The trajectory of a Catholic, nationalist and counter-revolutionary symbol in the Spanish public space: the Sacred Heart of Jesus between 1899 and 1939

Abstract

ABSTRACT SUMMARY: The Sacred Heart of Jesus was the protagonist of a devotion that became very popular in Spain during the second half of the 1800s and the former decades of the 20th century. In the Iberian Peninsula the heart of Christ became a symbol of an identity discourse that combined a fundamentalist conception of religion, a definition of the Spanish nation as intrinsically Catholic, and counter-revolutionary ideas. The aim of this article is to analyse why, during the years between 1899 and 1939, the Sacred Heart became a reference with a growing presence in the public space. Secondly, it explores why this presence caused a fierce dispute between those who considered that the Spanish Volksgeist was inherently Catholic, and those who believed otherwise. The existence of a war for the occupation and demarcation of public space stimulated the reproduction of the heart of Christ in scapulars, plaques or monuments, but also explains that the political groups who defended the secularization of society and a Spanish nationalism opposed to National-Catholic approaches reacted with anger to the spread of the Sacred Heart in the public space.