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3 THE EMERGENCE OF THE CATHOLIC PUBLIC SPHERE In spite of early recruitment successes in Valencia and Andalusia, the war dragged on for years. French armies took to the offensive, and clerics openly debated strategy through the medium of print and actively engaged in politics. Juan Constans, a Catholic priest from Catalonia, wrote an impassioned appeal to the Junta Central in June 1809 asking the government to sanction the formation of armed bands, called cruzados, led by priests engaged in guerrilla warfare against the French. He painted himself as a tireless defender of the patria who wanted to contribute more to the nationalist cause: “Since the Nation took up arms against our most vile enemies, animated by great patriotism, I have not ceased to demand that everyone come together in the defense of the Country by all means possible , now in the pulpit, now in the confessional, now in private conversations , and now finally in Schools. But even this did not satisfy my ardent desires for the public good.”1 A prelate preaching at the same time in Málaga proclaimed that clerics and the religious should conform to their traditional roles in shaping public opinion rather than fight on the battlefield . In an effort to instigate a war of public opinion against an allegedly traitorous and French-aligned print media, the prelate urged clerics to “foment public opinion, rejecting the pernicious writings of that throng of miserable Francophile journalists.”2 From private conversations and published tracts to the public spaces of the pulpit and the plaza, churchmen diffused conflicting political ideologies to their parishioners during the wars of independence. The fight over whether or not ecclesiastics would join the ranks of the soldier offers but one illustration of a larger pattern of debate and dispute within the Hispanic public sphere. Despite disagreements over their proper place in a war-torn society, clerics took center stage in the arena of public opinion during this time of crisis and had a profound impact upon emerging conceptions of national identity. 69 70 / Preaching Spanish Nationalism across the Hispanic Atlantic, 1759–1823 Yet who constituted the public? And was public opinion an amalgamation of popular beliefs or the result of reasoned debate and critical thinking ? Furthermore, were conservative clerics or the agents of liberalism more powerful in shaping the forces of public opinion? Many secular critics defined public opinion in terms that excluded the church. They viewed the public realm of politics and ideology as the font of rational discourse articulated through individual free speech, political representation, and freedom of the press. In the periodical El Robespierre Español, one editorial argued that “public opinion, or the general will of the citizens,” was expressed “with speech, with works, and with a free press.”3 Premised upon a Rousseauian conception of the general will and a liberal vision of individual freedoms, this view of public opinion echoed Miguel de Santander ’s enlightened manifesto Del character del christiano.4 Yet the treatise remained silent on the subject of religious contributions to an emerging political sphere carved out of the remains of Bourbon absolutism. Keith Michael Baker defines public opinion as “a political invention appearing in the context of a crisis of absolute authority in which actors within an absolutist political system appealed to a ‘public’ beyond as a way of reformulating institutional claims that could no longer be negotiated within traditional political language.”5 This definition clearly applies to the case of the Spanish Monarchy during the first decades of the nineteenth century. The Old Regime state faced a dual crisis of political legitimacy and liberal revolution during the War of Independence, which had ramifications in all of the Spanish dominions. Uprisings against royal authorities spread across Spanish America after 1810, further complicating questions of legitimacy and identity. As warring factions looked for support in the name of God, King, and Country, notions of sovereignty became increasingly contested. For a brief period, liberalism took hold from the church to the halls of government, and subjects were anointed citizens . As traditional political language began to break down, new actors across the social and political spectrum, from the pulpits to ad hoc assemblies and the print media, engaged each other within an emergent Catholic public sphere.6 THE CATHOLIC PUBLIC SPHERE IN THE HISPANIC ATLANTIC WORLD The foundations of national identities were discursively constructed within an emerging public sphere. Historians such as Geoff Eley note that, [18.189.2.122] Project MUSE (2024-04-16 13:52...

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