The Catholic Church in Spain—The Power and the Privilege
“The Lord left to Peter the governance not of the Church only but of the whole world.”—Pope Innocent III.
WHEN Innocent III wrote those words in the early 13th century, the medieval Catholic Church had reached the pinnacle of its power. But the road to temporal power had been paved by political rather than spiritual alliances. Nowhere was this more so than in Spain.
The Spanish church grasped power and privilege by joining forces with the State.
Religious Unity a Political Tool
In 1479, after centuries of rule by divided and fractious kingdoms, nearly all of Spain became united under the rule of Ferdinand and Isabella. But how was the newly formed nation to be united in thought and purpose? Ferdinand enlisted the aid of the church. In 1478 the Inquisition had been set up with papal backing. Now, controlled by the king and run by the church, it proved to be one of the most powerful weapons yet devised for suppressing religious and political dissent. With the rapid submission of all baptized Spanish Catholics to its yoke, the only remaining obstacle to unity were the several million unbaptized—the Jews and the Moors.
In 1492, under pressure from Inquisitor-General Torquemada, Ferdinand and Isabella ordered the expulsion from Spain of all unbaptized Jews. Ten years later, all Moors who refused to become Catholics were also expelled. Friar Bleda described the forced exodus of the Muslims as “the most glorious event in Spain since the time of the Apostles.” He added: “Now religious unity is secured, and an era of prosperity is certainly about to dawn.” La España Católica (Spain, the Catholic) had become a reality, and in recognition Isabella and Ferdinand were named “the Catholic Sovereigns” by Pope Alexander VI.
With religious unity achieved at home, the Spanish church widened its horizons. Under Spanish royal patronage, Columbus had just discovered new lands and peoples in the Americas. Accompanying the conquistadores, Dominican and Franciscan friars sailed to the New World, bent on bringing the heathen into the bosom of the church.
Cortés, conqueror of Mexico, was told that the primary goal of his expedition was to serve God and spread the Christian faith. Notwithstanding, he frankly admitted: “I came for the gold.” Perhaps the majority of the conquistadores had mixed motives, similar to those expressed by one of their number: “We came here to serve God and also to get rich.”
Before embarking on the conquest of a certain region, the conquistadores read aloud a document entitled Los requisitos—in or out of the natives’ hearing—according to which the natives were required to recognize that the church governed the world and that the king of Spain was its representative. A refusal to acknowledge such was sufficient to consider the military colonization a “just war.”
Millions of natives were baptized, many immediately after being conquered. Thereafter, priests and friars cooperated with the Spanish monarchs in governing the colonies. As church historian Paul Johnson observed: “The Catholic Church was a department of the Spanish government, and never more so than in the Americas. . . . In return, the Church required protection, privilege, and the crown’s unswerving devotion to the orthodox faith.”
Thus, by the end of the 16th century, the church in Spain had become the most powerful national church in Christendom. It exercised absolute religious control throughout Spain and a vast part of the New World. But the singular power and privilege that it enjoyed inevitably led to abuses more pronounced than in other lands.
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“We came here to serve God and also to get rich”