Pedro Segura: Un cardenal de fronteras (review)

Abstract

In the political and ecclesiastical history of Spain during the first half of the twentieth century, few figures were more controversial than Pedro Segura y Sáenz (1880-1957), bishop of Coria (1920-1927), archbishop of Burgos (1927-1928), archbishop of Toledo and primate of Spain (1928-1931), and archbishop of Seville (1937-1955). His ingrained hostility toward the democratic reforms of the Second Republic and his monarchist sympathies led to his expulsion from the country within weeks of the Republic's proclamation [End Page 318] (1931). The Vatican, anxious to safeguard the Church's position as best it could in the new political order, forced his resignation from the primatial see a few months later. After six years of Roman exile, Segura returned as archbishop of Seville. Although deeply conservative in his political views, his resentment at the limitations imposed on the Church by what he perceived as an emerging totalitarian regime led to a series of pastoral letters and confrontations with the regime's quasi-fascist party, the Falange, between 1938 and 1940 that made him persona non grata with Franco.