Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-fv566 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-17T23:16:14.096Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Clergy and the Enlightenment in Latin America: An Analysis*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Karl Schmitt
Karl Schmitt*
Affiliation:
University of Texas, Austin, Texas
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Several currents of “enlightened” doctrine ran swiftly and strongly through Latin America by the end of the eighteenth century. Scholarly work of the past two decades obviates the need to prove that the new philosophy, the new science, and the new politics found acceptance in the Spanish world. Forbidden books made their way into Latin America with relative ease, the Inquisition proved ineffective in preventing the spread of new ideas, and the Spanish crown itself not only promoted useful knowledge but encouraged “ modern ” philosophical studies. Aside from special studies on the Enlightenment, however, the more general histories of Latin America too frequently take the position, implicit if not explicit, that the Catholic clergy, monolithic in their obscurantism, constituted the primary obstacle to the complete victory of “enlightened” ideas. It appears to me that this point of view is somewhat inaccurate. This paper holds as a thesis, rather, that the clergy were seriously split on practically all aspects of the Enlightenment. Some supported, some opposed, and many were indifferent to or ignorant of “ enlightened ” notions. The degree of support or opposition varied, and not all who opposed or supported the movement, supported or opposed it in toto.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 15 , Issue 4 , April 1959 , pp. 381 - 391
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1959

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

This article was originally presented as a paper at the annual meeting of the American Historical Association, in a joint session with the Catholic Historical Association, December 30, 1958.

References

1 Sarrailh, Jean, La España Ilustrada de la Segunda Mitad del Siglo XVIII (México, 1957), pp. 573–579, 605–612, and 660–661.Google Scholar

2 Téllez, Emeterio Valverde, Bibliografía Filosófica Mexicana (2nd ed.; León, 1913), 1, 130.Google Scholar

3 Ibid., I, 143.

4 Quoted in Téllez, Emeterio Valverde, Apuntaciones Históricas sobre la Filosofía en México (México, 1896), pp. 41–43.Google Scholar

5 Ibid.

6 Furlong, Guillermo S.J., Nacimiento y Desarrollo de la Filosofía en el Rio de la plata, 1538–1810 (Buenos Aires, 1952), pp. 69 and 159 ff. and 246 ff.Google Scholar

7 Bacca, Juan David García, Antología del Pensamiento Filosófico en Colombia (Bogotá, 1955), p. 35.Google Scholar

8 Alzate, José Antonio, Gacetas de Literatura de México (Puebla, 1831), 1, 12–13.Google Scholar

9 Fernández, Jesús María S.J., and Granados, Rafael S.J., Obra Civilizadora de la Iglesia en Colombia (Bogotá, 1936), pp. 81–84 Google Scholar; de Caldas, Francisco José, Semanario del Nuevo Reino de Granada (Bogotá, 1942), 1, 229–231 and III, 6–7.Google Scholar

10 Téllez, Valverde, Bibliografía, 1, 109 on Diego Abad.Google Scholar

11 Ibid., I, 128 on Agustín de Rotea.

12 Carbia, Rómulo D., La Revolución de Mayo y la Iglesia (Buenos Aires, 1945), pp. 20–22 Google Scholar; Zuretti, Juan Carlos, Historia Eclesiástica Argentina (Buenos Aires, 1945), p. 190.Google Scholar

13 Shafer, Robert J., “Ideas and work of the colonial economic societies, 1781–1820,” Revista de Historia de América, 44 (December, 1957), 331–368.Google Scholar

14 de Oviedo, Basilio V., Cualidades y Riquezas del Nuevo Reino de Granada, ed. by Cuervo, Luis Augusto (Bogotá, 1930), pp. 57 and 71–74.Google Scholar

15 Pérez Sarmiento, José M. (ed.), Causas Célebres a los Precursores (Bogotá, 1939), 1, 163 and II, 183–185.Google Scholar

16 The three pastoral letters cited are included in Papeles Diversos of the García collection of the University of Texas.

17 Peña, Roberto I., El Pensamiento Político del Deán Funes (Córdoba, 1953), pp. 174–175.Google Scholar

18 Furlong, op. cit., pp. 313–316.

19 Carbia, op. cit., pp. 101–102.

20 Posada, José Restrepo, “El Doctor Nicolás Cuervo y nuestras primeras relaciones con la Santa Sede,” Boletín de Historia y Antigüedades, 28 (January-February, 1941), 290–291.Google Scholar

21 Ancona, Eligio, Historia de Yucatán desde la época más remota hasta nuestros días (Barcelona, 1889), 3, 20–21, 37–38, 114–121, and 188–189.Google Scholar

22 Medina, José Toribio, D. José Mariano Beristain de Souza Estudio Bio-Bibliográfico (Santiago, 1897), pp. xv-xvi;Google Scholar; Beristain, Joseph Mariano, Discurso Político Moral y Cristiano (México, 1809), pp. 17 and 31–32.Google Scholar

23 Fisher, Lillian E., Champion of Reform Manuel Abad y Queipo (New York, 1955), pp. 65–96.Google Scholar

24 Edict of Archbishop Fonte of Mexico, July 18, 1820, in Vera, F. H., Documentos eclesiásticos de México (Amecameca, 1887), 2, 341–347.Google Scholar

25 Archivo Epistolar del Sabio Naturalista José Celestino Mutis (Bogotá, 1941), II, 154.

26 Lanning, John T., “The Enlightenment in Relation to the Church,” The Americas, 14, no. 4 (April, 1958), 493.CrossRefGoogle Scholar