The Forgotten Spanish Charity: Love, Government, and The Poor

Abstract

The recently published book by Michel Foucault, Les aveux de la chair, challenges us to recognize once again the relevance of Christianity for the philosophical project of writing a historical ontology of the present.2 This paper follows that invitation and analyzes the articulation and legacy of the Spanish version of the Catholic doctrine of charity at the moment of its decline. During the eighteenth century, the articulation of the doctrine was based on urging the believers to undergo a transformation according to the complex love of charity. The first section of this paper analyzes the “practice of the self” that believers had to perform for undergoing such a transformation and thus realizing the truth act of charity. Section two studies almsgiving and “tribulation” as the two truth acts Catholic believers had to perform while dealing with the poor’s needs and poverty’s pains. In their respective and hardly compatible ways, these exercises of charity modeled not only a charitable believer but also made that believer a steward for others. Thus, they were critical pieces for forging a charitable pastorate, which formed a distinctive reciprocity between the members of the Spanish Catholic community of the eighteenth century. The third section of this paper will claim that the charitable pastorate was neither abolished nor forgotten when the Spanish Monarchy established the police of the poor—a new type of giving led by the State. Rather, the charitable pastorate became a building block for the Spanish police of the poor. Thus, this unlikely encounter between charity and the police