Algunos aspectos del pontificado de Mons. Ilundain y Esteban en Ourense a la luz de los archivos vaticanos (1905-1921)

Abstract

Ourense in the early XX century, although being a mainly agricultural and traditional society, lives and participates in all the problems of the moment in the political, social and ecclesiastical levels. The diocesan Church lives the general worry of the Church with its position in the face of the liberal and modernist positions. The anticlericalism springs up by the minute and it is politically used in facts like the case of Oseira for attacking the Church in the person of the bishop. The previously unknown files of the Vatican offer valuable information for knowing the lights and shadows of the papacy of monseigneur Ilundain y Esteban. His reforming spirit of the priesthood and the churchgoers situates him as one of the big bishops of Ourense and one of the most complete and fine prelates in the whole of the Spanish episcopate of the first third of the XX century.