Cornelius Conover analyzes the interactions of religion and politics in the early modern Spanish empire. Conover focuses on the cult of saints, particularly the Mexican San Felipe de Jesús, one of the 26 Catholic martyrs of Nagasaki in 1597, and the liturgical calendar around the feasts of saints. He uncovers the Catholic underpinnings that attract the opposing centripetal and centrifugal forces of expansion and political unity of the Spanish empire.
Central to the book is the concept of “pious imperialism,” namely an imperialism based on devotional and liturgical practices that bound local and imperial authorities as well as colonial subjects to a pious Spanish monarch. The author argues that “Catholicism inspired Spanish imperialism, but also bound friars, royal officials, and colonial subjects to the Crown in church services to the millions of subjects in this global empire” (2). Conover's book is solid on archival research, shows a deep knowledge of secondary literature on Spanish imperialism and Catholicism, and brings together religion and the politics of empire in a creative and innovative way.
To achieve his goals, Conover has structured the book around nine chronological chapters that cover the period from the late 1500s to the 1830s. After an introductory chapter, the next two chapters deal with the deaths of the 26 Catholic martyrs in Nagasaki in 1597 and the politics behind their beatification during the Catholic Reformation. The author pays particular attention to the tensions and conflicts between Jesuits and Discalced Franciscans (San Felipe de Jesús's order) over their missionary methodologies in Japan and the ensuing canonization process in Rome. This part of the book superbly exposes the global connections and implications of the martyrs’ beatification in a context of Spanish imperial supremacy. It further unveils the complexities of a heterogenous Catholic Church. The prose is a vivid journey that takes the reader from Japan to the Philippines, Mexico City, Madrid, and Rome.
The rest of the book develops the concept of pious imperialism through the lens of liturgical and devotional practices, particularly those of holy figures such as San Felipe de Jesús, as means to secure unity and loyalty to the crown and its municipal authorities. Throughout the seventeenth century, Conover shows, local leaders in Mexico City used the cult of San Felipe de Jesús and those of other holy figures to emphasize the city's contribution to the empire and the Church. Chapters 6 and 7 deal with the Bourbon attacks on local Catholic expressions and liturgical devotions and the marginalization of local creole elites.
Consequently, pious imperialism staggered. Kingly divine authority weakened by Bourbon reforms devalued the royal righteous place of the monarch as an imperial Catholic leader. Instead of inciting an emerging creole identity and Mexican patriotism, as other scholars have shown, Conover counterargues that at least until the 1810s the cult of local saints and to the Virgin of Guadalupe reinforced loyalty to the king.
I want to highlight Conover's vast research from various archives in Mexico, Texas, Spain, and Rome. Less known to Americanists are the Archivo Franciscano Ibero-Oriental and the Vatican Secret Archives (he consulted the Congregation of the Rites archives). The book includes an appendix with the changes of holy feasts in the liturgical calendar made by the Third Provincial Mexican Council of 1585, the Fourth Council of 1771, and Pope Gregorio XVI in 1835.
This is a well-written book that transports readers from the dramatic end of the martyrs in Nagasaki in 1597 to the Roman Curia and Spanish political and diplomatic maneuvering, to Madrid and finally to Mexico City in a long-durée time frame, without losing its focus on the changes of liturgy and the vicissitudes of San Felipe de Jesús's cult. The global character of Conover's research enriches the concept of empire. This book will be of interest to scholars and students of early modern religious history, early modern empires, early Latin American history, and the story of the Catholic Church in the Americas.
