Patronato real

"[2] The patronato was a prerogative granted by a competent ecclesiastical authority endowing a person with the permission to take over the obligations of providing for the administration and maintenance of a religious benefice.

In the case of the kings of Spain, they received rights over New World ecclisial appointments and affairs in exchange for their support of evangelization and the establishment of the Catholic Church in America.

Earlier, on December 13, 1486, Pope Innocent VIII had granted the queen of Castile and her husband, the king of Aragon, at their request, the perpetual patronage of the Canary Islands and Puerto Real including also Granada, foreseeing their next conquest.

In addition, the dispensation of the visit ad limina apostolorum of the bishops to the Holy See was obtained; the correspondence of the bishops was submitted to the revision of the Council of the Indies; the provincial councils were to be held under the supervision of viceroys and presidents of the royal audiences; to erect convents or religious houses a report should be sent to the king on foundations, haciendas and number of religious in the region and wait for the royal approval; no regular superior could exercise his office without obtaining the real authorization; vigilance was ordered to the convent life, punishing the ecclesiastics who did not fulfill their duties.

However, it also had other consequences less favorable to the papal perspective, such as the submission of the Church to royal assent Institutions such as the encomienda and debates such as that of the just titles make clear what was the true importance of religious justification for colonial rule.

On these bases, in the context of the endless discussions for the Concordat of 1753, the Spanish–Portuguese border conflicts over the territory of Misiones and the suppression of the Society of Jesus from Spain and Spanish overseas territories (1767); Spanish jurists developed a tendency to express royal control over the Church through new doctrinal formulations, which implied that both the patronato and the submission of the Church to the State did not derive from a concession of the Holy See, but was the result of an inherent right to the sovereignty of kings.

The patronato real was reestablished by the Concordat of 1953 granting it to Spanish dictator Francisco Franco until a new convention finally abolished it in 1976 during Spain's transition to democracy.