Did the organization of the Spanish Church limit its success in the New World?

Authors Avatar

26th May 2004                                                Camilla Burdett C&C

Did the organization of the Spanish Church limit its success in the New World?

In order to decide whether or not the organisation of the Church limited or extended its success in the New World we must define ‘success’ and examine evidence for its achievement or otherwise.  If the conversion of the Indians to Catholicism was one of the two main justifications of the Conquest then success may be defined by the extent and depth to which this occurred.  The Jesuits realised, after the rush of the early achievements when progress was made relatively fast, that the conversions were in fact quite shallow: it was impossible to deny the fact that old beliefs remained, mingled with the newly imposed Christian doctrine.  There were unavoidable similarities between Christianity and the old native religions: the Indians took to the custom of building churches and placing crosses on holy places remarkably well, but it was common in the 1560s for Augustinian missionaries in Guamachuco to use Andean textiles to adorn Christian buildings.  Even more alarmingly, there rose a trend in the later stages of conversion of the restatement of non-Christian beliefs and practices, as the Indians in Peru looked back to the Incas having settled after the first enthusiastic wave of Christianity: they would obey the need to fast during Lent, but would do so using Indian traditional methods; non-Christian holy objects began to be incorporated into the structure of Churches; and ancient Andean festivals were celebrated under the guise of Christian ones.  The countryside remained pagan, and so although the traditional religion was destroyed there the old huacas were rarely replaced by saints.  

Fundamental to the success of the Church in any state and especially in the period of its establishment in the New World was its wealth.  In order to facilitate the spreading of the Word, the funding of community work and new buildings, and the payment of the clergy the Church required a constant flow of finances.  The Spanish Church in the New World does not seem to have had a problem with regards to income and on this basis may be regarded as successful: the size and splendour of the churches still standing today indicate the power and wealth of the Church in this period.  A study of colonial architecture  carried out by Markham in Guatemala City mentions no less than forty-one religious structures whereas only three non-ecclesiastical buildings are cited.  Thus it is clear that in the period of colonisation the Church was the dominant force in architecture and the establishment of new buildings, proving the wealth it obviously had at its disposal.  The organization of the Church helped it gain these riches: although the Crown enjoyed ‘patronato real de las Indies’ and thus could control the tithe income of the Church in the New World, the tithe was fundamental to the organisation of the Church itself.  The increase in commercial agriculture in New Spain, Peru and Central America in the 1590s provoked a large rise in the levels of tithe being received by the Church, and thus the regular orders became active and successful landowners.  Furthermore, the success of mining in New Spain and Peru after the Conquest period produced excess capital which could be subsequently used for pious works such as the building of chantries, monasteries and colleges.  Thus the combination of tithes, the fees received for the performance of marriages and burials, gifts from various generous individuals and the pious works enabled by the success of mining and agriculture resulted in the Church becoming a very wealthy institution by the end of the period of consolidation, and allowed it to establish itself by whatever means possible with no financial difficulties.

Join now!

One of the Spanish Church’s biggest expenditures in the New World was building projects and in designing and creating entire communities they managed to restructure Indian communities to make it easier to convert them to Christianity and consolidate the new faith.  The monastic nature of the conversion and the strength of the regulars in spreading Catholicism meant that the new settlements grew up around monasteries, which consequently became marketplaces and commercial centres.  The Indians’ natural settlement patterns were very dispersed and lacked urban centres, and thus the missionaries brought communities together to make conversion easier and more intense.  Not ...

This is a preview of the whole essay