Catholic Spain Research Articles

The Tragedy of Humanity: Christopher Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta Revisited

Christopher Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta is a significant example of the transition from Morality Plays to a period of more developed and mature drama in the Elizabethan period. The themes that Marlowe handles and the protagonist he presents in the play emerge as aspects of a distinctive approach to dramatic representation and the concept of drama of that time. The play is set against the background of the struggle for economic, political, and military dominance between the Catholic Spain and Moslem Ottoman Empires and the Catholic administration and Jewish mercantile class in Malta. Religious conflicts and bigotry, intrigues, betrayals, and revenge plans committed by almost all characters representing different religious communities, ethnic prejudices that affect not only individuals but also the whole society, greed, and moral corruption emerge as the basic themes. Although the full title of the play was Famous Tragedy of the Rich Jew of Malta, the play could not gain the status of a tragedy in the Aristotelian or Elizabethan sense of the word for many critics due to its dominant farcical characteristics. For a modern reader, however, The Jew of Malta can be considered as a satirical tragedy, the tragedy not of the protagonist Barabas, but of humanity that craves material benefits and political power, and for the sake of achieving these, commits all kinds of villanies including exploitation, theft, and murder, and as a result, socially experiences the fall of the tragic hero.

Ages, Stories, Styles

The contents of the next collection of the Institute of Art Studies from the series Problems of Ibero-American Art involuntarily invokes a premonition of a fascinating journey through different eras and subjects of Spanish culture: theatre, music, fine arts, social philosophy, literature of the Golden Age... The collection opens with an article by Vidas Sulinas, an expert on classical Spanish theatre. The author examines the time period from the last third of the 16th century to the beginning of the 18th century, tracing the change of three artistic styles — Renaissance, Mannerism and Baroque — using the example of the work of three classics of Spanish drama. To introduce readers to these works, the author gives brief reviews of the plots: at the heart of them is love, its mysteries, virtues and trials. The article raises a number of eternal problems of existence, including good and evil, reality and imagination and, finally, the eternally relevant motif of the artist and power. The second article written by Irina Kryazheva is devoted to the study of court musicians of Medieval Spain. The task is by no means simple, given the small number of sources. Their identification and subsequent scrupulous study are one of the undoubted advantages of the text. In the next article on percussion instruments of the Renaissance Spain, Maria Moiseeva recreates the widest palette of musical instruments of the era with their description and classification. Particular attention is paid to fruitful interaction between the European and Arab worlds. Denis Fedosov creates a voluminous canvas of church life in Catholic Spain through describing retablo as the center of artistic composition of a Spanish temple. These and other articles written by specialists make allowance for amateurs and welcome new readers. Overall, the collection turned out to be successful. First of all, due to the selection of authors. It is written professionally, which means it will be of interest to professionals, and for the same reason, along with the variety of content, it is also interesting for a wider audience.

British Enlightenment Theatre: Dramatizing Difference

British Enlightenment Theatre: Dramatizing Difference

Religious Reconquest, Social Commitment and Marks of Secularisation in relationes ad limina of some Spanish Bishops (1947-57)

The essay examines the relationes ad limina written by some Spanish bishops between 1947 and 1957. In these documents the bishops deal with the pastoral action carried out to restore Catholicism to Spain after the years of the Second Republic and the civil war and they describe the intense social commitment promoted since the end of the 1940s to combat illiteracy and misery of workers and peasants. They also report behaviours and data that highlight a growing secularisation and contrast with the image of a compact Catholic Spain.

Spain is Different?: Historical Memory and the "Two Spains" in Turn-of-the-millennium Spanish Apocalyptic Fictions by Dale Knickerbocker

Reviewed by: Spain is Different?: Historical Memory and the "Two Spains" in Turn-of-the-millennium Spanish Apocalyptic Fictions by Dale Knickerbocker Sara Martín (bio) SF as Historical Allegory: Apocalypse and Democracy in Spain. Dale Knickerbocker. Spain is Different?: Historical Memory and the "Two Spains" in Turn-of-the-millennium Spanish Apocalyptic Fictions. U of Wales P, 2022. 288 pp. $82 hc & ebk. Dale Knickerbocker is a professor of Hispanic Studies at East Carolina University and one of the US's most active specialists in the Spanish-language fantastic. His new book Spain is Different? is published in the Iberian and Latin American Studies series of the University of Wales Press and follows the publication of his edited volume Lingua Cosmica: Science Fiction from around the World (U of Illinois P, 2019), a fascinating tour of the many linguistic domains in which sf thrives. In contrast, Spain is Different? focuses specifically on six sf novels published in Spain between 1990 and 2005 by noted names in the field. According to Knickerbocker, these novels express in their (post-)apocalyptic plotlines anxieties regarding the history of Spain between the end of General Francisco Franco's regime (1939-1975) and the passage of the Law of Historical Memory in 2005 by José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero's Socialist government. This legislation intended, among other aims, to end the drama of the missing war victims still buried in mass graves. The title Spain is Different? alludes to the slogan that Franco's Minister of Information and Tourism, Manuel Fraga Iribarne, used in the 1960s to publicize the attractions of Spain among tourists. Knickerbocker's question is [End Page 574] whether Spain really is different—and hence the uniqueness of its apocalyptic turn-of-the millennium sf—or if it demonstrates the same preoccupations that currently articulate sf at an international level. The inevitable conclusion is that Spain is indeed different, yet it is also similar to other nations in which sf plays a similar allegorical function as a vehicle to discuss the tensions brought on by history. The novels Knickerbocker examines are Rosa Montero's Temblor [Tremor, 1990], Javier Negrete's Nox perpetua [Perpetual Night, 1996], Juan Miguel Aguilera's La locura de Dios [God's Folly, 1998], Enrique del Barco's Punto Omega [Omega Point, 2004], Eduardo Vaquerizo's Mentes de noche y hielo [Minds of Night and Ice, 2001], and José Miguel Pallarés and Amadeo Garrigós's Tiempo prestado [Borrowed Time, 2005]. Of these, only Temblor and La locura de Dios have been translated (into German and French respectively). It is to be hoped that Knickerbocker's monograph will interest prospective publishers and will result in more translations. Among the authors analyzed, all well-known in sf circles, Rosa Montero stands out as one of the most accomplished writers in Spain, as a journalist and as a novelist working in diverse genres. Knickerbocker introduces each author adequately, but readers might miss the fact that sf still occupies a marginal position in Spain beyond fandom circles. Knickerbocker also proficiently presents the theme of the "two Spains" and the historical situation of the nation at the turn of the millennium. Any minimally informed Spaniard can perceive a deep division between the more progressive, left-wing half of the country and the more backward, right-wing half. This is usually attributed to the Civil War (1936-1939) caused by Franco's coup against the legitimate democratic Republic (1931-1939), but readers of Benito Pérez Galdós's marvelous series of 46 novels, Episodios Nacionales [National Episodes, 1872-1912], will understand that the Civil War was yet another "episode" in this constant warfare between the two Spains. Knickerbocker dates this split back to King Philip V, crowned in 1700, the first monarch of the current Borbón dynasty and the man responsible for importing into obscurantist Catholic Spain the ideas of the French Enlightenment. Knickerbocker proposes that in these six sf novels the narrative about the two Spains resurfaces in a fantasy version shaped as much by the old tension between illustrated modernity and repressive religion as by current sf themes, with a special incidence of questions related...

Instruments of Empire: Colonial Elites and U.S. Governance in Early National Louisiana, 1803–1815

In 1768, six years after France transferred Louisiana to Spain through diplomatic means and two years after the Spanish took physical possession of the province, the elite French Creole planters and merchants in and around New Orleans rose up and threw out the few Spaniards sent to administer the colony. Spain, however, sent an occupying army to Louisiana from Cuba the following year, initiating more than three decades of peaceful rule. In December 1803, newly appointed territorial governor William C. C. Claiborne took possession of Louisiana for the United States in a ceremony held in New Orleans. Unlike the familiar monarchist, Catholic Spain that the French Creoles had rebelled against previously, the United States was a predominantly Protestant nation dedicated to representative government. Claiborne understood that to calm the fears of the conservative Catholic French Creole majority, he needed to move slowly in imposing the American system in the province....

From Baroque Spain to 1600s Amsterdam: Emergent Judaism in the Literary Works of Ex-New Christian Miguel de Barrios

Writing from the Hispano-Portuguese Jewish community of Amsterdam, Miguel de Barrios (1635–1701) used literary forms of Catholic Spain to resist the erasure of Jewish identity in Iberian lands by Inquisition tribunals that prosecuted non-Catholic practices as heretical. Our analysis of sonnets and allegorical plays by Barrios shows how, through them, this converso, or New Christian, of Jewish lineage openly exalts Judaism as a divinely chosen faith. We also argue that, by writing diasporic texts firmly adherent to Baroque Spanish literary trends, Barrios broadens the reach of this literature to include the hybrid identity of former conversos living as Jews. We demonstrate how the poet expresses this identity by examining elements that influenced its expression, including his biography and the importance of Amsterdam as a centre of Sephardic, or Iberian Jewish, settlement, and how he reworks canonical genres of Spanish literature to privilege Judaism and Hispano-Portuguese conversos returned to Judaism.

Silencing Feminism? Gender and the Rise of the Nationalist Far Right in Spain

Feminism in Spain is experiencing a paradox. On the one hand, the March 8 movement has held two feminist strikes, attended by multitudes. On the other hand, the far Right has entered representative politics, announcing a battle against feminism. With the rapid ascendency of the nationalist far-right party Vox, Spain joins other European countries where the far Right is on the rise. This article’s aim is to analyze the crucial role of gender in the rise of the nationalist far Right in Spain, arguing that gender is not a secondary issue but a primary field in which this political process is being articulated. The article examines the ways Vox mobilized gender during the national electoral campaign of April 2019 and during their first steps in the Andalusian Parliament. The analysis is twofold: it begins by exploring the framing of Vox’s electoral campaigns, including the national myth of the Reconquista of a Catholic Spain from Muslim rule and the militaristic representation of masculinity within this holy-war frame. It then examines Vox’s relentless antigender discourse, focusing on two prominent issues: first, the far-right opposition to gender violence policy through a variety of strategies, such as denying the gendered nature of violence against women and reversing the roles of victim and perpetrator, and second, the party’s representation of feminism, ranging from its straightforward delegitimization of feminism as an enemy of the Spanish nation to a parasitic-opportunistic appropriation through the defense of a “Spanish feminism.” The case study concludes that the Spanish far Right is gender dependent and that antagonism toward feminism is one of its key features.

Conchita Montenegro and the Spanish press: from national pride to nationalist melodrama

ABSTRACT The Spanish press reported on Conchita Montenegro, a Spanish actress who moved to Hollywood in the early 1930s, with ambiguous and contradictory messages. On the one hand, her stint in Tinseltown was celebrated as a national triumph: a young Spanish woman had managed to seduce and conquer the Hollywood film industry. On the other hand, the fact that in Hollywood she played female archetypes at odds with the conservative morality of Catholic Spain was silenced. Decades later, after her death, the Spanish press has restored Conchita Montenegro’s fame, this time through a sensationalist, melodramatic story similar to the way Hollywood stars are promoted. Based on a comparative study between journalistic sources from both periods, this article demonstrates that the way Montenegro was treated as a film star in the press reflects the same nationalist fervour, even though the focus of her patriotic exemplariness in the 1930s gave way to a melodramatic vision of her Hollywood career more recently.

La pasión esclava: Alianzas masoquistas en La Regenta by Nuria Godón (review)

Reviewed by: La pasión esclava: Alianzas masoquistas en La Regenta by Nuria Godón Julia H. Chang Nuria Godón. La pasión esclava: Alianzas masoquistas en La Regenta. Purdue UP, 2017. 224p. In their analyses of gender in Leopoldo Alas’s La Regenta (1884–1885), scholars remain divided in their views on Ana Ozores, particularly in relation to her sexual and spiritual deviations. Many insist on Ana’s passivity and ultimately, domination, while certain strands of feminist criticism have recuperated aspects of the protagonist’s willfulness or find a critical feminist potential in Ana’s subjection. La passion esclava: Alianzas masoquistas, devoted entirely to La Regenta, falls into the latter camp without rehashing familiar debates over the novel’s misogynist versus feminist undertones and ends. From the outset, the book arouses the reader’s attention, announcing the central problematic: masochism in La Regenta. The front cover features a caricature of an expressionless Alas calmly holding a cat o’ nine tails—a multi-tailed flogger historically used for corporal punishment but also, rather crucially, associated with the sexual practices of BDSM (bondage, discipline, domination, submission, and masochism). The bemusing image appears to be a play on Alas’s reputation as a caustic, merciless literary critic. Far from being a niche subject of inquiry, masochism has been the focal point of critical inquiry in diverse schools of thought including psychoanalysis, poststructuralism, and postcolonial theory. Most recently, masochism and by extension, submission, domination, and abjection, have been the focal point of significant interventions in Queer Studies. Godón’s debut book on the topic in the field of modern Iberian literary studies is both welcomed and long overdue. The introduction opens with an epigraph from Concepción Arenal: “[E]l dolor cuando no se convierte en verdugo, es un gran maestro” (1). The pages that follow enfold a reflection on Arenal’s theory of pain (dolor-verdugo versus dolor-maestro), the gendered contours suffering, and the pedagogical function pain that can have both spiritual and liberatory ends. Godón’s analysis of this concept becomes a point [End Page 114] of departure for examining the so-called “utility” of pain through the framework of female masochism and in turn, prompting us to rethink the power relations that structure gender in fin-de-siglo Spain. Ambitiously taking on historical formulations of masochism and its afterlife in poststructuralist thought, the introduction provides a robust overview of its cultural significance and theoretical import, while tending to the specificities of Spain and the unique Catholic valorization of pain and abnegation. From there, Godón moves into a multidimensional engagement with masochism, moving from theory to history to literature with great agility. Chapter One, “Reconsiderando el masoquismo,” conceptually anchors the book, deftly weaving historical and theoretical conceptualizations of masochism including Deleuze, Sartre, Weber, Beauvoir and of course Krafft-Ebbing’s Venus in Furs (Venus de las pieles). Godón never loses sight of the text in question and is careful to guide the reader back to the La Regenta and the context of Catholic Spain where notions of self-punishment and abnegation prove central to her reading of how masochism’s theatricality—public displays of pain and suffering—places it squarely in the realm of performance. It is ultimately masochisim’s performative function, Godón suggests, that opens up new avenues for subversive plays of power, crucial to our understanding of gendered subjection. Chapter two, “Yo tu esclavo y tu mi amo,” reconsiders Ana’s willful subjection to Fermín de Pas in the letters she composes to him signed “su esclava.” Godón recasts these letters as a kind of masochistic contract that subverts the roles of gender and brilliantly parodies the Rousseauian social contract. Chapter three, “La pasión extraviada,” further extends the analysis of the masochistic contract and, crucially, Fermín’s abandonment of its terms. Anchoring the analysis in the oft-commented Holy Week procession, Godón reconsiders Ana’s performance of humiliation, and ultimately makes a case for how the misuse of the contract exposes the failures of “compañerismo” and the ideal gender roles it subtends. The chapter’s close returns to the pedagogic function of pain (Arenal), emphasizing how...

“A Foe to All Christians”: The Notorious English Corsair Captain and Ottoman Reis John Ward in Early Seventeenth Century English Literature

Privateering, which permitted private ships to attack enemy vessels and claim their prize (ship, goods, crew etc.) was only possible under a licence commissioned by a sovereign, better known as a ‘letter of marque’. In the Elizabethan Period (1558-1603), English privateering proved to be an effective way of dealing with Catholic Spain, especially during the Spanish War (1585-1603). When King James I ended the war with Spain in 1604, however, privateers such as John Ward –left without valid licenses permitting them to capture enemy merchant ships and confiscate their goods– had to find other means of support. Under these new circumstances, the former privateer Captain John Ward, also known as Jack Ward, first became pirate, then a Barbary corsair (Yusuf Reis) and Muslim operating from Tunis. This study deals with the representation of John Ward, someone who has excited the interest of audiences across England as well as being vilified by King James I, in early seventeenth century English literature. In this respect, literary texts that allude to John Ward such as broadsheet ballads, Samuel Rowlands’ poems, and Robert Daborne’s play A Christian turn’d Turke (1610-1612) will be examined with special reference to two pamphlets, Andrew Barker’s A true and certaine report of the beginning, proceedings, overthrowes, and now present estate of Captaine Ward and Danseker (1609) and the anonymous Newes from Sea, of Two Notorious Pirates Ward the Englishman and Danseker the Dutchman (1609).

The Image of Elizabeth I in Early Modern Spain ed. by Eduardo Olid Guerrero, and Esther Fernández

Reviewed by: The Image of Elizabeth I in Early Modern Spain ed. by Eduardo Olid Guerrero, and Esther Fernández Noelia Cirnigliaro Olid Guerrero, Eduardo, and Esther Fernández, eds. The Image of Elizabeth I in Early Modern Spain. Foreword by Susan Doran. U of Nebraska P, 2019. 409 pp. The collection of essays edited by Eduardo Olid Guerrero and Esther Fernández entitled The Image of Elizabeth I in Early Modern Spain begins with a striking question posed by Susan Doran in her forward to the book: "Who would think there was any more to say about the image of Queen Elizabeth I? Over the past thirty years or more, historians and literary scholars from Britain and America, like myself, have re-examined her portraits, deconstructed her writings and speeches, and analyzed contemporary works of praise and criticism to reveal a more nuanced image than that originally presented by the three heavyweights, Elkin Calhoun Wilson, Roy Strong and Frances Yates" (xi). Happily, there is a however that precedes the second paragraph of the forward. Doran acknowledges that most scholarship on the relations between Spain and Britain in the Early Modern period has been Anglocentric, focusing mainly on the perspectives that contextualize Elizabeth I's image in the realm of Anglo-Saxon cultural and historical archives, even those works dealing with the reception of the Queen's image outside the island. Esther Fernández and Eduardo Olid Guerrero, the editors of this beautifully illustrated volume, seem to have rightly identified such slant in the scholarship and, together with nine other contributors, are set to remediate it. Put simply, the introduction by Olid Guerrero and the other ten essays (including one by his co-editor Fernández) strive to diversify the scholarship around Elizabeth Tudor, offering a series of answers to three key questions: first, how the Elizabethan political and iconographic strategies were seen from the viewpoint of the Spanish Monarchy, its colonies, and its allies; second, how influential the presence of Spain was in Elizabeth I's policies and in the representation of her public [End Page 309] image; and finally, in which ways had or hadn't her image changed once she passed away and her legacy in Spain became a legend. In other words, and based on these central inquiries, the research perspectives and methodologies that the essays open up could be grouped under theories of reception and semiology; international political theories and theories of self-fashioning, and finally—although not explicitly mentioned in the book—, a Warburg-like approach to the concept of the afterlife of images that reminds us of the iconographic notion of the Pathosformel. The organization of the volume is impeccable because it offers expert scholars or the lay curious readers a handful of answers to those questions in the three parts that organize the volume. There are several premises in this collection of essays as a whole, the main one being that there are shifts and transformations in the relationship between Protestant England and Catholic Spain and their allies during and after Elizabeth's life. Regarding the transformation, Olid Guerrero and Magdalena de Pazzis Pi Corrales pinpoint the principal changes and modifications (in the introduction and the opening chapter, respectively) that would lead from a status of political friendship between the nations to one of disdain, enmity, and aversion. These authors remind us of that short-lived period of grace and friendship of nations when Philip II assisted Elizabeth in 1554 as she was imprisoned for accusations of treason. And we are also reminded that, about five years later, he proposed marriage to Elizabeth soon after her half-sister and the Queen Consort of Spain, Mary Tudor, had died. These important diplomatic moves aimed at strengthening the restoration of Catholicism in England mark a period in which bilateral relationships between Tudor England and Hapsburg Spain were somewhat framed in the potential of friendship, mutual respect, and alliance. But Elizabeth's refusal to marry and, of course, England's reaffirmation of Protestantism gave rise to a negative pamphlet-driven image of Gloriana in Spanish territories, one tainted and shaped by notions of religious heresy, political unfitness, and the sheer irrationality and monstrosity of the...

City of Refuge: Separatists and Utopian Town Planning

City of Refuge: Separatists and Utopian Town Planning

Esther in Early Modern Iberia and the Sephardic Diaspora: Queen of the Conversas

Esther in Early Modern Iberia and the Sephardic Diaspora: Queen of the Conversas

칼데론의 성체극 『프쉬케와 쿠피도』에 나타난 종교적 입장 비교 연구

Pedro Calderon del la Barca used mythical figures and biblical allegories in his sacramental act Psyche and Cupid to make a comparison between the religious positions of the Protestant Church and the theology of the Catholic Church. By using ‘Apostasy’ as the allegory of Protestantism, the author condemned as heresy the theological positions of the Reformed Churches which were then anti-Catholic camps. Through this, the dramatist tried to protect the Catholic Spain and effectively educate the public the doctrines of the Catholic Church. His play was effective in delivering simply complex religious ideas to the audience through the form of pop-friendly play. By personifying and presenting on the stage certain religions and ideas, it helped the audience to understand philosophical doctrines easily. Above all, the powerful and charming myth of ‘Psyche and Cupid’ delivered to the public the essence of the Catholic Church’s beliefs and the effect of the Holy Communion. His play was a kind of Catholic sermon and embodied Eucharist on stage. It was also an effective propaganda literature that spread to the Spanish society the doctrines of the Council of Trent, which integrated the ideals of the Counter-Reformation.

The Adoption of Humanism in Catholic Spain (1470-1520)

ABSTRACTThis article re-evaluates the role and impact of Italian humanism in Spain, where scholars trained in Italy occupied the most important teaching posts of Latin in universities and schools from the 1470s. As a result, within one or two generations the entire educational system in Spain had been transformed by humanism. By reconstructing what humanism meant for different groups in society, its successes, as well as its limitations, are explained. Latin was important for the academic and governing elites. Additionally, humanism provided them with a cultural code, which – primarily in its aesthetic dimension – enabled them to differentiate themselves from others. However, the humanists’ aspiration to be on a par with nobles and equal in authority to lawyers and theologians was rejected. Noble blood, traditional legal attitudes and religious orthodoxy stood firm against a culture based on classical language and letters. Theologians in particular rejected the humanists’ interest in pagan mythology.

Las controversias sobre las competencias de la jurisdicción eclesiástica ante las órdenes militares en la Monarquía de España: algunas “allegationes”

Las características de las órdenes militares españolas fueron objeto de debate por parte de los juristas y teólogos en la Edad Moderna. La cuestión más importante era la consideración de sus caballeros como individuos eclesiásticos o legos. El propósito principal de este trabajo es el análisis de las “allegationes” pertenecientes a la Biblioteca Palafoxiana (Puebla), en lo que concierne a las competencias judiciales sobre los miembros de las órdenes militares. En este sentido, dos ejemplos ilustrativos son los alegatos preparados en la primera mitad del siglo XVII por Ambrosio Machín en Cerdeña y por Juan de Morales Barnuevo en Castilla. Estos textos impresos son interesantes fuentes para el estudio de la circulación de los debates jurídicos entre la Europa católica y Nueva España. Su contenido concierne a las competencias de las jurisdicciones eclesiástica y secular, así como a los conflictos entre los tribunales o autoridades, motivados por los delitos perpetrados por caballeros y novicios militares. Las discusiones doctrinales sobre el estatus jurídico de aquellas personas adquirieron trascendencia durante el Antiguo Régimen, debido a la proyección social que tenían los votos en las órdenes de los territorios de la monarquía católica. Asimismo, los impresos citados contribuían a la difusión en Nueva España de los postulados canónicos y reales sobre las competencias judiciales en las causas civiles y criminales, y de las opiniones de famosos autores, tales como Castillo de Bobadilla, García Mastrillo y Farinacci.

UNCLASPING THE EAGLE'S TALONS: MARK TWAIN, AMERICAN FREETHOUGHT, AND THE RESPONSES TO IMPERIALISM

This article situates Mark Twain's anti-imperialism within the wider atheist and freethought response to debates about the American turn to empire in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. While historians have been alert to the ways in which religion influenced debates around empire at this time, there have yet to be any studies of the views of American atheists and freethinkers on this question. I examine Twain and Robert Ingersoll, the leading American freethinker of the era, as well as some of the major freethought periodicals in the United States, the Truth Seeker, the Blue-Grass Blade, and the Free Thought Magazine, and argue that their irreligious views informed their responses to imperialism, from the initial support for a war against Catholic Spain, to opposition to the war against the Philippines motivated in large part by a hostility toward organized religion and its role in American expansion. More broadly, I argue for the need to move beyond a simplistic understanding of anti-imperialism within an American religious landscape that was basically Protestant, to a more nuanced understanding that incorporates the diversity of religious and nonreligious perspectives.

La recepción de la «Aeterni Patris» en España

The reception accorded to Aeterni Patris, and the influence of the document, naturally depended on the climate of opinion in which it was received. It is of interest therefore to give a brief sketch of the ideological situation in Spain at the end of the nineteenth century. There was little chance of the Encyclical's being rejected. The european secular currents of thought were slow to enter Spain, and were not firmly rooted there. Krausism enjoyed a certain influence; but was concerned with human rather than philosophical values. The climate of opinion was, therefore, not at all unfavourable. The scholastic tradition had survived in Spain, and a pre-revival scholasticism contributed to the success of the restoration, preparing and favouring the reception of Aeterni Patris. Of especial interest in this context is Juan Tomás de Boxadors, Master General of the Dominicans from 1757 to 1777. His work restored Thomism within the Order, and had considerable impact in wider spheres. The circular letter he sent to Dominicans all round the world, in 1757, could be called a "minor Aeterni Patris". And, although the historical circumstances did not favour the immediate realization of Boxador's programme, the influence of his work is clearly noted in the neo-thomistic revival of the second half of the 19th century. Years later, Fr. Ceferino González encouraged the growth of the seed sown earlier by his brother in religion. The majority of his literary work, impregnated with an open thomism, was written before Aeterni Patris, but there is a lesson to be learned in the way it fits in with the programme that Leo XIII was to trace out. For example, in the introduction to his work Studies in the Philosophy of Saint Thomas (1864) we read: "Expound the spirit and general tendencies of the philosophy of St. Thomas; make known the truth and quality of his ideas in the solution of all the great problems of science; compare this solution with the solutions given by rationalist anti-christian philosophies, and especially, to note and examine the true sense of his doctrine." Similar declarations, very much in keeping with the teaching of Aeterni Patris, are to be found in his prologue to The Bible and Science. It is not surprising, therefore, that the delight to which the Encyclical gave rise among intellectual circles in catholic Spain should be attributed, largely, to C. González. The distinguished dominican himself -at that time bishop of Cordoba- greeted the Encyclical most warmly. He had it published in the Bulletin, with a pastoral letter by way of introduction, in which he speaks of the "truly providential timeliness" of the Encyclical. As a philosopher of history, he draws attention to the "religious and doctrinal restoration" then taking shape, and remarks of the "providential timeliness" of Aeterni Patris that "every great movement of catholic regeneration is accompanied and followed by a great movement of restoration of the doctrine of St. Thomas." But the influence of Aeterni Patris was not confined to Andalucía: its renewing spirit was felt in other parts of the country - sometimes via C. González. There come to mind, for example, outstanding figures such as Pidal y Mon and Narciso Martínez Izquierdo, in Madrid; and Paulino Alvarez y Torras y Bages, in Cataluña. In this sense the controversy between Father Fonseca and Menéndez Pelayo is most significant. Menéndez Pelayo professed serious reserves with respect to Thomism, and it was precisely the Aeterni Patris which provided Fr. Fonseca with the weapon to win the two-year-long controversy. The Encyclical - as Fonseca wrote to Menéndez Pelayo on another occasion - "has shown us the safest route to arrive at the shores of christian philosophy."

Redes sociales y evangelización: el caso de las diócesis españolas en "Facebook"

Esta investigación analiza las cuentas en Facebook de las 70 diócesis que estructuran la Iglesia española. Se han analizado las cuentas mediante una ficha de análisis que estudia el potencial de influencia, el grado de interacción y el grado de compromiso de los seguidores con esos perfiles. En una España cada vez menos católica las diócesis españolas han conseguido reunir en Facebook a 45.000 personas para hablar de religión e informarse sobre noticias y actividades relacionadas con ella, y cerca de un tercio presentan un vínculo fuerte con sus seguidores.