El “catolicismo liberal” de Villanueva, Bernabeu y de Cortés. Una contribución decisiva al primer liberalismo (1808-1823)

Abstract

El «catolicismo liberal» de Villanueva, Bernabeu y de Cortes. Una contribución decisiva al primer liberalismo (1808-1823)

The article presents the ideological and political thought of the three Valencia’ representatives to the Cádiz Cortes and their essential contribution to the birth of Spanish liberalism. The background of the text is the political and cultural context in Spain in the two last decades of the XVIIIth Century and in the first three of the XIXth. The three men, even if obviously with different individual personalities, had in common the belonging to the Valencia’s clergy and above all shared a theological and philosophical background, markedly regalist and Jansenist. These were precisely the founding trends of Spanish liberalism, essential to reform the Church — a State within the State — the worst obstacle for the new liberal State. Another novelty offered by these pages is the deep division existing within the Spanish church, thus destroying the current theory of a united and homogeneous mentality of the Spanish clergy.