Expert: Spanish Catholicism is “lethargic” and the bishops are aware

José Francisco Serrano Oceja is one of the deans of religious information in Spain and has just published Church and power in Spain. From Vatican II to the present day, an extensive 350-page essay, the result of an in-depth study full of bibliographical references.

Doctor in Information Sciences from the Pontifical University of Salamanca, doctor for the sake of honor from the Catholic University of Puerto Rico and Professor of Journalism at the CEU San Pablo University, Serrano unravels the relationships between the Catholic ecclesiastical hierarchy and power in Spain in recent decades.

He does so with the conviction – he tells ACI Prensa – that “the Church is better understood and loved more” by studying its history and that Spain cannot be understood without the presence and influence of the mystical body of Jesus Christ. , particularly of the successors of the apostles.

The bishops are, precisely, the protagonists of his latest work, among which names such as Mons. Casimiro Morcillo, first Archbishop of Madrid, or cardinals Vicente Enrique y Tarancón, Marcelo González Martín, Fernando Sebastián or Antonio María Rouco stand out. Varela.

The author maintains that the use of power in the prelates “has gone from being an exercise of authority to being an exercise of exemplarity” and that they are aware that “Spanish Catholicism is lethargic.”

The main problem they face “is not only that the Church loses influence, but that it loses presence and that even its presence is limited to the social” and that it is not easy to eradicate clericalism.

Looking to the future, and recently having held the second session of the Assembly of the Synod of Synodality, Serrano hopes “that the processes now underway will help to clarify this exercise of authority, which must be related to the truth, and not dilute it.” ”.

What led you to write this book? Any special motivation beyond the obvious historiographical interest?

The book was born from the unresolved questions that accumulated in my twenty years of practicing journalism dedicated to religious information. The Church is better understood, and loved more, by studying Church history. I could say that the Church is best informed by studying Church history. I also missed more bibliographic production on this subject.

What would you say are the main hoaxes or myths about the power of the Church in Spain? Say some from the past and some from the present.

I would have to distinguish hoaxes about the power of the Church in the Church and the power of the Church in society. A hoax from the past is that fed by Marxism, that is, that the Church is motivated by power, and that the main power of the Church resides in the economic, in its economy, which also links with celibacy in the case of the priests.

And a current hoax about the power of the Church is that the bishops continue to be feudal lords in their dioceses or that the Pope is like the head of a State that has the bishops as if they were civil governors.

What figures are the most relevant from the Council to the present day in the Spanish episcopal hierarchy?

We would have to speak first of episcopal generations. In each generation there is usually a leader or a pair of leaders. Monsignor Casimiro Morcillo, the cardinals (Vicente Enrique y) Tarancón and Marcelo González Martín, the cardinals Fernando Sebastián and Antonio María Rouco Varela, for example.

And outside of it, among the laity?

I believe that the most important layman that the Church has had in the 20th century was Ángel Herrera Oria, who was later ordained a priest and became bishop and cardinal. For his intellectual and moral height and for his works. Nobody can compare him. More recently, I speak of Kiko Argüello, initiator of the Neocatechumenal Way, I could also refer to Julián Gómez del CastilloFor example.

It is relevant, and perhaps ironic, that Mons. Vicente Enrique y Trancón was appointed with the approval of the Franco regime and is considered a progressive bishop who promoted the Transition. Does it exemplify the impossibility of enclosing ecclesial power in worldly schemes?

Definitely. It is true that we know more about Cardinal Tarancón because he left us extensive memoirs, his Confessions. But let us not forget that Tarancón was a traditional bishop, his writings show it, concerned about social issues, who in Madrid threw himself into politics to contribute to the Transition, but with a life of intense piety and very classical ways.

They say that a bishop is what is most similar to another bishop, despite their differences. Mons. Marcelo González Martín and Mons. Vicente Enrique and Tarancón were water and oil or not so much?

I would tell you that they were complementary. Don Marcelo was a man from eternal Castile, strong, with a solid education. Tarancón was Mediterranean in character. Tarancón was helped in his ecclesiastical promotion by Don Casimiro Morcillo. Both were two bishops of the Second Vatican Council and both were two bishops who loved the Church in Spain and Spain.

Is support for ETA terrorism and exacerbated nationalism in general, among the worst of the use of power by a certain ecclesiastical sector in Spain?

The Church and the bishops have always condemned ETA’s terrorism. What happens is that the bishops of the Basque Country did not take some steps that were necessary, even for that sentence to be seamless.

For example, they did not make a moral judgment of what was behind ETA, especially the substratum of the Basque National Liberation Movement, its Marxist aspects and what it has to do with nationalism.

The history of the Church in the Basque Country is a paradigmatic history in which we perceive how Catholicism, including the Church, is replaced by a new substitution religion, nationalism, the nation. And that process was not sufficiently clarified.

How would you define the relationship of the Church with the political powers during the Franco regime, the transition, the first decades of democracy, and from Zapaterism to the present day?

During the Franco regime, the State was inspired by natural law, Catholic morality and the Catholic identity of Spain, it was a confessional State.

In the Transition, the Church played an important role to the extent that, as it had done before, its transition contributed to the reconciliation of the Spanish people. But it was also politicized in parallel to the Second Vatican Council.

During the first decades, the Church was searching for its place and defending its freedom.

When the first socialists arrived, she felt challenged on issues such as education or financing. With Zapatero (president of the Government of Spain between 2004 and 2011) the first fundamental secularist project was developed and the Church became the only moral brake.

For 40 years, it seems a fact that the Church has lost influence in Spanish society. At least that is what is deduced from the legislation approved and to be approved in matters of defense of life, marriage, family, religious freedom, etc. What is it due to?

The Church has lost influence because the process of secularization has intensified. It even intensified with the socialist governments, with the cultural hegemony of the left in education, culture and the media.

The problem is not only that the Church loses influence, but that it loses presence and that even its presence is limited to the social, as if the State or governments only allowed the Church to work in the social so that it does not become a prophetic voice that denounces anthropological outrages.

He says in the book that “Catholicism flourishes in Spain based on reactions.” Do you consider that today it is in a phase of activation or decline? What responsibility do the bishops have in this?

We haven’t reacted enough yet. Spanish Catholicism suffers from a kind of disenfranchisement of minds, of consciences, especially among the laity, and is confused or lethargic.

Above all, we have lost intellectual tension, the capacity for judgment or critical discernment, so that we are a voice heard and taken into account when contributing to shaping life. The bishops are aware of this process and are doing what they can.

After carrying out this analysis, what conclusions have you reached about the role of the Church in Spain in this period?

The first is that the history of Spain, neither its past nor its present, is not understood without the Church. The Catholic Church, Catholicism, is part of the identity of Spain. No matter how much secularization there is, phenomena such as popular religiosity refer us to this conformation of the reality of Spain.

Second, the Church has been ahead in certain processes that have occurred in the recent history of Spain. Our country, our society, would not be understood without the Catholic Church.

Third, the way power is exercised in the Church has changed. The exercise of the power of the bishops has gone from being an exercise of authority to being an exercise of exemplarity.

Fourth, we have had generations of bishops of diverse sensitivities, but of great personal, intellectual and moral stature.

Fifth, it is not easy to eradicate the phenomenon of clericalism in the Church in Spain, neither before nor now.

Sixth, anticlericalism is now practiced as contempt for the Church and as a claim that faith only affects private life and has no public repercussions.

I could add a few more, but I think that’s enough…

Let’s also talk about current events. Will the synodal impulse be a revolution ad intra in the exercise of ecclesial power? Risk or opportunity?

Although the book has two chapters that cover the period from the year 2000 to the present, I stop at the year 2000. As a summary I would say that power in the Church has been changing even in its form of service to society. It is very noticeable how this occurs in the bishops, in the way in which they exercise the episcopacy.

I believe that there is an evolution and, at the same time, a crisis regarding authority, both in the way it is exercised and in its reception. I hope that the processes now underway help to clarify this exercise of authority, which must be related to the truth, and not dilute it.