History of the Catholic Church in Spain

As nearly one hundred early canons of Toledo found a place in the Decretum Gratiani, they exerted an important influence on the development of ecclesiastical law.

Crossing the Strait of Gibraltar, it won a decisive victory in the summer of 711 when the Visigothic king Roderic was betrayed by the Witizan wings of his army and killed on 19 July at the Battle of Guadalete.

Al-Andalus was rife with internal conflict between the Arab Umayyad rulers, the north-African Berbers who had formed the bulk of the invasion force, and the Visigoth-Roman Christian population that was a majority for almost the next four centuries.

Al-Andalus coincided with La Convivencia, an era of religious tolerance (as far as Christians and Jews peacefully accept submission to Muslims, as well as being reduced to the condition of tax-paying serfs) and with the Golden age of Jewish culture in the Iberian Peninsula (912, the rule of Abd-ar-Rahman III.

The papacy and the influential Abbey of Cluny in Burgundy not only justified the anti-Islamic acts of war but actively encouraged Christian knights to seek armed confrontation with Moorish "infidels" instead of with each other.

After centuries of the Reconquista, in which Christian Spaniards fought to drive out the Moors, the Spanish Inquisition was established in 1478 by Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile, to complete the religious purification of the Iberian Peninsula.

On 31 March 1492, the joint Catholic Monarchs of Spain (Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon) issued the Alhambra decree, accusing Jews of trying "to subvert their holy Catholic faith and try to draw faithful Christians away from their beliefs" and ordering the expulsion of Jews from the Kingdom of Spain and its territories and possessions by 31 July of that year.

They also fled to south-eastern Europe where they were granted safety in the Ottoman Empire and formed flourishing local Jewish communities, the largest being those of Thessaloniki and Sarajevo.

[8] The outstanding exponent of mysticism was Teresa of Ávila (1515–1582), a Carmelite nun who was active in many different modes of religion, including organizing convents and new congregations, and developing the theology of the Counter Reformation in Spain that permanently minimized the Protestant influence there.

Teresa's promoters said Spain faced new challenges, especially the threat of Protestantism and the declining society at home, and needed a modern patron saint who understood these problems and could lead the Spanish nation back.

Santiago's supporters ("santiaguistas") fought back viciously and won the day, but Teresa of Avila remained far more popular at the local level.

The spiritists had a middle class profile, were concerned with Spain's moral regeneration, and embraced rationalism and a demand for Catholic reform.

These views brought them in contact with other dissident groups and they all entered into the political arena when the Restoration-era Church refused to tolerate their "heresies".

Debates over the secularization of cemeteries in particular granted spiritists a degree of public legitimacy and brought them into the circle of freethinkers who embraced republicanism.

During riots in Catalunya, 20 clergymen were killed by members of the liberal movement in retaliation for the Church's siding with absolutist supporters of Ferdinand VII.

"[17] In the late nineteenth century the Catholic Church maintained its base among the peasants in most of Spain, but also enjoyed a revival in upper-class society, with aristocratic women taking the lead.

The end came in a devastating civil war, 1936–39, which was won by the conservative, pro-Church, Army-backed "Nationalist" forces supported by Nazi Germany and Italy.

The Nationalists, led by General Francisco Franco, defeated the Republican "Loyalist" coalition of liberals, socialists, anarchists, and communists, which was backed by the Soviet Union.

In contrast to the anticlericalism of the Popular Front, the Francoist regime established policies that were highly favorable to the Catholic Church, which was restored to its previous status as the official religion of Spain.

In addition to receiving government subsidies, the church regained its dominant position in the education system, and laws conformed to Catholic dogma.

[26] In return, Franco secured the right to name Roman Catholic bishops in Spain, as well as veto power over appointments of clergy down to the parish priest level.

[26] Before 1930, anti-clericalism was deeply rooted in the historic region of Catalonia, which made Barcelona and its industrial workers a major center of Republicanism during the Civil War.

By the 1960s, anti-clericalism had largely disappeared in the region and the Catholic Church became a central element in revival of Catalan nationalism and provided a base for the opposition to Francoism.

This group affirmed the progressive spirit of the Second Vatican Council and adopted a resolution asking the pardon of the Spanish people for the hierarchy's partisanship in the Civil War.

Within the institution, right-wing sentiment, opposed to any form of democratic change, was typified by the Brotherhood of Spanish Priests, the members of which published vitriolic attacks on church reformers.

Opposition took a more violent form in such groups as the rightist Catholic terrorist organization known as the Warriors of Christ the King, which assaulted progressive priests and their churches.

[28] Because the church had already begun its transformation into a modern institution a decade before the advent of democracy in Spain, it was able to assume an influential role during the transition period that followed Franco's death.

Furthermore, although disagreements over church-state relations and over political issues of particular interest to the Roman Catholic Church remained, these questions could be dealt with in a less adversarial manner under the more liberal atmosphere of the constitutional monarchy.

Although church-state relations involved potentially polarizing issues, the church played a basically cooperative and supportive role in the emergence of plural democracy in Spain.

The church mobilized its considerable influence in support of a powerful lobbying effort against proposed legislation that was contrary to Roman Catholic doctrine governing these subjects.