ABSTRACT
One of the primary reform goals of the early modern Catholic Church was to delineate between sacred and secular spaces and ensure proper behavior in the former. This was hindered by the fact that the two categories often blurred together in the minds of parochial clergy and laypeople. Bishops like Gregorio Barbarigo of Padua (bp. 1664–97) were tasked with bringing parochial understandings of sacred space in line with official Church expectations. Barbarigo discovered that certain aspects of this larger goal were easier than others. The majority of his laypeople were already comporting themselves honestly during church services, although he did find a few problems. Most also agreed that the parish church and other structures were to be protected from scandal and used in certain ways. In these instances, Barbarigo provided laity with a way to implement or enforce reforms they desired. But when it came to extending the boundaries of the sacred to include the cemetery, traditionally a communal space, Barbarigo faced a much greater challenge. It was in these final stages of reconciling parochial and episcopal ideas about sacred space that bishops like Barbarigo found themselves in conflict with the laity and parochial clergy. Although this was only one small part of the Catholic Church’s reform program, the Church’s inability to gain the cooperation of its flock on issues of the appropriate use of and behavior in sacred space demonstrates one of the greatest challenges to the Catholic Church’s reform program as a whole.
