From Mallorca to America: Cursillos de Cristianidad and the Internationalizing of American Catholic Studies

American Catholic Studies is at a pivotal juncture as older framings of American Catholic history are being reworked and as post-World War II Catholicism in America in particular is being reimagined. Much of this reimagining and reframing involves internationalizing American Catholic Studies and making it more conscious of global developments. How, then, can a turn toward global developments enhance pre-existing and ongoing studies of American Catholicism?

I address these questions and other overlapping concerns in my forthcoming book, Cursillos in America: Catholics, Protestants, and Fourth Day Spirituality (University of North Carolina Press, September 2013). In the book, I begin with an exploration of 1930s and 1940s Spanish Catholic culture and its fascist milieu as a springboard into an ethno-historical examination of the Cursillos de Cristianidad. These "short courses in Christianity" have their origins in 1944, in the port city of Cala Figuera, on the Spanish island of Mallorca. It was on a hilltop chalet overlooking the cerulean blue cala, or cove, where the Catholic layman Eduardo Bonnín Aguiló and a small group of like-minded friends held the very first weekend retreat in Christian spirituality. By quietly meeting in a seaside neighborhood on the island's East Coast, far removed from the gothic cathedral and its normative Catholic gaze in the capital city, Palma, these Mallorquínes unwittingly subverted the reigning political and religious culture of their time. The fourteen young Spanish men at the Cala Figuera retreat experienced individual spiritual renewal in a time and place – Fascist Spain – that emphasized grueling pilgrimages and other forms of public piety. In contrast, Bonnín Aguiló created a grassroots Catholicism, influenced in part by the popular Catholic Action (CA) retreats, that emphasized personal reflection and study in intimate settings such as Cala Figuera. What Bonnín Aguiló advocated was a three-day weekend experience during which candidates would take time to work on their spiritual lives. He devised a theological triptych of Piety, Study, and Action. During the weekend Cursillo, candidates would hear a series of rollos – short talks – the majority given by laymen and a select number given by clergy. Weekend retreatants would have ample time for prayer, reflection, and enjoyable group-oriented activities such as poster making, smoking cigarettes, and drinking Coca-Cola. A social leveling was at play during the weekend as wealthier Mallorquínes studied Scripture, prayed, and smoked alongside poorer Mallorquínes.

Cala Figuera, ca. 1944.

Photo courtesy of Fundación Eduardo Bonnín Aguiló (hereafter FEBA).

The weekend was intensely popular and lay-focused as Bonnín Aguiló wanted to send forth a cadre of Christian soldiers, men who would be what he called "apostles of the streets." These were men who would offer an alternative path of Christian spirituality and who would, ideally, incite others to deeper private as well as more public spiritual lives. Unlike the church-sponsored CA retreats, it was lay Catholics who initiated and organized these Cursillo weekends. Their primary architect, Bonnín Aguiló, was a visionary who offered a Catholic spiritual experience for those who were growing dissatisfied with the official church as well as the popular culture of the time. Spanish Catholic culture of the 1930s and 1940s was intensely hierarchical, deeply influenced by fascism, and parochial. Mainland as well as Mallorquín Catholicism was more reflective of the early modern world rather than the new, global world that was emerging as World War II came to a close. Bonnín Aguiló and his "short courses in spirituality" were quietly revolutionary, and would go on to impact millions of Catholics worldwide. Bonnín Aguiló became a well-travelled, global ambassador for his lay-focused weekend in spirituality until his death at the age of ninety in 2008.

What appealed to Mallorquínes and mainland Spaniards in the 1940s and 1950s transcended geographic and cultural borders to reach American Catholics and Protestants who, while they might have already been regular churchgoers and pious Christians, wanted something more. They wanted to experience and see the world...