ABSTRACT
In the Spain where I was born and raised, I was taught as a child that the “divine mission” assigned to and accomplished by my native country throughout its history was significantly different from the trajectory followed by other nations. Franco proclaimed himself “Caudillo of Spain by the Grace of God,” 1 while Franquismo declared the Spanish to be “God’s chosen people,” thus drawing a tacit comparison to the Jews, who had been forced to abjure their faith or leave the territories centuries earlier 2 and who continued to be denigrated in the Spanish collective imaginary (as was evident in numerous idiomatic expressions. In fact, this solemn claim echoed the words of Juan Donoso Cortés (1809–1853), a liberal Catholic whose political philosophy was recovered by Franco’s nationalist doxa through the 1946 edition of Donoso’s complete works in a series entitled the “Library of Christian Authors” (Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos).In one of his parliamentary speeches, Donoso Cortés affirms that
Ha habido en la tierra dos pueblos que han sido elegidos o predestinados: el pueblo judío y el pueblo español. … El pueblo judío fue el representante, el solo representante en la antigüedad de esta idea religiosa de la unidad, de la espiritualidad de Dios entre los pueblos idólatras y materialistas; el pueblo español ha sido el representante del catolicismo entre los pueblos protestantes. El pueblo judío derramó su sangre por la fe en Asia, y el pueblo español en las regiones de Europa y el continente americano. … Yo pido al pueblo español lo que hizo el pueblo judío: el pueblo judío ha conservado intacta su fe a pesar de la dispersión. … Y yo pido al pueblo español conserve intacta su fe a pesar de las revoluciones. (II: 26)
Two peoples on earth have been chosen or predestined; the Jewish people and the Spanish people …. The Jewish people were the only representatives of the religious idea of God’s unity, and spirituality amongst the idolatrous and materialist peoples in antiquity; the Spanish people have been the representatives of Catholicism amongst the Protestants. The Jewish people spilled their blood for their faith in Asia, and the Spanish people have done the same in regions of Europe and on the American continent. … I ask the Spanish people to do what the Jewish people have done. The Jewish people have kept their faith intact despite their dispersion …. and I ask the Spanish people to keep their faith intact despite revolutions. 3
