Les Chemins de Rome: Les Visites ad Limina a l'Epoque Moderne dans l'Europe Meridionale et le Monde Hispano-Americain (XVIe-XIXe siecle) (review)

Some twenty years ago Bishop Pedro Casaldáliga of São Félix do Araguaia, Brazil, caused quite a stir by saying that he had more pressing things to do than to go to Rome for his scheduled ad limina visit. Some observers then noted that Casaldáliga was really objecting to the excessive centralization and papal meddling in episcopal matters of a Rome that had not yet caught up with Vatican Council II. Yet, the reality is that our contemporary Catholic Church is still shaped more by the Council of Trent than by the aggiornamento recommended by Vatican II. Within this context, any research and analysis of the reforms and regulations established by Trent are important for much more than a historical rendering of the impact of that watershed council. Herein lies the need and the significance of this pioneering study of what the bishops of Southern Europe and Spanish America did in conformity with Pius V's constitution Romanus Pontifex of December 2, 1585, a follow-up to Pius IV's motu proprio Alias nos nonnullas of August 2, 1564, that instituted the Congregation of the Council to interpret and apply the decrees of Trent. It ordered the bishops to personally come to the thresholds (ad limina) of the Apostles every four years in order to report on the spiritual and temporal state of their dioceses.

The Vatican Archives have finally been thrown open to the study of the ad limina reports prepared between 1585 and 1922. Extensive studies have already been made of the reports from a number of Northern European countries, but those from France, the Iberian Peninsula, Italy, and Spanish America have received little attention. Les Chemins de Rome introduces the reader to this archival material and does an excellent job of analyzing and synthesizing the ad limina reports from those areas. It is written in French, Spanish, and Italian, with archival appendixes and footnotes also in Latin and Portuguese. This volume contains fascinating material and precious information about the impact of the Council of Trent and the meaning of Roman Catholicism from the late sixteenth to the twenty-first century.

Certainly the ad limina reports do not present the full picture of the Church since Trent, but without them a whole picture cannot be drawn. They provide us with insights and personal accounts not available in other sources. We find them in a world of valuable information and some fascinating vignettes of local churches. We learn, for example,

• • that the Spanish Archbishopric of Toledo, the largest and richest of the Iberian Peninsula, shows the greatest zeal for the reforms of Trent; its prelates call together several synods to implement Trent and often complain about the negative influence of the royal court of Madrid with its masked balls, carnival celebrations, bullfights and the theatre, and their women not covering themselves with the veil in church;

• • that 95 per cent of the parishes of Granada were created in the mudéjar areas in order to convert the Muslims, and one bishop wishes to do away with the religious tradition of dancing;

• • that the bishops of Jaén complain about the excessive number of hermitages (177 in 1595, 174 in 1719) and the large estates and independence of the military orders; they also report on the popular devotion to the Holy Shroud of Veronica;

• • that the Bishop of Burgos resents the power of the Benedictine Abbess of Las Huelgas, who controlled a dozen monasteries and donned priestly garb to perform priestly functions within the cloister;

• • that the Bishop of Ávila disapproves of the nuns singing in Spanish in church;

• • that the Portuguese Bishop of Oporto spends much of the resources...