Formar al 'clero nacional': La financiación estatal de los seminarios eclesiásticos en la Argentina (1862-1916)

Abstract

El artículo trata de la creación y de la financiación estatal de los seminarios conciliares argentinos y de las controversias que en relación con su gestión y su sostén económico emergieron en el seno de la elite gobernante entre 1862 y 1916. La investigación se basa fundamentalmente en el análisis de los debates parlamentarios, en especial los referidos al presupuesto de culto, aunque también han aportado información significativa otras fuentes, como las memorias del Departamento de Culto.

This article deals with the public funding of seminaries in Argentina and the controversies raised by their management and economic support among the ruling elite between 1862 and 1916. In accordance with the powers conferred by the Patronato, the national state assumed the responsibility of creating and supporting seminaries, almost non-existent in Argentina before the second half of the 19th century. The nineteenth-century elites strongly backed the formation of a “national clergy”, qualified and “patriotic”, that would support the task of building the State and the nation. The question of funding the seminaries eloquently illustrates the uniqueness of Argentine secularization, which, unlike most Latin American countries, never achieved the separation of Church and State. It also shows the ambivalences and contradictions of the relationship between political power and ecclesiastical authority: the ruling elites in the 19th century bet on the construction of a national Church, both in its territorial scope and in its spirit, while the Catholic Church affirmed its universal character and demanded to be recognized as a perfect society, sovereign and independent of the civil power.