Of failures, successes and disagreements. A clerical career in a time of crisis and transition: the case of José Miguel Guridi y Alcocer (1795-1805)

Abstract

The objective of this article is to reflect on the ecclesiastical trajectories between 1795 and 1805 in the archbishopric of Mexico based on a case study: that of the clergyman José Miguel Guridi y Alcocer. This approach will be based on contextualizing the social situation of the clergy during the second half of the eighteenth century, and how the problems that arose during those years reflect a profound crisis in the urban clerical sphere. This circumstance tried to be solved by two archbishop's projects of correction and reform of the secular clergy: the Royal Seminary College of Instruction, voluntary retirement and correction of Tepotzotlán, founded in 1777, and the Congregation of Oblate Priests, established in 1803. It is in this context of clerical crisis in which we can insert a singular trajectory, that of the parish priest José Miguel Guridi y Alcocer, who from his Apuntes de vida y una representación al rey provides us with the ideal framework to understand what were the triggers and the most representative and characteristic problems of the clergy crisis at the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century.