Oh Doctor Optimum! (two)
Manuel DIEGO SANCHEZ, Carmelite
Once again, our collaborator, the Carmelite Manuel Diego, reflects on this important commemorative date. But analyzing the position of a well-known and discussed character from Alban, and from whom a similar reaction could not be expected at that time.
*We are grateful to the “Revista de Espiritualidad” of Madrid, 2022, for allowing us to reproduce pp. 358-360 and 362-364 of the article by M. Diego entitled: “May we feed on his heavenly doctrine.” The situation and usefulness of the third centenary of the canonization of Saint Teresa (1922-1923)”.
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“A former university student from Salamanca, a journalist then well known not only in this field, but also in that academic, responded energetically to the decision of the doctorate, in general and without further details, since he had been a student at that university in the Faculty of Law and then scholarship holder of the College of San Clemente in Bologna; Furthermore, he had also maintained a certain friendship with don Miguel de Unamuno, of whom he considered himself an admirer student. We refer to the journalist José Sánchez Rojas (1885-1931), whose literary and political career was well known in Salamanca and Alba de Tormes, where he was a native; just as his independent, if not discordant, way of judging reality was also known. But above all, he was a great admirer of Santa Teresa, above creeds and partisanship (“nobody beats me in affection, devotion and deep and conscious respect for Santa Teresa”, he said in 1922), something that nobody was unaware of, as We have already demonstrated it on another occasion (The Teresian Passion of José Sánchez Rojas, 1885-1931, in Monte Carmelo 115 [2007] 53-83. Pepe Sánchez Rojas had been a very active member of the local commission of the previous Teresian centenary of 1914, but in 1922 he was no longer in Alba, he had no family left there, and his latest adventures had taken him away from the town, although not emotionally separated from him. his native village.
News arrives from Madrid about how the Teresian centenary is being prepared in Salamanca, and it would be confusing and even counterproductive (from various sources), so he adopts a very critical position regarding the matter of the “honoris causa” doctorate, reaching levels reaction and even verbal violence. In my opinion, he lacked closeness and being outside the Salamanca environment; even more so, at this point he was already far from the university world, so his opinion seems to us to be very exaggerated. On the first page of the Madrid newspaper “Heraldo de Madrid” (4-29-1922), already double column, he has an article with this title: “Santa Teresa, doctora”. He, without further ado, disavows the gesture from Salamanca, calling it twice a “mojiganga that they prepare, so disrespectful to the meaning of the work of Teresa de Jesús”. He also gives the rating of being bullshit. He possibly already knows the result of the favorable vote of the Salamanca cloister (4-3-2022) and even thinks that the official act will be imminent, so he reacts in this article in the Madrid newspaper a month later (29-4- 1922):
“One of these days a strange ceremony will be held at the University of Salamanca. The doctors – some doctors – of that cloister will put the doctoral cap and hood on the shoulders of the monks and Carmelites of the Virgin of Castile, Teresa de Jesús. Santa Teresa will be, therefore, officially a doctor from the University of Salamanca. The image will be walked through the cloisters; the good chickens and the handsome doctors of that house, which the ill-educated Carlyle called “asylum and fortress of ignorance”, will walk proudly with their silver maces, they will become a civic-academic-religious prude to tolerate such company , or the doctors climb very high to catch up with the neophyte that they make their companion, in their image and likeness”.
The text is an authentic satire that ridicules the entire Salamancan project that has been thought up by ecclesiastical and academic authorities, in addition to denigrating the university institution of that time with no little resentment, and reaches the limit of the grotesque, because it launches ideas about of the Teresian figure that do not cease to be common places, set phrases, more than well-founded praise: “Saint Teresa, let’s say it once and for all, is the anti-university, anti-Scholastic and anti-Salmantine spirit par excellence, of the University, of Scholasticism and of the communal and ridiculous Salamanca of the 16th century, which leads to the prison of the Holy Office the only one who has spiritual freedom in it, the sweet author of “Los Mundos [sic] of Christ”, friend of Saint Teresa” (he is confused; the true title of the work of fr. Luis de León, is that of “The names of Christ”. It may have been a typographical error, of the correctors of the newspaper, and not of the author, since it is difficult for us to accept this confusion on his part). Dismiss any comment. Sánchez Rojas must have been bothered (a lot), as on other occasions, by the fact that Vice Chancellor Unamuno has not openly opposed this decision, indeed, he has simply let it pass; for he will only refuse to participate in the acts. And the journalist from Alban wants to underline his ideas and justify his intellectual position in the face of this university decision, when he adds and takes sides: “For these reasons I want to publicly protest the crime of Leso Teresianism that is going to be perpetrated in Salamanca. Teresa is not a doctor, nor an academic, nor a syllogistic, nor a university student…”.
The difficulty that immediately arises is being able to understand this opposition in a man so identified with the Teresian figure and message, with deep-rooted Albian sentiment, although always critical. Do not forget that this unpleasant event (which will have been discussed in Alba!) coincides with the twilight years of the well-known writer and journalist.
To further qualify his position, we reproduce the end of said article, where he summons one and the other, especially Unamuno, the former teacher, who, for sure, would not like this mention of the disciple so much. He says thus: “We suppose that the Vice Chancellor, Mr. Unamuno, and the bishop, Reverend Mr. Alcolea, will go out in front of a few stunned people so as not to tolerate that civic-academic-religious nonsense, which Saint Teresa will surely not thank them for”. ..
We already know that in addition to Sánchez Rojas, Machado refused to participate in the Teresian literary event organized for October 7, before the king and queen, at the Liceo theater.
“What does seem evident is that both in the case of Sánchez Rojas, and in that of Antonio Machado, apart from their political ideology and the idea they defended of the role and role of the Spanish university at that time, everything indicates that there is a orchestrated reaction (perhaps from Salamanca itself) that wants to have its resonance, at least within the secular intellectual world, because they considered this academic decision as something that came to the University of Salamanca imposed or advised from outside itself, from the local Catholic world and of course led by the diocesan bishop. I believe that the true reasons for this opposition may lie there; because he never rejected the figure of Saint Teresa, but rather the method or path traveled to reach such a decision.
But some reticence can also be verified in Unamuno. Without excluding the fact that some letter can still be found in his epistolary that can better illustrate the circumstances of these moments, we can guess something about his position regarding the Teresian act of those days through an article in the Madrid magazine, Nuevo Mundo, in which was expressed in this way:
“And in these days when Santa Teresa is celebrated instead of studying the origins of her spirit and, above all, the Spanishness –or iberity- of her mystical-ascetic Christianity and when a hat is placed on her head –and metallic!- as a doctor, there is hardly anyone who remembers the bishop that Avila had at the end of the fourth century and studies whether something from Prisciliano to Teresa of Jesus was not transmitted through a subhistoric current, perhaps telluric, underground. By intimate perennial shaking of the rocks of Ávila, perhaps” (New World. Madrid, 10-20-1922).
It could not have been more explicit, since it refers to the Alban act of the imposition of Granda’s doctoral cap paid for by the Spanish ladies. He also does not share the need for that academic gesture of the honorary doctorate of October 8, 1922 in Alba de Tormes”.
This was the contradiction that was felt at that time from the intellectual position of three renowned characters and, of course, it had its resonance in certain circles.
“The truth is that this intellectual hostility did not damage the style and brilliance of the act, also because of Unamuno’s prudence, who we do not know was fully involved in the matter, perhaps to avoid controversy, but preferred to remain silent and avoid any direct allusion. to this decision, and this is what he wants to demonstrate with his repeated absence on the various occasions that the University was present, but above all because of his political opposition to the monarchy. And, for this reason, even though it was possible to intuit that there must have been other positions of the same style, this current of thought did not mark the concession itself, nor the public acts that made it effective. And of course, among the organizers, not even a trace of this contrary line is filtered (their precautions would be taken). And in the case of Sánchez Rojas, which is very significant, no one notices his absence from the acts (not even in Alba), and of course, clearly knowing his position, no local authority was going to invite him to be present, although only out from a merely literary intervention. This event, we repeat, coincides with the twilight years of the well-known writer and journalist.
The trace that has remained of this contradiction was not decisive, also because other exponents of the literary world (Emilia Pardo Bazán) had more favorable feelings; but it was convenient to reflect on this intellectual adversity in order to realize the environment with which she has gone forward and that idea of a Teresian doctorate from the University of Salamanca has been forged.
For this reason, a writer and professor from Salamanca, Juan Domínguez Berrueta (1866-1950), who worked so hard for this centenary and, surely, was a staunch defender of the university concession to Saint Teresa, at the end of everything lived in those Memorable days of October 1922, in the face of criticism from some, he expressly writes in favor of those acts and gestures that were so symbolic that were carried out publicly:
“There was nothing ridiculous or hints of masquerade in that act, more than solemn, historic. Nothing else could happen. A doctor’s investiture is already something serious and full of nobility, although the symbolic of the show has to cover the invisible and spiritual wisdom of material insignia, which speak in the eyes of the people of intellectual dignity.
If the person, even if it is an effigy, a doctorate, is the writer from Ávila, whose writing was “the same elegance”, and the regal hands of an egregious lady impose the symbolic cap, the act carries with it all the excellences of good taste, select and hero…
The famous University of the historical act carried out can be satisfied.
It is an act of mental aristocracy to recognize the mystical doctor as an eminent writer, worthy of the highest university honor” (Basílica Teresiana 7 [1922] pp. 417-420.
It is not difficult to guess who was the target of these words. He knows very well and has been aware of the contrary positions of Sánchez Rojas and Antonio Machado, as well as what Unamuno reflected very incidentally in some forum. All more or less move in the university environment, and as a person more directly involved in the subject tries to defend what has already been done, including the ritual or symbolic section of the act.
The anger of José Sánchez Rojas for the honoris causa of Santa Teresa