took place over the first one and half months of the Spanish civil war. Typically, the murderers were anarchists whose actions were motivated by the fact that the church was a big adversary and that it backed the rebellion.

During the early years of Franco’s administration, the state and the Catholic Church had a close association that was beneficial to both parties. Being loyal to Franco’s regime meant that the Catholic Church advanced legitimacy to the autocratic regime, which consequently restored and improved the traditional privileges of the church.

The government system by Franco was essentially what can be termed as the opposite of the Republican era last government, popularly known as the front government. As opposed to the anticlericalism, of the Popular Front, Franco’s administration made policies which were very advantageous to the Catholic Church and as a result played a key role in restoring it to its former position as Spain’s official religion. Apart from receiving subsidies from the government, the Catholic Church re-claimed its leading position in the education system as well as rules which were in line with the Catholic doctrine.

During the time of Franco’s rule, the only religion that was granted a legal status was the Roman Catholicism. It is only the Roman Catholic that had the right to advertise its worship services, publish books, or own property. Other religious groups were not granted this right by the government. In addition to subsidizing the Catholic Church, the government also paid salaries to the church’s priests and helped in rebuilding church buildings destroyed during the civil war. Laws were enacted banning divorce and abolishing the sale and use of contraceptives. Learning of the Catholic religion was made mandatory in public school curriculums. Franco also had the right to name Catholic bishops within Spain and the veto authority to appoint the clergy up to the lowest level of parish priests.

Opposition to clericalism was firmly established before 1930 in the famous area of Catalonia. This made Barcelona and its industrial employees a key focus of the republicanism over the period of the civil war. Catalonia and the Catholic Church in Spain passed through grassroots revitalization and achieved extensive popular backing during the 1940s and 1950s. During the 1960s, opposition to clericalism had significantly vanished in the region and the Catholic Church took a central role in reviving Catalan independence and provided a foundation for the resistance to Franco’s autocratic administration.

The close collaboration between Franco’s government and the Catholic Church was made formal by signing a new concordat by both parties in 1953. This agreement, which was signed at the Vatican, granted explicit rights and privileges to the Catholic Church. Some of the privileges included compulsory official marriages for every Catholic, exemption from taxation by the government, grants for the construction of new buildings, censorship of material deemed unpleasant by the church, the freedom to start universities and other learning institutions, the right to establish and run radio stations, the right to publication of magazines and newspapers, protection from invasion into church property by the police, and exclusion of the clergy from serving in the military.

The Spanish Catholic Church shifted ground from its position as an unshakable backer of Franco’s regime to one of a guarded critic. This change of guard took place after the 1965 Vatican council which set forth the position of the Spanish Catholic Church on human rights. The church pulled out its support of the regime in the course of Franco’s final years of tyranny, becoming one of the harshest opponents of the administration. In 1971, the Catholic priests and bishops in Spain held a joint assembly which marked an important chapter in the separation of the church from the Spanish government. This team attested the liberal spirit of the second Vatican council and embraced a resolve of asking for the pardon of the Spanish people for the partisan position taken by the hierarchy during the civil war.

During the 1973 episcopal conference, the bishops made demands that the church is separated from the state, thus calling for the revision of the concordat that was made in 1953. Consequent negotiations for such a revision did not succeed mainly because Franco declined to surrender the authority to veto Vatican appointments. The development in the position of the Catholic Church in Spain led to divisions among the Spanish Catholics.

A movement that was popularly referred to as the brotherhood of Spanish priests formed a right-wing sentiment which was against any kind of democratic change. The movement later published venomous attacks on those bringing reforms to the church. Opposition became even more violent in these groups as the conservative Catholic extremist organizations called the warriors of Christ the king attacked liberal priests and their churches.

While this conservative group was vocal in its opposition to any change within the church, other Spanish Catholics were exasperated with the slow pace at which the reforms were taking place within the church as well as the society. Due to this, the Catholics decided to become involved in numerous liberal movements. In between the extreme stances by the liberals and conservatives, there emerged a small but influential group of Catholics who had earlier on taken part in movements such as Catholic Action. This organization was in favor of liberalization in both the government and the church but did not join the opposition forces. They created a study group known as Tacito, which pressed for a steady shift to a democratic empire. The members of this group published stories in favor of a Christian and democratic Spain.

The right to appoint Catholic bishops was unilaterally renounced by King Juan Carlos de Borbon in 1976. In July the same year, the Vatican and the Suarez administration signed a new consensus which reinstated the right to appoint bishops to the Catholic Church. The church also gave in to a reviewed concordat that involved a steady financial separation of the state and the Catholic Church. Any property belonging to the Catholic Church and was not in use was to be taxed henceforth, and the church’s reliance on subsidies from the state subsided over time. Soon, negotiations ensued culminating in mutual agreements, defining the relationships between the new state and the Vatican. The 1978 Spanish constitution endorses the distancing of the state from the church while at the same time recognizing the role played by the Roman Catholic belief within the Spanish society.

Within the basic structure for the new bond between the church and the state, contentious issues remained to be resolved during the 1980s. Traditionally, the church had exercised substantial authority in education, and it joined the right-wing opposition parties in mounting a spirited protest against the education reforms imposed on its control of learning institutions. Even more spiteful arguments followed over the issue of abortion and divorce which was emotionally charged at the time. The Spanish Catholic Church organized its extensive influence in backing a potent lobbying effort to oppose the proposed regulation that that was against the Roman Catholic creed governing these matters.

In 1981, a law was passed making civil divorce legal and this struck a big setback against the influence of the Catholic Church within the Spanish society. A law that legalized abortion under given situations was passed in August 1985 and further liberalized in November the following year. This was fiercely opposed by the Spanish Catholic Church.

Measures aimed at the reduction and the ultimate eradication of the direct state subsidies to the Catholic Church was another manifestation of the renewed role of the church. The church was in accord with the plans meant to make it financially independent as part of the agreements reached in 1979. These were to be achieved over a rather long period of transition. Towards the end of 1987, the state declared that the church would no longer receive direct aid from the state but would depend on what the worshippers chose to offer. This decision was arrived at after a trial that lasted three years. The citizen worshippers would make contributions by donating portions of their income tax for the church. Even though the exempt status of the church was equivalent to a subsidy, the impact of this new financial status on the ability of the church to exercise political influence lasted.

Presently, the Spanish administration has lessened restrictions on laws on divorce and made a legislation to legalize same-sex marriages. These have been expedited by a socialist administration which took over in 2004. The state has further indicated that it would ease laws on euthanasia and abortion. The Spanish Catholic Church has responded to these actions and intentions by being vocal in their opposition and the efforts to regain their former authority over the nation.

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