Olá tudos! // Hi everyone! Today’s subject may not be of interest to everyone. I will try to make it short. But no promises. I am looking at the relationship between church and state here in Portugal. There are two reasons it interests me. First the history is definitely a Lady Gaga song come to life. King or Dictator caught in bad romance with the Cardinal. And vice versa. But in the worst way needing each other’s love.
Second, Portugal is the most secular as well as the most Catholic European country we have visited. Seven of Portugal’s 13 official national holidays are Catholic holy days. Plus a bunch of Catholic feast days are celebrated regionally. These include Santo António, São Pedro and São João. June is famously the Month of Saints. But few Portuguese know anything about the meanings behind these days and celebrations. People enjoy a day off. Take time with family and friends. And they do some mean partying down. But none of this celebration has much religious connotation. It is all good fun.
For example, at left is a student art project. It decorates the exterior of one of our elementary schools in Tavira. It calls out Saint Anthony. But these are not prayers. More or less the sentiment is simply this. “We are ready to go on vacation and enjoy summer. We say goodbye with sardines and basil. These make us smile. Thank you everybody but we are out of here. Although we have more to learn.” The recollection of Saint Anthony is merely a marker of the end of the school year and the beginning of Summer. Like our Memorial Day, I guess. But few Americans recall that holiday’s true, solemn meaning as well.
Caught In That Bad Romance, A Quickie
We are going to scoot through the history quickly. You may remember from our fourth post Tavira’s many churches. But a good number, nearly one-third, were part of convents. That is, places where groups of priests or nuns lived.
The kings created these convents to thank to God. Perhaps because of some victory in battle or the birth of a child. In addition to the convent building the king gave huge amounts of land. This so the convent could be self-sufficient.
But these convents were hugely wealthy as a result. And, curiously, their members professed poverty. That is, they said they would live with only the barest necessities. But the practice of poverty was often quite different. The familiar image of the chubby monk comes to mind.
The convents are wealthy because the king has made them wealthy. With wealth comes power. With power comes conflict. Power seeks more power. And wealth accumulates more wealth. This unending conflict between king and church becomes a subtext of Portuguese history.
When convents or the Church in general became to powerful and/or too wealthy, kings took action. They tossed out the old religious groups. New religious groups were invited to take over. The king got rid of this bishop and appointed one he liked. Etc. They never tossed religion completely, however. Power needs the story and myth that legitimizes it. The Church provides the story. God in heaven governs all the universe. Kings govern for God on Earth.
I Want Your Love, Until I Don’t
São Francisco is the oldest convent in Tavira. One of the oldest in Portugal. The creation of the convent and its grand church dates from the mid- to late 13th century. King Afonso III established the convent to celebrate (thank God for) the conquest of the Algarve in 1249. This victory completed the geographic puzzle of modern Portugal.
Afonso likely gave São Francisco to the Knights Templar, a military order of monks. Not unusual for kings to make such grants of property to reward those who fought alongside them and won. The Knights Templar soon became very powerful. They interfered with the kings’ power. Plus their wealth, over time, surpassed that of the king. Not good for anyone.
About 50 years later, King Dinis I takes the convent from the Templars. He had enough of the squabbles and the infidelity. Dinis invites the new Franciscan Order to Portugal. He entices them with grants of convents and land. To Dinis the seemingly peaceable and meek Franciscans, well, they seem a better fit than those warrior Templar monks.
So it went. Grant this to this bishop or that religious group. Take it away when they disagreed or got too big their own britches or for the king’s own good. Find another, newer more amenable paramour. That is until 1834.
Enough Is Enough
In 1834, in last gasp of exasperation and by royal decree all male religious orders were abolished. The government confiscated their wealth and property. Female orders could take no new members. Their property reverted to the state with the death of the last member. The Church, this time, had been on the losing side of the five year civil war. Church interference was no longer welcome.
Portugal now galloped toward secularism as did most of Western Europe. The Church lost more and more of its power. Its moral authority dwindled. São Francisco, its enormous ruins, seem an allegory for the institutional church.
The dictator, António Salazar, gave the Church’s decline a wee reprieve. This reprise was horrendous for Church. Cavorting with a dictator shredded any integrity the institution had with the faithful. Then came the Carnation Revolution. The Portuguese tossed the Church and their beliefs out along with the Novo Estado. Good riddance!
Still Caught In A Bad Romance?
But saying you do not believe does not mean that you do not believe. It means, I think, that you have disassociated yourself from a group with a particular name. Not the same thing. So, yeah, still sort of caught in the bad romance.
Let me explain. Here on out, I am going to use three words interchangeably. Faith, belief and memory. I think of them as synonyms in the context here.
Beliefs ingrain themselves into our DNA. They become part of our humanity over long histories. These memories are not part of our human DNA because someone made them up and injected them there. They are in my DNA and in your DNA because they allow us to survive and to thrive. Since our species appeared on Earth 150,000 years ago these beliefs have guided us away from extinction.
What the heck am I talking about? Good question. Let me try an example. Humans are among the few species that do not have multiple births. These single births also have long gestations. Moreover, infancy is relatively long as well. The survival of a species relies on offspring surviving to produce offspring. Humans are not well suited to this. Here is where memory, belief, comes in.
The most powerful and most potent human memories are related to our children. To protecting our children in order to ensure they grow to have their own children. These memories of infant vulnerability are wrapped in story to be retold over and over as a reminders.
The Changeling, Fairies and Goblins
Some More, Maybe It’s Overkill
What the heck am I talking about? Good question! So I ask myself what has enabled our species to survive. But not simply to survive, no, to also thrive in a relatively short — in geologic time — 150,000 years? My answer? It must be our ability to imagine and then to communicate ideas. To share these ideas with one another. But also to collaborate in perfecting and in implementing these ideas.
These are not unique to humans among living beings. These other beings, like us, have thrived. Although now threatened by our choices. Most living beings are sentient, that is, they think, but also think about themselves, so feel. They also communicate and collaborate. One unique feature of humans, however, is creating story from their memories.
Story + Memory = Faith + Belief = Survival + Thriving
the
