Los papeles perdidos del cardenal Segura, 1880-1957 (review)

The "lost papers" in the title of this impressively documented study of one of the most controversial figures in the history of the twentieth-century Spanish Church refers to the disappearance of key documents from the cardinal's personal archive. Expelled from Spain by the Second Republic and later forced by the Vatican to resign as archbishop of Toledo and primate of Spain in 1931, Segura returned to Spain in 1937 as archbishop of Seville. In spite of his conservative views, the cardinal remained a thorn in the side of the Franco regime. He mistrusted its totalitarian tendencies, especially as far as church organizations were concerned, and for being too lax, if that can be imagined, with enforcing strict moral standards and curbing what he saw as the Protestant threat in his diocese. The author has established that Segura withdrew certain documents with a view to writing a justification of his career before its abrupt end in 1955, when the pope, supported by the Franco regime weary of his anti-Protestant tirades and their effect on Spain's new American ally, appointed a coadjutor archbishop with the right of succession. After Segura's death in 1957, the papers in question passed to a nephew who allowed the cardinal's first biographer, Ramón Garriga, to consult some of them during the 1970's. Thereafter, the paper trail goes cold, although the author has some grounds for believing that the documents now rest in a Parisian safe-deposit box.

This study, in spite of its title, is not based on information from the "lost papers," which are still lost as far as historical research is concerned. But the author has surmounted this obstacle through extensive research in a wide variety of public, ecclesiastical, and private archives including, for example, the remaining papers in the Segura archive, as well as those of his secretary and a prominent Carlist politican, Manuel Fal Conde, with whom the cardinal maintained close contacts during the 1930's and 1940's. Two previous biographies of Segura by Ramón Garriga (1977) and Francisco Delgado (2001) have certain merits, but the extent and quality of the research evident in this study makes it the definitive work on Segura published until now.

It is not a full-blown biography in that it deals primarily with what might be called the cardinal's "political" role in the period following the proclamation of the Second Republic, his sympathy for the cause of authoritarian monarchy in the form of Carlism during the mid and later 1930's, and his frequent jousts with the Franco regime over nearly two decades. Previous studies of Segura have emphasized his commitment to the monarchy and King Alfonso XIII, who promoted his appointment to the archbishopric of Toledo in 1927. The author has taken this traditional view further by arguing that Segura's monarchist sympathies rested on more than a vague, romantic notion of the royal institution and appreciation of the contribution Alfonso XIII had made to his career. Segura idealized the monarchy of Ferdinand and Isabella, Charles V, and Philip II in an era which, in his view, had seen Church and Crown work together to secure the triumph of religion. Segura believed that nineteenth-century liberal governments had undermined this happy arrangement even though they maintained the Church as the established church. Why Segura imagined that Alfonso XIII would be able to realize this chimera is not entirely clear, but during the political crisis of 1930 and early 1931, the cardinal provided unabashed support to a monarchy under threat from resurgent republicanism.

The departure of the king and the proclamation of the Second Republic caught Segura by surprise. The decision of Pius XI to recognize the new regime moved the bishops to publish pastoral letters accepting the "constituted authorities." Segura was among the last to do so, and when he did, he could not resist praising the departed monarch for his support of Church and religion. In...