Catalonia, the country with the flag blessed by the Pope

BarcelonaPope Leo XIV will land next Tuesday in Catalonia, a country with a strong link to the Holy See since its birth. Relations have had their ups and downs, especially when Catalonia had a voice and vote in the world, with the Catalan kings of the Crown of Aragon. After the disappearance of the Papal States in 1870, the great shift occurred with the Second Vatican Council. The bond, however, also raises a question: why does the senyera have the same colors as the flag of the Papal States?

Juanjo Cortés is the president of the Catalan Society of Genealogy, Heraldry, Sigillography, Vexillology and Nobiliary. Regarding the fact that the colors are the same, red and yellow, he recalls in conversation with ARA the basis of the thesis that the senyera comes from the papal flag: "The enfeoffment and marriage of King Peter the Catholic, when he married in Rome and pledged allegiance to the Pope", and then "it is said that the Pope granted him permission to use the colors red and yellow". This happened in 1204 at the hands of the powerful Innocent III, who officiated the union, but Cortés points out that "Peter the Catholic's grandfather already wore the colors naturally", as the senyera first appears in 1150 as the royal coat of arms of Count Ramon Berenguer IV of Barcelona, who married Peronella of Aragon. Later, the flag spread to Catalonia and the rest of the territories of the Crown of Aragon. In the Vatican, on the other hand, a reform in the 19th century opted for the current white and yellow in the flag.

"Se non è vero, è ben trovato", points out Cortés, as is said in the Vatican to indicate that if something is not true, at least it is very well reasoned. He suggests that it could have been a consolidation of the senyera, a kind of papal blessing for a symbol that already existed for more than half a century and bore its colors. Be that as it may, the relationship was one of equals with the pontiff, between an important crown in Europe and a politico-religious power. In turn, the flag of the Papal States, created in the 9th century, "already adopted the red and yellow of the Roman emperors, who had adopted them as an amulet against bad vibrations", according to Cortés. And the papal colors also appear today "in any basilica" with the symbol of an umbrella.

Push and pull

to Isabel and Ferran Borja gives them", he synthesizes.

Plot twistCatholic to Isabella and Ferdinand is given by Borja", he synthesizes.

Plot twist

With the Papal States abolished in 1870, the Holy See no longer has such a political role, but it also wants to have good relations with Catholic states. Duran notes that Leo XIII approved Our Lady of Montserrat as the patron saint of Catalonia for the millennium of the discovery of La Moreneta, at the height of Catalanism, but also "puts the Church into modernity" with the encyclical Rerum novarum. "He is a pope greatly beloved by the open and Catalanist sector, such as [the bishop of Vic] Torras i Bages," he says.

Regarding the Holy See's position on stateless nations, Duran comments that "Leo XIII defended the freedom of peoples, but the reflection on the national issue began with Pius XI." The encyclical Pacem in terris, by John XXIII, defends "cultural rights" and language teaching, and John Paul II supported from the UN the "right to exist" of nations and "the right to one's own language and culture," and the current Pope, Leo XIV, states in Magnifica humanitas that "the promotion of the common good can never be separated from respect for the right of peoples to exist, to safeguard their identity."

The paradigm shift, however, was the Second Vatican Council, by John XXIII, in 1962. "There is a clear action to open up to national and cultural minorities," comments the UB history professor Giovanni Cattini. Duran also sees it as a clash with Francoism, although it also promotes vernacular languages in liturgy, in addition to preaching, which favors Catalan.

Impositions

Political encounters have also been recent. "At the end of Primo de Rivera's dictatorship, dicasteries of the Holy See sent the Catalan Church insulting directives against Catalan," explains Duran. And in 1902, Count of Romanones pushed through an order from the Spanish executive for catechesis to be in Spanish, but de Riquer notes the call for "sensitivity" from the Holy See. We must also consider influential Catalans in the Vatican: de Riquer mentions Cardinal Josep Vives i Tutó at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, and there are also currently some, like Father Jordi Bertomeu.

It is true that an important part of the ecclesiastical hierarchy in Catalonia fraternized with power, as Cattini says, and this explains why Torras i Bages often found himself alone. Also for the defense of preaching in Catalan, which adds to the Hispanization with appointments of non-Catalan bishops. "The bishop has absolute power and, therefore, the campaign "We want Catalan bishops", opines de Riquer.

In the 16th century, Castilianization reached nearly half of the episcopate until the 17th century, while in the 18th century, after the Nueva Planta decree, it fluctuated between 6% and 35% of Catalan bishops; from 1800 to 1825 between 13.3% and 16.6%, while in 1850 there was a jump to two-thirds of bishops born in Catalonia, which fell in 1900 to 45%. In the early years of Francoism, the percentage was only 17.6%, while after the era of technocrats it rose again to 72%. A figure that is maintained because currently 70% of bishops in Catalonia are Catalan, even though those not born there are also Catalan speakers.

However, after the Nueva Planta Decree, while Catalan was expelled from the majority of prestigious spheres, "where the language is most constant and stable is in the Church," emphasizes Duran. He refers to the parishes, because foreigners proliferated in the hierarchy. It was not until Francoism that "a break was achieved" with the institution's tradition through the use of Catalan.