Inventing Catholic Identities in Twentieth-Century Spain: The Virgin Bien-Aparecida, 1904-1910

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the Spanish Church was in need of symbols which would help promote Catholics sense of belonging to a united community in order to struggle more efficiently against secularization. In the age of Mary, Marian devotions would seem perfectly suitable to perform that function. Unifying symbols of this and other types were sought both at a national and at a regional/diocesan level, but the search appears to have been more successful at the latter. In the Northern region of Cantabria, geographical, political, social, and even purely religious divisions among Catholics made the necessity of a strong collective identity, and therefore of a unifying symbol, even more acute if possible. The proposal that the Virgin Bien-Aparecida, venerated in the far East of Cant¬abria, should be declared patroness of the diocese and region offered a chance to meet that need. Thus, in times of crisis for the established religion, a patroness was invented for Cantabria, with the old materials of a popular local devotion, to serve the new goals of affirming the identity of the region as a common and sole Catholic identity