Regalists sought reforms that "were intended to redefine the clergy as a professional class of spiritual specialists with fewer judicial and administrative responsibilities and less independence than in Habsburg times.
"[1] Regalism evolved in Spain from a narrow focus on the excesses of the Catholic Church’s secular authority to a doctrine that emphasized the supreme power of the monarchy and its role in society and in the international order.
Regalism emerged in the eighteenth century when the Bourbon monarchs of Spain sought to revitalize its peninsular and ultramarine empire.
[2] According to historian Gabriel Paquette, regalism differs from Jansenism, but that they share some commonalities, including opposition to papal power, and a secular, utilitarian spirit.
[3] Regalism's origins were in the medieval period, but under increasingly under the Bourbon monarchy after 1700, regalists asserted authority over all ecclesiastical institutions, including the Inquisition.
The society was expelled from Spain under Charles III and the Spanish Empire in 1767 and its rich landed estates were sold off, its, and its frontier missions turned over to other religious orders.
They sought the "expansion of state power in order to modernize Spanish society" and to return Spain to its previous preeminent position in geopolitics.