Una Ley imposible de aplicar1841 un clérigo liberal ante el subsidio de culto y clero

Abstract

Among the difficulties in the relations between the Church and the State in Spain throughout the first half of the 19th century were the problems that arose as a result of the confiscations with the maintenance of worship and the clergy. With the constitution of 1837 in force, which established that "The nation is obliged to maintain the worship and ministers of the Catholic religion, which is the one professed by the Spanish people", the rules laid down for the maintenance of worship and the clergy involved the Church itself, the town councils and the provincial councils, so that financing the parishes and dioceses was a practically impossible task. This was also the case for a liberal clergyman, Valentín Ortigosa, who enjoyed the favour of the governments of the time and was responsible for applying them in Malaga in 1841. Later, when he became a senator in 1843, he would give an account of these problems in the upper chamber.