Auñamendi Eusko EntziklopediaFund Bernardo Estornés Lasa

A scholar of the introduction of Christianity in the Basque Country, Andrés E. de Mañaricua, recently summarized his research on this topic. According to him, the evangelization of the Basques began during the Late Roman Empire, and by the early years of the fourth century, these lands could offer the Church of Rome a group of martyrs under Diocletian’s persecution. Prudencio described the paganism of the Vascones as “past” in the second half of that century.

Furthermore, there is evidence from the fourth and fifth centuries of the existence of the see of Calahorra, and it can be confirmed that by the beginning of the sixth century, all cities in the continental Basque Country already had their own bishops. However, we do not know the exact situation in the Peninsular Basque Country due to lack of sources, as the acts of the councils in which they undoubtedly participated – for example, that of Zaragoza in 380 – do not mention the sees of the participants.

By the fall of the Western Roman Empire, Christianity had attempted to penetrate Vasconia from all directions. The three dioceses of Calahorra, Pamplona, and Oca, which extended their jurisdiction over the Autrigones’ lands, divided the Basque territory among themselves for centuries. Their participation in the Visigothic councils is also documented, as well as evangelization synchronized with neighboring European peoples.

Political vicissitudes, struggles against the Muslims, and rivalries newly formed Christian kingdoms led to the suppression or creation of other episcopal sees. Regarding the bishopric of Calahorra, undoubtedly the oldest, it is known with greater precision that in 457 Silvano was bishop, according to letters sent by Pope Hilarius to the bishops of the Tarraconense province, accusing him of having ordained two bishops without the metropolitan’s permission.

Finally, concerning the continental Basque Country, Narbaitz asserts that the only episcopal see for a long time was Dax, or Civitas Aquensium, or Akize in Basque, since it is accepted by all historians that episcopal sees were only established near major roads, such as that of Dax or Aquis on the Antonine Itinerary. On the other hand, Dubarat believes that the diocese of Bayonne “must have been founded in the fifth or sixth century of our era,” according to his masterful Missal of Bayonne of 1543.

Armentia, a pivotal see of the Late Middle Ages (700-1200).

The dioceses with Basque populations were those of Valpuesta and Álava, which lost its territorial title to be designated by that of Armentia, i.e., that of the episcopal seat. While Calahorra was occupied by Muslims, the diocese of Álava became the “soul of Eastern Basque Christianity,” in Azcona’s words.

In fact, its first bishop appears to have been Bivere, from a noble Leonese family who had taken refuge there. Until 1014, the intermediate bishops are unknown in detail until Muño II. Studies by Ubieto, Mansilla, and Mañaricua report a shift of the Álava see toward the orbit of the Kingdom of Navarre, thus opposing the counts and later kings of Castile.

This Muño, named Beguilaza (“Harsh Gaze”), of Euskara lineage, died in 1033 near the stream of San Esteban, according to a note from the monastery of San Millán. Among the more than ten documented Álava bishoprics is that of Juan (1033–1037?), whose name appears in a document in which King Sancho the Great granted privileges to the monastery of Oña, due to the introduction of the Cluniac rule.

García I, with an episcopate lasting sixteen years – while the usual tenure of these bishops barely reached two years – stood out for confirming King D. García’s marriage settlement to his wife Dña. Estefanía (1040) and for later accompanying the sick king to Leyre in 1051, where he hoped to regain his health.

In 1052, he confirmed the endowment charter of the monastery of Nájera, and the previous year the counts of Biscay had donated Santa María de Izpeya. Afterwards came Vela I (1055–1056), Muño III (1057), Vela II (1057–1059), García II (1060), Muño IV (1060–1062), Vela III (1062), Muño V (1063–1064), and Fortuño II (1065–1088), the last bishop of Álava, concurrent with the schism Pope Honorius II and Alexander II.

Elected by the other Spanish bishops to defend in Rome the continued use of the Gothic rite against the Roman, he emerged victorious. Upon his death, the diocese of Álava was definitively incorporated into that of Calahorra. This merger of the Calagurritan see provoked two centuries of fierce struggle the two chapters, with Armentia reduced from cathedral to collegiate status.

Alongside the bishops, no institution was as decisive for the functioning of the Church in the Basque Country as the archpriests, delegated for areas of the see, and the monasteries, as key entities in the religious and social transformation of the people. Notable were the archpriests of Portugalete, many from Álava, the valley of Léniz, and Fuenterrabía.

As for the network of monasteries overlooking or establishing themselves in Vasconia: Oña, Cardeña, Las Huelgas, Silos, San Millán, Nájera, Valvanera, Irache, Fitero, Leyre, and Roncesvalles. Some of these, besides being centers of spirituality, attended to other essential cultural aspects: Romanesque art, rural pastoral care, sanctification of the countryside, as well as service to the needy – a network of hospitals, up to twelve in Navarre – schools, and confraternities. Goñi Gaztambide has drawn a remarkable synthesis for Navarre in the eleventh and twelfth centuries.

In the Core Middle Ages (1200-1400).

Tarsicio de Azcona certifies that at the beginning of the 13th century, a turning point occurred in the political landscape of the Basque Country, which can be understood as a period change in every respect. Within this evolution, ecclesiastical affairs were marked by two signs: papal intervention and episcopal governance.

Interference by the Holy See was not new to the peninsula, for instance, in introducing the Roman rite to all churches. But the new intervention was no longer limited to adjustments of feasts, worship, and prayers; it would bring other aspects. Thus, in the widespread climate of a general crusade, called by Innocent III following the Fourth Lateran Council (1215), Theobald I of Navarre organized his own crusade against the eastern Muslims, not without papal help and with favorable results for both parties. This experience is exemplary: it prompted periodic papal legates to be sent, leaving an imprint throughout the Peninsula, some for their arbitrariness, others for their remarkable actions against ecclesiastical decay, tempted by worldly alliances.

As for episcopal governance, the reforming function of bishops was notably absent. They tended to prefer courtly functions rather than ecclesiastical ones.

Consider Ramiro of Navarre (1220-1228), the king’s son, but not only him, for in general, it can be said that the bishops and procurators present at Lateran were very little inclined toward religious reform. While episcopal life appeared with religious vigor, it was the contagious fervor of monastic life that truly stood out. Thus, the Franciscans, the Poor Clares with their new foundation of Santa Engracia in Pamplona, establishing the first female Franciscan monastery outside Italy, the Dominicans in Pamplona, Vitoria, San Sebastián (San Telmo), the Mercedarians, and the Augustinian family, male and female, in Pamplona, San Sebastián, Bilbao, and Hernani.

A notable indicator of the sacralization of those days is the celebration of Christian feasts. These can be estimated at more than a hundred days of obligation, including Sundays, requiring attendance at Mass and forbidding work.

Such a calendar influenced not only spiritual life but also social and economic life. A synod wrote, referring to the mountain churches: “because when men cease to work, both in the and in other crafts and trades, harm comes to the Christian republic.” These harms were especially felt in the mountainous Basque Country.

To all the factions disrupting Basque life—immersed in the Oñacino and Gamboíno conflicts—were added customs and religious celebrations of a sad and little-Christian character. Such as the mourning for the dead, where despair over resurrection prevailed, council assemblies in cemeteries and churches “where they raise many voices – reproved a Burgos synod referring to the mountains – and acts of anger, disputes, blasphemies, and oaths occur,” armed struggles for rights of ecclesiastical preeminence, and arbitrary marriages, where cunning and self-interest predominated.

The Autumn of the Middle Ages (1400-1525).

During the schism of the Church (1378-1418), the churches of the Basque Country aligned themselves either around the court of Pamplona, for the Navarrese churches, or according to the dictates of the Castilian court for the others. The bite of disunity and other defects gnawed at and undermined their life. This ecclesiastical depression at all levels is described in hundreds of verses by Chancellor Pedro López de Ayala in his Rimado en Palacio.

His son Fernán, guardian of the conclave at Constance, and many other Basques, from the common people and wearing mendicant habits, regularly traveled through Italy and, upon returning, introduced winds of cultural and human renewal. With the Catholic Monarchs, the Basque provinces became tied to their concerns and enterprises, including the policy of absorption or repression of Jewish and Moorish minorities.

The Church in the Basque Country could not escape the millenarian movement in Durango, with its social radicalism, free spirit, joaquinism, and fraticelism, extending from 1442 well beyond the 15th century.

These disruptions in the Church’s fabric have been brilliantly studied by Goñi Gaztambide and J. M. de Garriazo. Likewise, the presence of Jews and conversos is well documented thanks to Cantera Burgos, as well as that of witches in Navarre by Idoate, in addition to the data provided by Goñi and Caro Baroja.

Moreover, with Charles I’s expansionist policy, the Basque provinces and Navarre underwent a process of annexation and occupation in three periods of active warfare 1512 and 1521. A particularly notable aspect of this control – highlighted by Azcona – was the privilege granted by Adrian VI to his disciple Charles I in a papal bull of May 4 and a brief of May 28, 1523, giving him the right of presentation and patronage over the mitre of Pamplona. In this way, the Pope canonized the conquest and occupation of the old kingdom.

If the “cry for reform” swept across Europe, the dioceses of Calahorra and Pamplona were the most affected by the non-residence of their prelates.

By the end of the 15th century, despite the pastoral care of the Dominican bishop Pascual de Ampudia, which reached Bizkaia, the pastoral and temporal care of the dioceses rested in the hands of their archpriests. The secular clergy, pressured by associations born within it and called “assemblies,” evolved more toward bureaucratic organizations than toward reformist movements.

Religious orders, however, promoted a radical reform movement called observance. Strong centers of reformist influence were the convents of Saint Francis and Saint Dominic in Vitoria, which, among others, significantly shaped Basque spirituality during the Golden Age.

A profound expert on Basque matters in many of their aspects, Koldo Mitxelena, could write:

"If any event in modern history had a deep impact on Vasconia, it was the Council of Trent, whose effects came to permanently shape almost every aspect of life in the region. After it, and as a consequence, the identification, later familiar, of Basque identity with Catholicism gradually took place."

This event—the most significant of the 16th century—left a deep mark on the history of the Basque Country. Guided by the essential work of Tellechea Idígoras, we can speak of numerous reformist synods, both before and after the Council, in these lands.

Pedro Pacheco, bishop of Pamplona, would initiate, even before the Council, the series of resident and diligent bishops who visited his diocese. Pamplona, Calahorra, and Bayonne formed the triangular diocesan area encompassing the entire Basque Country. As “entry” dioceses, they mainly received foreign bishops in transit, explaining their high mobility.

Tellechea provides the following table:

The secular or diocesan clergy was abundant, but more conditioned by the of benefices, patronages, and tithes than by pastoral duties. The implementation of Tridentine seminaries, already urged by Trent, would only come fully into effect in the 18th century: first Bayonne (1722) and Larressore (1733), then Logroño (1776), Calahorra (1781), Pamplona (1777).

Beforehand, this clergy could be educated at the universities of Pamplona and Irache, in the numerous colleges maintained by religious orders, and, especially from the 16th century onward, in prestigious universities such as Alcalá and Salamanca.

At the end of the 16th century, as a symbol of change, the universal practice of episcopal visits ad limina Apostolorum was introduced, in which bishops had to present a report on the state of their diocese and mission. Thanks to this knowledge, even if still superficial, we know something of the diocesan situation.

A chapter of great importance was the foundation and strengthening of the regular clergy. The total number of religious houses approached a hundred, with a double impact on the Basque Country: first, their pastoral influence in their immediate surroundings, multiplied by itinerant preaching; second, their universal influence through their diocesan delegates.

Tellechea noted as a typical symbol the visitation of the parish of Saint Vincent in San Sebastián. Within the institutional framework of the Orders, numerous Basques distinguished themselves on three fronts: in hierarchical positions (generals, provincials, priors, definers), in missionary horizons (preachers, professors, writers), and in the lists of saints.

Institutional evangelization, due to the problems of Protestantism and witchcraft, gave a remarkable impulse to catechesis in Basque during the 16th and 17th centuries. For the first century, Tellechea notes the catechisms of Elso and Betolaza, as well as the Basque version of the New Testament and some works of Calvin by Lizárraga.

For the second century, he reports that Bayonne, Pamplona, and Calahorra saw catechisms such as those by Materre, Juan de Beriain, Capanaga, Pouvreau, Zubie, and Belapeyre, as well as Axular’s Gero, a classic of Basque literature. Later came those by Asin, Arzadun, Eleizalde, Olaechea, Maytie, Irazusta, other anonymous authors, and the multiple translations by Ripalda and Astete. Larramendi himself encouraged Cardaveraz and Mendiburu to produce pious literature in Basque.

The pastoral urgency thus fostered the appearance of much of the first written literature in the Basque language. If popular missions gained particular strength in the 18th century, featuring prominent figures such as the Jesuits Cardaveraz, Mendiburu, and Calatayud, Franciscans like Añíbarro and Palacios, and Dominicans such as Garcés, the Church’s contribution to education remains to be fully defined.

The Bayonne College was founded on the initiative of Bishop Maury, while the Jesuits established colleges in Vergara, Azcoitia, Oñate, San Sebastián, Pamplona, Tudela, Bilbao, Lekeitio… Other convents maintained first-class, municipal-level schools.

After the long and severe witchcraft crisis, common to the three dioceses for a century, Jansenism took root in the 17th century, particularly in Bayonne (the birthplace of Saint Cyran), creating serious problems in the 18th century. The city seminary became a focal point for its dissemination, and several bishops dedicated themselves fully to its eradication.

The issue of royal control (regalismo) would become even more significant for the Basque Country, brilliantly analyzed by Sebastián Insausti.

The Enlightenment scored a major achievement with the foundation of the Real Sociedad Bascongada de los Amigos del País and the Seminary of Bergara. Despite the critical shadow cast by Menéndez y Pelayo over the Real Sociedad, harshly labeling it as heterodox, Urquijo definitively cleared this accusation.

Clergymen, for their part, ed mixed reactions to the most prominent figure of the century with more open-minded ideas: some were reluctant to accept him, while others joined the society as members, as Larrañaga has demonstrated. This attitude would change dramatically after the revolutionary events in neighboring France following the famous night of August 4, 1789.

The Civil Constitution of the Clergy established a French national church that civilly incorporated the secular clergy, abolished the regular clergy, and provided for bishops to be elected by the faithful gathered in departmental assemblies, being consecrated by the Metropolitan rather than the Pope. Labourd, Lower Navarre, and Soule became part of a diocese seated in Oloron, suppressing the dioceses of Bayonne, Dax, and Lescar. Pavée de Villevielle, bishop of Bayonne, fled and took refuge in the monastery of Urdax, from where he clandestinely administered his former diocese.

Thus arose the conflict the revolutionary French government and the Church, which would have profound repercussions in both Basque Countries. The faithful were divided. In some towns, such as Ainharp, people warmly received the sworn or “constitutional” priests and even pursued several refractory priests in hiding. Some, like those of Briscous and Ainhoa, were guillotined and shot, respectively. Others, like Duronea, parish priest of Sare, became notorious for their flattery of Pinet and Cavaignac.

Rome, initially silent, broke its silence by declaring war on the Revolution when it announced the sale of Church property. The abolition of the Catholic cult in November 1793 inaugurated civil festivals dedicated to the Goddess Reason. The war against the Convention, d by all reactionary Europe, further aggravated the situation, placing a large portion of the clergy with the invaders, leading to the seizure of Church property, such as the destruction of the statuary in Bayonne Cathedral. Thousands of priests crossed the border clandestinely, settling in Hegoalde. Their influence among Navarrese, Biscayan, Alavese, and Gipuzkoan colleagues would be decisive.

(1808-1814). The history of the contemporary Basque Church opens dramatically with the arrival of Napoleon’s armies on Basque soil. The victory of the Spanish armies at Bailén in July 1808 boosted morale, instrumentalizing the defense of religion in their favor. Being Spanish or Basque was once again identified with being Catholic.

To the initial Frenchification of the bishop of the Diocese of Calahorra, who also covered much of the Basque provinces, many clergy residing in Bilbao opposed, becoming true leaders of the insurrectional movement. 122 priests from the Señorío de Bizkaia refused to read from the pulpit his exhortation to peace, promoted by Bishop Aguiriano on June 9 of that same year. This bishop, paternally from Bolivar de Ugazua in the Guipuzcoan valley of Léniz, had stood out for his anti-French pastorals around the war of 1793. His paradoxical positions were constant: regalist in supporting the Urquijo Decree in 1799, initially collaborator of the Grand Duke of Berg, and, since August 1808, a defector from his diocese, the most ardent opponent of the French invader, especially from Alicante.

The government of José I, in turn, had to confront, in 1810, dioceses abandoned by their bishops, including Calahorra. The decree of La Gaceta de Madrid, signed by the Bilbain Urquijo, removed the fugitive bishops of Calahorra, Astorga, and Osma, appointing Aguado and Jarava to this diocese. Curiously, Aguiriano disparaged his successor with the following epithets: “schismatic,” “adulterer,” “heresiarc,” “plague,” “new Menelaus and Jason,” ultimately excommunicating him.

It is worth noting that before his appointment, Aguado had been overseeing the diocese as Vicar General Felipe de Prado, a weak man who soon fell into the hands of the skillful canon Juan A. Llorente, a Frenchified and passionate supporter of the Bonapartes. Prado’s servility toward the French is explained only by his hope of being promoted to the episcopate. He had been captured by the guerrilla and taken to Molina de Aragón, which, indulgent, pardoned him and returned him to Calahorra. Undisputed links the legitimate bishop Aguiriano and his clergy were the regular clergy, who had increased their discontent, feeding the guerrilla.

If the French invaders sought to legitimize their domination by ing that they had the Church’s support, both regular and secular clergy worked to deny it. Indeed, the Bilbao chapter edly promoted various “mass strikes”; others joined the army as soldiers, others obeyed the guerrilla bishop of Santander, Menéndez de Luarca; others contacted the famous guerrilla “el Cuevillas”; others followed the bands of the priests of Izarra and Ochoa in Orduña and Amurrio. Furthermore, when the French General Police Commissioner threatened severe punishments for priests who did not publicly pray for the French monarch, this did not prevent the faithful from absenting themselves from the churches at the time of that prayer. Likewise, the priest of Ochandiano, Echánove, reported to Aguiriano that his entire village had gone to war. The behavior of the faithful in this village was not an exception.

(1814-1833). “Days of persecution and terror” were those of the first and second absolutist reactions of Fernando VII in 1814 and 1823, according to Pedro de Urquinaona. But this restoration of the absolute monarchy, although accompanied by setbacks, was enthusiastically received by the Basque clergy. The monarch reinstated the Inquisition, welcomed the Jesuits, abolished the Cádiz provisions against the clergy, and confirmed the fueros.

The ecclesiastics of the Basque Church, notes García de Cortázar, believed that respect for tradition could only be ensured by maintaining religion as it had been transmitted by previous generations. Therefore, the new liberal ideology, although of little influence in the Basque Country, presented itself not only as atheistic and demonic, but as a source of conflict and inequality. The hierarchy itself took charge of eliminating this nightmare, using as a method their peculiar crusade from the pulpit: popular missions against the “dissolution of morals.”

The possible restoration of the Inquisition served Fernando VII to place on the Church’s shoulders the task of persecuting any expression of freedom of speech. Around the reestablishment of this tribunal, especially after 1823, the most virulent positions were adopted.

The ultra sector of the clergy, in which the Basque Church participated—perhaps even as the most monolithic front in the country—demanded its restoration with aggression. Father Acevedo, preacher in Vitoria, dreamed of using the Inquisition against liberals, “without being deterred by the number, nor by the many that would need to be killed.” While the Pope called for concord, fray Manuel Martínez wrote in El Restaurador: “They say (of the Inquisition) that it burned, and what farmer does not burn weeds to destroy them?”

The same archbishop of Valencia, fray Veremundo Arias, insisted that it should not be restored in the weakened state of 1820, but with the rigor and powers of the 16th century. It is therefore not surprising that Nuncio Giustiniani was astonished by these expressions of virulence.

By 1820, the decline in religious vocations compared to 1800 seemed evident, hence the lamentations of the bishops of Pamplona and Calahorra. Nevertheless, during the Ominous Decade (1823–1833), vocations increased again. Of the 1,940 friar convents scattered across Spain at Fernando VII’s death, only 35 belonged to the Basque Country, of which 13 were in Bizkaia. Although few compared to other regions, they were well-populated and highly valued by local communities. Furthermore, of the 35 orders active in Spain, only five had houses in Bizkaia: Observant Franciscans, Augustinian friars, barefoot Mercedarians, Discalced Carmelites, and Capuchins.

While in Spanish convents the usual infidelities to religious life occurred due to weakness or wear, Basque religious stood out for their observance and good spirit. In fact, during the Constitutional Triennium (1820–1823), when secularization was facilitated and one-third of Spanish religious abandoned the cloister, there were barely any defections in Basque convents. The great historian of the “exclaustration,” Revuelta, also notes that there is no record of abuses by Basque religious during this turbulent constitutional period.

In sum, the Basque hierarchy closed ranks during this period around the Throne through Bishops Puyal and Poveda, who, in 1823, after the victory over the liberals, went to the Basque vicarages to promote a kind of reparation to God offended by the excesses of the revolutionaries.

(1833-1840). The antagonism absolutists and liberals during the reign of Fernando VII now erupted into armed conflict upon his death. Similarly, the disputed succession of his daughter Isabel, still a minor, was overshadowed by the aggressive presence of the so-called “apostolic” group, led by Carlos María Isidro, organized in secret societies during the Triennium, such as El Ángel Exterminador, Sociedad del Ancora, La Junta Apostólica, and later openly in military groups, with frontline branches like the “brutos,” mostly Navarrese guerrilla volunteers.

Tomás and Valiente, in analyzing Carlist ideology, offer the key to the behavior of broad sectors of the Basque Country in the 1830s: religious integrism, absolutist reaction, defense of the foral , and maintenance of the seigneurial land-owning regime.

Thus, for the Basque-Navarre region, Carlism represented a mass uprising of the population, except generally in liberal cities. For other regions of Spain, it amounted merely to a more sophisticated form of banditry. Regarding the Basque Church, it preferred the line of maximum resistance to liberalism, although much of the regular clergy consistently sought to prioritize the spiritual character of their vocation.

The preparations for the Carlist uprising in Bilbao, led by the Capuchin Negrete, and the fiery military activity of more than 150 Basque friars throughout the Basque Country, provoked the official complaint of the Bishop of Calahorra. Meanwhile, liberal propaganda accused Basque priests and friars of being qualified instigators of the Carlist insurrection, with unforeseen consequences in Zaragoza, Barcelona, Murcia, parts of Catalonia and Aragon, and especially Madrid. This refers to the infamous “massacres of friars” of 1834, which began with the Jesuits of the Colegio Imperial de la Corte, where the young bard Iparraguirre, from Urrechua, had briefly studied the year before.

The involvement of the Basque clergy in the First Carlist War is easy to demonstrate. Their participation was direct, by inciting rebellion, or indirect, by fleeing the convent, as staying often meant living two fires, liberal or Carlist, with their respective obligations.

This flight prompted the government to issue the decree of 26 March 1834, ordering the suppression of any convent where one-sixth of the community escaped, or where the superior did not immediately report the escape of a subject, or where clandestine meetings were held, or where war materials were manufactured.

Particularly striking was the flight of 104 Franciscans from Bilbao, Bermeo, and Oñate. The latter surprised Nuncio Tiberi, who at the time was trying to prevent the application of the 26 March law before the Minister of Grace and Justice. News of this action compromised his diplomatic management, leaving him without excuses before the government.

(1808-1868). The serious problem of ecclesiastical confiscation (desamortización) was seen by broad sectors of Basque opinion as an offensive not only against the Church but also against Basque identity and tradition. According to Fernández de Pinedo, Donézar, Mutiloa, Extramiana, and García de Cortázar, the fate of the Basque clergy was less adverse than in the rest of Spain, perhaps because part of the clergy, being salaried, had little to lose.

Already in the early 19th century, the Basque clergy perceived the political threat of liberalism, explaining their quick alignment with the traditionalist side and early involvement in the royalist agitations of the Triennium, even before the dynastic outbreak of Carlism. Before the two major confiscations, under Joseph I, numerous convents were also suppressed, and their properties sold. Some were recovered during Fernando VII’s absolutist six-year period, while others remained in a languid state, burdened with heavy debts and mortgages.

By contrast, the Basque Country escaped the confiscation attempt by the Cortes of Cádiz, since the French occupation prevented its enactment. During the Triennium, the Navarrese monasteries of Fitero, Urdax, Marcilla, Leyre, Irache, and La Oliva were suppressed, with Roncesvalles being the only one spared. In Bizkaia, the Franciscans saw three of their five convents closed: Bilbao, Forua, and Bermeo, similarly for the Augustinians of Durango.

At the beginning of 1834, as the situation worsened for the liberal cause in the Basque provinces, several religious communities had to vacate their convents for other purposes, such as hospitals, barracks, and prisons, for example, the Poor Clares of the Cross and the Dominicans of the Incarnation in Bilbao. Military regulations also determined the organization of convents in rural areas, resulting in a series of Royal Orders of 1834, temporarily suppressing isolated convents in Álava, Bizkaia, and Navarre, then in Rentería, Fuenterrabía, and Sasiola in Gipuzkoa; Roncesvalles, Leire, Oliva, Iranzu, Irache in Navarre; Badaya, La Bastida, Piédrola, and Puebla de Arganzón in Álava; Deusto, San Mamés, Burceña, Desierto, and Larrea in Bizkaia.

Later, on 25 June 1835, the Count of Toreno, to conciliate the revolutionaries active in Aragon and Catalonia, decreed the suppression of communities that did not have 12 professed religious, affecting 900 convents.

However, the Basque liberals, occupied with the Carlist War, could not implement the law, which remained practically inactive. The ministerial administration of Mendizábal (September 1835 – May 1836) uted some communities and confiscated their goods. In the Basque Country, all of his decrees, consolidated by the 1837 Constituent Assembly, were only applied in the small liberal territory. The suppression or reduction of convents (the latter for nunneries with fewer than 20 nuns) had to be carried out by a Diocesan Board, presided over by the bishop.

The bishop of Calahorra, whose diocese included part of the Basque Country, refused any collaboration, considering these measures unjust without papal approval. The general confiscation law of 1855, known as the Madoz Law, faced organized opposition to the sale of Church property. Provincial councils like that of Bizkaia opposed the alienation of these goods, arguing it could constitute “the first step toward later claiming community property.” Navarra offered the least resistance, while in Álava and Gipuzkoa, from 1866 to 1869, the major assault on Church property took place.

(1835-1868). The period known as the Regencies witnessed the consolidation of the liberal , although it remained confessional. The “newly rich of politics,” in Comellas’ apt phrase, passed a law in July 1837 abolishing the decimal and primitial tithes. During the Carlist War, in most of the Basque Country – under the Pretender’s control – it could not be implemented.

After the signing of the Convenio de Bergara (1839), Ignacio Sorondo was appointed collector of tithes for the two archpriestships under the bishopric of Pamplona. Knowing the region, Sorondo justified the government’s policy on behalf of the Diocesan Tithes Board, considering it “a provisional measure for the maintenance of worship and clergy.”

Despite his precautions, the responses of the Guipuzcoan chapters, and by extension those of Álava, were the protest of Tolosa: “in all these matters, the formalities required by the Fueros of the country, whose preservation is promised, must be observed first.” The civil governor advised the Minister of the Interior against introducing “novelties” that would perpetuate the clergy’s ility toward the monarchy. The tithe laws thus remained frozen in these valleys.

The Regency of Espartero further aggravated tensions Church and State. Its legislative effort to organize a national Church was enormous, exceeding 160 laws, decrees, and orders, aimed at subjugating and weakening the clergy through confiscations and even liquidation of some communities. The Basque Church, devastated by war, deteriorated further, particularly due to the absence – enforced by liberals – of its bishops, García Abella of Calahorra and Andriani of Pamplona.

The Basque clergy mostly expressed their rejection of liberalism from the pulpit, entrenched in the defense of the Church against the new governmental regalism. This attitude led not only to the exile of Andriani, but also of several canons. However, the rise to power of the Moderates and the ratification of the 1845 Constitution improved relations, culminating in the signing of the 1851 Concordat. The Basque Church, with its leading exiled clerics returned, actively participated in maintaining the new bourgeois regime, distancing itself from the “Old Regime.”

The good understanding Church and State was reflected in the right of presentation of bishops, loyal to the Isabelline monarchy. The episcopate became the reward for long service to the Church and Crown, which explains the very low participation of Basque priests in the episcopate of the time. Antonio de Trueba stated that in 1867, the Basque clergy was four times more numerous in proportion than the rest of Spain.

At the same time, Álava had 218 faithful per parish, while in Cádiz there were 10,838 per parish. The government took precautions regarding the presumed Carlist affiliation of most Basque clergy. Only the candidacies of Jacinto Sáez (Álava, Franciscan) and the Navarrese Yrigoyen, Zarandia Ondara, Aranguren, Uriz, and Labayru succeeded.

By mid-19th century, the fuerista sentiment of the Basque Church was confirmed in 1862 with the establishment of the diocese of Vitoria, separating Álava, Gipuzkoa, and Bizkaia from the dioceses of Calahorra, Pamplona, Burgos, and Santander.

The Diputación General of Álava, the city council of Vitoria, and especially the persistent efforts of Pedro de Egaña (14 years, sometimes as Minister of the Interior) ensured the permanent installation of the Basque mitre in the Álava capital. The commitment of the other two provincial councils, of Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa, to finance the new ecclesiastical budgets confirmed the final success of the project.

The creation of this Basque diocese was received with overwhelming joy by the Basque press, especially in Álava, and by all social sectors. The new diocese of Vitoria provided the Basques with the first partially unified institution in their history. Its political significance did not escape the notice of the abbot of La Calzada, who protested to the Minister of Justice, emphasizing that the combination of administrative and legislative independence with spiritual and ecclesiastical autonomy gave the new institution everything necessary to govern itself and be fully independent.

(1868-1876). The Vitoria see was headed by Diego Mariano Alguacil y Rodríguez, aged 59. Until 1868, his main concerns focused on the doctrinal issues of his time. Through his constant declarations in favor of Pope Pius IX, the “Pope-King,” called “Vice-God” on earth, the Basques increased their donations to the patrimony of Saint Peter.

Despite a ile environment toward the clergy, ordinations in the Basque Country rose dramatically. Alongside him, but sometimes overshadowing him, were distinguished canons such as Yurre, Valbuena, and especially Vicente Manterola, the controversial Donostiarra, loved and vilified, founder of the influential Semanario Católico Vasco Navarro.

The “Glorious” Revolution of 1868 issued eleven anti-ecclesiastical decrees in its first eighteen days. The official stance of the bishop of Vitoria was to wait without making statements, but also without paying courtesy visits to the new Vitoria authorities, which the mayor complained about in an extraordinary session.

The Basque provinces joined the “train of the revolution” with delay, after it had already triumphed in the rest of the nation. Here, there were no demolitions of religious buildings as in Seville, Málaga, or Madrid. The suppression or reduction of convents of nuns remained largely declaratory, at least for 25 convents we know of. The provincial deputies, especially the Carlist Miguel Dorronsoro, a gentleman who accompanied the dethroned Isabel II to Hendaye, were their supporters.

Greater virulence occurred in the expulsion of Jesuits from Loyola, although this was neither the initiative of Basque liberals nor Carlists. At the opening of the 1869 Constituent Cortes, the Basque people elected conservative and Catholic deputies, in a parliament with a liberal and progressive majority, and a small republican minority disturbed by biased and sometimes blasphemous religious reports.

Even before the final approval of religious freedom in Spain, the provinces organized signature campaigns through “Catholic associations” in favor of religious unity:

• Navarre: 135,834 signatures
• Guipúzcoa: 79,829
• Álava: 50,689
• Bizkaia: 46,859

Notably, San Sebastián had a small number of signatures: 2,338 plus 354 from the Antiguo neighborhood, out of a population of 14,111 (1860 census), compared with 18,133 signatures in Vitoria and its surrounding towns. These figures reflect the activity of the combative Catholic associations, such as the one in Vitoria, which disseminated “good press”, sometimes even free of charge.

(1872-1876). The liberal aggression against Catholicism in religion and against traditionalism in politics provoked – especially among the baserritarra (Basque peasants) but also among Basque citizens – endless conspiracies against the Madrid governments and provincial administrative representatives, mainly in Gipuzkoa.

The Gipuzkoa Juntas of 1869, with a liberal majority, after the abandonment of 31 towns dissatisfied with deliberate corruption in the municipal elections early that year in Azpeitia, Legazpia, Zumaia, and Oiartzun, caused a problem not only for Gipuzkoa but for all of the Basque Country. These 1869 Juntas ruled on the parish reform of Gipuzkoa, disregarding the bishop of Vitoria, who, after countless vicissitudes, would them null under ecclesiastical law.

The conflict civil and ecclesiastical authority would not be tamed until the end of the century. Meanwhile, from 1869 to 1888, disputes were constant. Leading municipalities like Azkoitia, Zestona, Zarautz, Zegama, Segura, Aia, Bidania, and Usurbil confronted the Diputación Foral and the Civil Government, and were therefore dismissed, fined, and imprisoned, becoming, unwillingly, heroes of the “good cause.”

The ecclesiastical initiatives of the Fuenterrabía assembly, by reducing the number of priests in service and even the number of churches (46 suppressed), threatened not only the faith of the Guipuzcoans but, according to the 31 dissenting towns, the very existence of the fueros. Dorronsoro, Manterola, and Ortiz de Zárate explained that the cause of the clergy and the cause of the fueros were the same, intertwined. The Diputación emerging from Fuenterrabía, originally foral, had according to them become a provincial “Castilian” institution, deserving disqualification.

Faced with this institutional discontent, all Basque priests responded with conspiracy and defense of what they considered their identity. This claim of “God and Fueros” would be channeled by Carlos VII, claimant to the Spanish throne.

From 1869 onwards, conspiracies were organized across Gipuzkoa, with groups led by priests and teachers, among others:

• Azpeitia: the priest Jáuregui and five others with 162 young men, members of the Jesuit Marian Congregations.
• Orio: the priest Macazaga, friend of the Jesuit superior Garciarena, himself imprisoned at La Mota for sedition.
• Arechavaleta and Léniz Valley: priests Segura, Municha, Echaguibel, Bengoa, together with teacher Recondo, led guerrilla and arms operations from the house of the priest of Goronaeta.
• Mondragón-Arrasate: “all the clergy” led riots against the Fuenterrabía Juntas and the Constitution.
• Fuenterrabía: parish priest Ollo protected Carlists in the basilica of Guadalupe itself.
• Tolosa: priest Mendizábal, mentor of the legendary Santa Cruz, corrupted municipal elections.
• San Sebastián: priests Honrubia, Azcue, Arizmendi, Insausti, and others.

The Diario de San Sebastián, reporting on Don Carlos’s affirmation at the Loyola basilica on September 8, 1873, wrote that “18 Jesuits and over 200 priests gathered in the municipality of Azpeitia”. The newspaper confused caricature with reality.

Growing vitality (1876-1904). In this last third of the century and at the turn of the 20th century, the Catholic hierarchy had to face the “Basque problem” with no small difficulty. In a diplomatic report from the nuncio in Madrid, Angelo di Pietro, to the Vatican in 1890, it was acknowledged that Vitoria was an extremely difficult diocese to govern, as the spirit and tendencies of the Basques clashed openly with the centralizing policy of the Madrid government.

For reasons many assumed to be political, the second bishop of Vitoria, Sebastián Herrero y Espinosa de los Monteros (1877-1880), resigned from this see, but not before laying the foundations in 1878 for a new conciliar seminary. Before the Restoration, there had been another private seminary in Vitoria, founded by Aguirre. With the arrival of the third bishop, Mariano Miguel y Gómez (1881-1890), only in 1884 was the minor seminary in Oñate founded, in the building of the old university.

This prelate implemented the parish reform projects of his predecessors in 1881. Regarding Gipuzkoa, in 1885 he promoted the works at the birthplace of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, whose mother house had been incomplete and isolated since 1767. The former General Juntas of Gipuzkoa in 1868, held in Zumaia, had opened a subscription to finish the sanctuary; now it was the turn of the house of Saint Ignatius.

The Madrid government transferred him to Madrid as bishop, says Nuncio Di Pietro, “because he did not have enough authority over the clergy and allowed himself to be guided by his relatives.” His successor, Ramón Fernández de Piérola (1890-1904), arrived in Vitoria with a long ecclesiastical career – honorary chaplain to King Amadeo I, bishop of Havana and Ávila – and had been accused, perhaps wrongly, of advising General Blanco in concluding the Carlist War in the Basque provinces.

During his pontificate, the grand seminary of Vitoria, called the “best diocese in Spain” by the nuncio, was already running, with 727 students in 1890, 254 of them boarders. It is noteworthy that a slight decline in diocesan priests contrasted with the flourishing, recovery, and slow organization of religious orders and congregations.

Among the religious institutes, the founding of female congregations stands out: 63 were established in the second half of the century. For Gipuzkoa, noteworthy, despite their cloistered nature, were those with educational purposes “for daughters of tenant farmers and fishermen”: the Conceptionists of Cristobaldegui (1866), founded by the Stigmatist nun, and the Sisters of the Company of Mary in San Sebastián. In Bilbao, in 1891, the Sisters of the Holy Guardian Angels emerged under the direction of the influential founder Rafaela María Ibarra.

Guided by Jesuit Gomer, the Salesians, simple religious born from the Italian lay Risorgimento of Cavour and Garibaldi and founded by Father John Bosco, entered the Basque Country “for the human, social, and spiritual promotion of the popular classes”, working with the most needy youth. The Benedictine patience and Basque tenacity of Salesian Ramón Zabalo allowed the foundation in Baracaldo in 1899, with unconditional support from the city council. Before dying, Piérola initiated in 1898 the construction of the Urquiola sanctuary and intervened in the beatification process of Valentín de Berriochoa.

(1888-1923). With the second defeat, Carlism began to disintegrate. On the left, a group of “possibilists”, led by Pidal and Mon, left the Carlist movement to found the Catholic Union, and on the right, Ramón Nocedal’s integrist party emerged in 1888. The latter, omitting the word “King” from its motto, proclaimed the sole kingship of Jesus Christ, giving rise to the motto “Christ King.”

With the emergence of integrism, the Basque Church joined both groups. Religious orders did the same: Capuchins entrenched in Carlism, while Carmelites and Jesuits openly promoted integrism, the latter through the prestigious journal “Razón y Fe.”

It should be emphasized that the educational needs of the new industrial Basque society led, in 1883, to the establishment, for Bizkaia, of a higher education center run by the Jesuits, soon known as Deusto University.

Thirty years later, under the auspices of the Vizcaína Aguirre Foundation, created by Pedro de Icaza, another institution was established exclusively for commercial studies, also under the Jesuits, called the Commercial University of Deusto. When the Jesuits left the integrist ranks in 1900, the movement practically lost its significance.

However, its legacy became more important in the Basque Country as it influenced the first Basque nationalism. Its father, Sabino Arana, aspired, like all integrists, to establish the “social reign of Jesus Christ”, but only within the framework of the Basque race and language. The new nationalist ideology, sensitive to the Basque differential, reflected the aspirations and struggles of a clergy long dedicated to preserving awareness of its identity.

From the pulpit and confession, Basque priests could now launch a religious-political program that penetrated easily into the minds of their faithful. Convincing the politicized clergy to guide their parishioners’ votes required little effort from the bishops.

From the age of Alfonso XIII, the government began promoting many Basque ecclesiastics to the episcopate. Basque nationalist ideology within the clergy was a disqualification, while Carlist loyalty was a guarantee of success for promotion.

José Cadena y Eleta, successor in Vitoria, clashed with Basque nationalism: banning Euskera names in baptisms, constantly denouncing filo-nationalist clergy, and denying publication rights to Ángel Zabala’s History of Bizkaia.

Additionally, Prelate Eleta focused on building the new cathedral of Vitoria, inaugurating its magnificent crypt in April 1911. In 1913, Bishop Melo y Alcalde entered the Basque scene, coinciding with the rise of nationalist ideology. However, he was courted by the Maurist movement, embodying the new Basque right. Its authoritarian character and guarantee of fidelity to Spanish Catholic values won his full preference.

Bishop Melo, making no effort to understand Basque ideology, maintained good relations with the Basque bourgeoisie. Transferred to the Diocese of Madrid, in 1917, the Basque see was entrusted to Leopoldo Eijo y Garay, a brilliant student of the Jesuit Gregorian University, holding three doctorates upon arrival in Vitoria.

At 36, he took charge of a diocese difficult for his temperament. Great stir was caused in May 1923 by the excommunication of the Catholic director of the equally Catholic newspaper Euzkadi, for censoring Cardinal Belloch’s speech during the coronation of the Virgin of Estíbaliz, where the pontiff linked religious interests to monarchists.

Bishops of pronounced personality and originality would occupy the see of Vitoria during these years. The first, Zacarías Martínez Núñez, an Augustinian, arrived in July 1923, nearly sixty years old. His scientific sensitivity – he held a doctorate in sciences – would promote all kinds of initiatives in favor of empirical disciplines at the heart of the diocese, in the seminary.

1920 and 1930, the curricula for future Basque priests were expanded to include studies in Basque grammar, experimental psychology, paleontology, geology, and ethnography. Moreover, a more pastoral orientation of theological studies introduced subjects such as missiology, social Catholic action, and catechetical pedagogy.

Pioneers of this change before Martínez’s arrival included José Miguel de Barandiarán and Manuel Lekuona, from whose work emerged the Sociedad de Eusko-Folklore, the chair of Basque language and literature, the Kardaberaz Academy, and the journal Gymnasium.

The new bishop’s monarchist sentiments were evident in the solemn inauguration of the Urola railway in February 1926, in a speech delivered before the Kings of Spain.

Fray Zacarías’s opposition to Basque nationalism dismayed part of his clergy, who would question the legitimacy of Primo de Rivera’s regime. Cases of forced parish transfers occurred for priests accused of political activism, without support from their bishop, who was too ready to trust the regime’s delation , promoted by primoriverismo.

In the summer of 1928, the first Basque-speaking bishop, Mateo Múgica Urrestarazu, arrived. His pontificate coincided with the surging strength of Basque nationalism. The words and writings of priests such as José de Aristimuño – Aitzol would redefine nationalist clergy.

In September 1930, the Basque ecclesiastical agenda marked the inauguration, in the presence of Alfonso XIII, of the impressive new seminary building, a key symbol of its religious dynamism.

From 1931 onwards, difficult days awaited Múgica and the entire Basque diocese. On May 17, he had to leave his diocese by order of the Catholic Minister Maura. Exile took him to Hendaye, Anglet, Poitiers, and Bugedo. In 1933, he returned to his see.

During this period: newspaper guerrillas, appearances in Ezquioga, Law on Religious Confessions and Congregations, attacks on Basque priests, the 1934 revolution, public mistrust from El Liberal of Bilbao against the Basque Church, nationalists’ rapprochement with the left, the 1936 elections, a belligerent spring, the July 18 uprising, death threats, fears, a second exile of the bishop, and the closing of Vitoria seminary with nearly 800 seminarians by the Burgos government.

Don Mateo’s exile ended when he returned blind to Zarautz in 1947. He had to leave again, leaving his splendid diocese with: 2,150 secular priests (6 % of Spain’s total), 1,549 religious (12 % of Spain), and 5,123 nuns (almost 11 % of all in the country).

With the social changes experienced across Spain in the 1950s, the Church also began to evolve. These changes were particularly visible in the Basque Country, which 1955 and 1975 saw its population grow by 59.95%, compared to an average growth of 22.91% in Spain.

The dominant religious ritualism was giving way to ethical religiosity. Neither the 1953 Concordat, which codified the osmosis civil and religious power, nor the hierarchy, pleased with the use of religion as a factor of social integration, could halt the decline of rhetorical religious gestures.

The “Mission of Nervión”, at the end of 1953, shook the entire Greater Bilbao area. With the new era came new generations of clergy, who had not experienced the war nor the Manichean divisions of 1936. The three Basque ecclesiastical jurisdictions advanced with enthusiasm and commitment.

The diocese of Vitoria, lightly industrialized, in 1961 had the highest proportion of priestly vocations in the country: 33 seminarians per 10,000 inhabitants. The industrial dioceses of Bilbao and San Sebastián had 8 and 10 seminarians per 10,000 inhabitants, respectively.

While the three dioceses reorganized parishes, opened new ones, and strengthened their seminaries, groups of Catholics appeared throughout the Basque Country, breaking with the Church organized merely as an administration.

In 1955-1956, the hierarchy in Vitoria and Bilbao changed. Bueno Monreal was transferred to the Archdiocese of Seville to neutralize his excessively prophetic gestures, often carried out by Cardinal Segura. He was replaced by Peralta Ballabriga, from Aragon, who would retire early without receiving another episcopal seat until 1976.

Similarly, Gúrpide y Beope, from Navarre, succeeded Bishop Morcillo, transferred to Zaragoza, and died in office after leaving a less than favorable assessment of his tenure.

In 1960, several events – the May memorandum signed by 339 Basque priests to the Vatican, the nuncio, and the bishops, as well as the events at the Major Seminary of Derio – highlighted the growing vitality of the Bilbao diocese and ed Gúrpide’s inability to channel his clergy’s commitment.

In August 1968, inspired no doubt by the French May, 40 priests occupied their diocesan offices to protest their bishop’s passive attitude toward the wave of Francoist repression (state of emergency, fines, arbitrary arrests of priests).

This event, unique in the history of the Spanish Church, marked the first time a group of priests occupied a religious building. From this “lock-in,” which lasted a week, emerged a group identified by the slogan Gogorkeriaren aurka, gogortasuna (“Against the force of oppression, firmness”). The priests of the Gogor (hard) would become the most radical collective of the diocese in their Basque national claim.

After the fall of Western Basque Country under the control of the Burgos government, many nationalist priests, in addition to the 18 summarily uted, faced various consequences for their real or alleged activities against the Movimiento Nacional.

A report written by several Basque priests mentioned 715 priests who had been victims of repression following the victory. A notable photograph of a large group of Basque priests surrounding the socialist Julián Besteiro in Carmona prison (Seville) circulated worldwide.

Meanwhile, to bring the diocese of Vitoria-Navarre in line with the new political order, the Vatican appointed as apostolic administrator the Vizcayan Javier Lauzurica, auxiliary bishop of Valencia. General Franco reportedly said of him:
"I have a bishop for Vitoria. He is a man who will speak of God, while speaking of Spain."

Through these influences, Franco recovered from the Holy See the privilege of presenting bishops, enjoyed by Spanish monarchs until the intelligent renunciation of Juan Carlos I.

Thus, in 1943, Carmelo Ballester left his quiet diocese in León for the see of Vitoria. Seated with nine other prelates in the first Francoist Cortes, the Basque clergy appeared to obey and collaborate with the new regime.

However, this was far from reflecting the true situation in the Basque Country, where the Carlist-integrist conscience and conservative vocation of the clergy clashed with the Falange totalitarianism of the 1940s. A letter of November 25, 1944, sent by Basque priests to the Vatican, demonstrated this clearly: it denounced war-related abuses, ed the rejection of any state interference in the Church, the reinstatement of priests removed for political reasons, and the use of indigenous languages.

This complaint letter was, however, neutralized by Franco’s politico-religious machinery around the Vatican.

The year 1949 brought further surprises for Basque Catholicism. Before the diocese of Vitoria’s centenary, a papal bull in November separated Vitoria from Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa to create two new sees: Bilbao, led by Casimiro Morcillo (from Madrid), and San Sebastián, led by Jaime Font Andreu, while the Aragonese José María Bueno Monreal took charge of the mother diocese.

Pastoral reasons partly motivated this division, as did historical reasons: the coincidence of civil and ecclesiastical provincial boundaries.

This fragmentation ended the power of the Vitoria diocese, putting an end to the traditionally nationalist reputation of its seminary, yet it did not prevent the Basque Church from working globally in the mission territory assigned by the Vatican since Ballester’s time in Ecuador. The so-called “Mission of the Rivers” thus gained historical significance: no diocese had previously been entrusted corporately with a mission territory.

With the arrival of Luis Dadaglio in October 1967 as nuncio in Madrid, the official stance of the Vatican became much more confrontational toward the Franco regime than that of the neutral Riberi and the collaborationist Antoniutti. Indeed, the Popes of Rome and their directives had already changed. Relations Church and State had soured since the death of Pius XII in October 1958 and the accession of Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, the gentle John XXIII.

The inauguration of Vatican II in October 1961 likely had greater repercussions across all of national life than any other event. The encyclical "Pacem in terris", issued by the elderly Pope two months before his death, took on a liberatory character for a minority in this context.

The importance that Catholic Action and its specialized branches, such as HOAC, VOJ, JOC, JACR, would acquire—already before 1961, especially in Navarre—cannot be overstated. Basque bishops supported the establishment of these groups without hesitation, moderating their attitude only as these militant Catholics became more radicalized. The 1960s brought new hopes and new setbacks. A notable document was the petition signed by 500 Basque priests, submitted to the Secretariat of Vatican II by missionary bishop Ignacio Larrañaga.

While the diocese of San Sebastián received a new bishop in 1963, Lorenzo Bereciartua from Sigüenza, Basque priests felt increasingly challenged by the new socio-political situation. From 1964 onwards, the annual celebration of Aberri Eguna became a prime occasion to oppose a regime that ed little respect for human and collective rights.

On one hand, the inauguration of the restored cathedral of Vitoria allowed its bishop to express gratitude to Franco from a large sector of the faithful; on the other hand, the most committed Catholic militants increasingly gravitated toward strictly political groups. The ETA-JARC alliance played a decisive role in the progressive secularization of Basque religious life, as García de Cortázar notes. Thus, increasingly less mediated by their bishops, Basque priests chose paths of stronger resistance.

The second confinement of 60 priests at the Derio seminary, demanding the resignation of their bishop Gurpide, reached its most dramatic point with the “a divinis” suspension imposed by their dying bishop, who subsequently passed away on November 18, 1968, during the priestly confinement. The issue was then addressed by José María Cirarda, bishop of Santander, appointed directly by the Vatican as apostolic administrator of Bilbao.

Coincidentally, Bereciartua died around the same time, having failed during his tenure to align with Vatican II directives or assert any political independence. Only, in his final illness, summoning strength from weakness, he denounced the abuses of the Franco regime in applying the state of emergency.

At the same time, the nonagenarian Mateo Múgica, the bishop who had not signed the 1937 Collective Letter, died in retirement at Zarauz. He had been forcibly exiled since 1947, holding the simple title of “bishop of Cinna”, resigned from Vitoria.

Events within the Basque Church unfolded in such a way that they soon ceased to be mere news items and elevated it to one of the most active Churches in the world. Following the death of Bereciartua, the Navarrese Jacinto Argaya was promptly transferred to San Sebastián, a nomination that confirmed a more open-minded approach within the Basque hierarchy.

In August 1968, following a prior agreement the Government and the Vatican, the “concordat prison” of Zamora was inaugurated, intended to suppress and punish the homilies and writings of more than one hundred clergymen who would pass through it during its eight years of operation. The Basque clergy, now unstoppable, provided ideological coverage to all Basque nationalist movements, including ETA.

At the end of 1970, the Burgos Trial against sixteen Basque nationalists divided the Spanish episcopate. Among its members, the most conservative — twenty-three in number — condemned in a document any Church interference in the proceedings. As two priests were among the accused, the government sought to hold the trial behind closed doors, a move opposed by Argaya and Cirarda in a joint statement reminding the authorities that there existed not only ETA violence, but also institutional violence. References to such value judgments would become a constant in Basque clerical literature thereafter.

At the close of 1971, Cirarda was transferred, and leadership of the Biscayan diocese was entrusted to the Navarrese Antonio Añoveros, not without protests and disapproval from his clergy, swiftly curtailed by the prelate in his inaugural homily, which emphasized service to the Basque people, the promotion of social justice, and concern for the freedom of priests deprived of it.

Meanwhile, since 1969, the Claretian Arturo Tabera, Archbishop of Pamplona, had been created cardinal, and in 1972 the Vatican — undoubtedly through Argaya — succeeded in appointing the astute José María Setién as auxiliary bishop, later to become the titular bishop of San Sebastián.

As the Franco regime began to crumble on all fronts, the most acute conflict Church and State was provoked by Bishop Añoveros, when, in a homily read in Biscayan churches on 24 February 1974, he called for a “socio-political organization” that would ensure the “just freedom” of the Basque people.

National tensions reached their peak when the Bishop of Bilbao categorically refused to abandon his see, as demanded by the government. The states of emergency imposed on Biscay and Gipuzkoa in 1975 resulted in a striking number of priestly arrests. The stance of Argaya and Añoveros, denouncing “violence on both sides,” appeared ambiguous to the most radicalized sector of the Basque clergy.

The ution of two ETA members and three FRAP militants, for whom Pope Paul VI personally intervened three times, unleashed waves of indignation across the country, angering the Church and discrediting the regime in the eyes of many nations. When Franco died on 20 November, Setién’s laconic farewell — his proverbial homily lasting barely two minutes — sparked disturbances inside and outside the Cathedral of the Good Shepherd, with ultra-right sectors and regime-aligned newspapers demanding his resignation. Franco was dead, but the Church that Franco had sought to shape, in Rego’s words, had died somewhat earlier.

The Basque Church, committed to the Basque political struggle against the regime, had to pay a very high price for its militancy. From 1968 onwards, priestly secularizations became increasingly frequent. The dismantling of seminaries, novitiates, and religious houses, parallel to what was happening throughout Spain, will undoubtedly constitute one of the most compelling phenomena for future scholars of the Basque Church.

During the early years of the post-Franco period, the Basque hierarchy was accused of turning a blind eye to ETA terrorism and of failing to “assume its own responsibilities.” However, for many years the Basque bishops have edly and unequivocally condemned all violence—both that carried out by the forces of public order and that perpetrated by ETA members. Following the establishment of the Basque Government in 1980, the Basque ecclesiastical hierarchy forcefully intensified its condemnations of terrorism, although these statements were frequently misinterpreted or distorted from other political perspectives.

Any joint or individual declaration by the Basque bishops has tended to provoke storms of public opinion, often sharply divided and conflicting. For instance, in the aftermath of the failed coup d’état of February 23, 1981, and the subsequent reinforcement of the Army’s presence in the Basque Country, a Basque episcopal statement was regarded by a large segment of the Spanish press as a blatant interference of spiritual authority in political affairs.

A similar political uproar was generated in July 1982 when the Basque bishops issued a pastoral letter concerning the draft Organic Law for the Harmonization of the Autonomous Process (LOAPA). Anticipating accusations of undue interference, the bishops explicitly stated that they did not intend “in any way to enter into the technical and legal aspects of the LOAPA.” The media backlash against this declaration—like that provoked by the one addressing the drug problem, and by almost all others—once again demonstrates the strongly committed character of the Church toward what it perceives as the concrete needs of its people.

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FRC