Book Review: The Soul of the Nation: Catholicism and Nationalization in Modern Spain by Gregorio Alonso and Claudio Hernández Burgos,eds

Research into the relationship between religion and the formation, consolidation, and evolution of the modern nation in Spain has seen a notable resurgence over the past decade, particularly following the publication of Católicos y patriotas. Religión y nación en la Europa de entreguerras (Botti, Montero, Quiroga, eds, 2013). The Soul of the Nation makes an important contribution to this growing field by adopting a long-term historical perspective that spans from the late eighteenth century to the late twentieth century. The inclusion of the nineteenth century is especially valuable in a context where scholars have increasingly expressed concern over the declining focus on this period within European – and notably Spanish – historiography. In this regard, the volume responds to Lloyd S. Kramer's compelling call to re-engage with the nineteenth century to better understand modern phenomena, such as nationalism, while also embracing his argument that envisioning new forms of social and political organizations today requires grappling with the legacy of past reformers, as well as paying closer attention to the longue durée processes that have contributed to shaping the present resurgence of anti-democratic forces in Europe and the world. Most importantly, Alonso and Hernández Burgos convincingly demonstrate that any serious account of nationalism's development in Spain must consider the enduring, transformative, and complex role of the religious factor. Collectively, the nine contributions to The Soul of the Nation provide a nuanced analysis of the intertwined processes by which religious values were instrumentalized in shaping national identities – and how those identities, in turn, became sacralized. This volume will be of particular interest to scholars of modern European history and Hispanic studies, as its chapters make a significant contribution to ongoing debates on the nature of nationalism – offering compelling and nuanced insights into the complex intersections of Catholicism, nineteenth-century liberalism, republicanism, twentieth-century totalitarianisms, and democracy – through a highly relevant Spanish perspective.

Religion was particularly central to the emergence of the nation state in Spain, whose identity was shaped both internally and externally as a Catholic nation. Calvo Maturana's opening chapter reminds us that identity formation is ‘polyphonic and multicausal’ (35), challenging the French Enlightenment's (encyclopaedic) reductive portrayal of Spain's Catholic ‘backwardness’. While Spain was not immune to religious fanaticism or the secularizing tendencies of the Bourbon monarchy, not all prelates or Catholics rejected Enlightenment ideals, or the enlightened monarch, who still relied significantly on religion as a powerful instrument of legitimation and conscience control (i.e., regalism). Eastman (Chapter 2) extends this analysis through a transatlantic comparison with Mexico, showing how Progressive Liberals, Moderates, and Traditionalists all ‘drew on a Catholic template’ to articulate diverging models of national consensus (45). His chapter challenges the myth of a binary political landscape, revealing more than just ‘two Spains’ (54) – and, by extension, more than ‘two Mexicos’. Millán and Romeo Mateo also stress that ‘contrary to the image suggested by ahistorical analysis, there was no insuperable opposition between the nation and religious identity’ (79). They also rightly highlight the problematic and paradoxical legacy of the first liberal period: by imagining the nation as Catholic, progressive liberals inadvertently laid the groundwork for the naturalization of confessionalist claims by anti-liberal neo-Catholics after 1848 (71).

García Moscardó (Chapter 4) powerfully demonstrates that religion and modernity were not necessarily mutually exclusive in the nineteenth century (89). She highlights how, during the Napoleonic occupation, and later during the First Carlist War (1833–1840), religion was reconfigured as ‘the struggle for freedom against tyranny’, and how early socialism drew from Christian humanitarianism (90). Spanish Republicans like Garrido, Castelar, and Barcia inherited this legacy, transforming it into a vision of democracy as the fulfilment of the Gospel – Christianity as an emancipatory doctrine grounded in a mystique of the people and anti-despotic non-monarchic interpretations of progress. However, as García Moscardó notes, their spirit of tolerance remained ambivalent, opposing not only conservative regimes, but also, and more problematically, what they perceived as ‘pagan’ (i.e., non-European) forms of despotism. Salomón Chéliz (Chapter 5) analyzes the development of Catholic activism – both clerical and lay – in the context that followed the failure of the First Republic, namely the early Restoration regime (1875–1913). This period was characterized by the parallel intensification of clerical–anticlerical conflict and the rise of different forms of nationalism. She shows how re-Catholicization was promoted as both national regeneration, a response to the loss of the empire (1898) and to the implementation of moderate liberal reforms (e.g., freedom of worship under Art. 11 of the 1876 Constitution, secular schooling and the Padlock Law) (118). Her analysis might have been further enriched by considering the coexistence of diverse and competing visions of Catholic regeneration, which provides important context for the repetitive pontifical appeals for the unity of Spanish Catholics in Cum Multa (Leo XIII, 1882) and Inter catholicos Hispaniae (Pius X, 1906).

The second half of the volume turns to the twentieth century and the Church's complex entanglement with different forms of authoritarianism. By focusing on areas of tension between the Church and the State, such as political centralization, Catalan nationalism, and education, Alejandro Quiroga, in Chapter 6, eloquently questions the idea of Primo de Rivera as the leader of a ‘clerical dictatorship’, while also questioning the thesis that ‘the Catholic Church, universal and Roman’ was simply opposed to ‘the transmission of national identities’ (136). Gender is a crucial theme that could have been more developed throughout the volume. Ortega López (Chapter 7) provides a valuable overview of the ‘wave’ of ‘Spanish Catholic antifeminism’ (159). However, its top-down approach – focused on official sources and the views of prelates or laymen – would have benefited from incorporating women's own voices and perspectives, offering a more nuanced view of the often-stereotyped narrative of the Catholic Church's ‘indoctrination of women’, and stressed the capacity for female agency, in line with the work of scholars such as M. della Sudda and T. Van Osselaer. Moreover, the field of gender studies – including but not limited to women's history and the study of masculinities – is gaining traction in the analysis of contemporary Spanish Catholicism, and such work could have been more fully integrated into this and other relevant discussions. An interesting perspective is provided by Rina Simon in Chapter 8 which offers an insightful perspective on how religious rites – local devotions, relics, and processions – were used to legitimize Franco's war effort, build consensus, and promote a providential view of the regime's victory even before the war had ended. It also shows how this wartime identity was carried into the postwar years. Finally, Díaz Burillo and Muñoz Ramírez examine the underexplored intersection between Spain's democratic transition and the Vatican's own shift from John Paul I to John Paul II (201). They demonstrate how this double transition reactivated the ‘religious question’ in Spanish politics, as, encouraged by the pontiff, Catholic actors mobilized against key socialist reforms on education, divorce, and abortion. As they – and the editors in the concluding remarks – note, these tensions remain visible in contemporary Spain, where ultra-conservative, religiously inspired groups such as Hazte Oír continue to influence public debate, reminding us that the entanglement of religion, nationalism, and democracy remains highly relevant to European societies today.