Congruent support of the Cordovan parish priests. Ecclesiastical Tariffs in Cordoba in the nineteenth century

Abstract

The conflict we will deal with here, although it dates back to the beginning of the 19th century, is much older and continues a peregrine discussion started in Tucumán around 1610 and in all America around the same time. The abundance of documents that try to elucidate on the convenience or not of reforming the parochial ecclesiastical tariffs of the bishopric of Cordoba at the beginning of the XIX century, led us to question ourselves about the real importance of the subject. The collection of fees was a custom that stipulated what the parish priests should receive for the provision of certain services such as: masses, burials, marriages or baptisms. These fees, commonly called tariffs in America, were destined to support the parish clergy. In this context, we wonder whether the reform of the Tariff of 1821 was inspired by the government's desire to intervene in the business of the Church, considering it part of the state's business, or whether these changes can simply be counted among the many changes made by the local government in order to order the life and economy of the province. Thinking that the discussion on the tariff shows, or highlights other general questions that were being posed to the new Cordovan state, we are concerned to know: 1) if the variation of the tariffs was really important with respect to those in force before 1821, 2) to what extent these modifications affected the annual fees of the parish priests and 3) if they were part of a larger program aimed at changing the Church-State-Society relationship or if they are simply another indicator of the moment of political change that the "United" Provinces were going through. Without neglecting the institutional political framework surrounding the problem, we will work focusing mainly on the underlying reasons for the discussion unleashed by the Tariff Reform of 1821. We believe that the problems arising from this cause are linked, on the one hand, to certain claims about the decrease in the income of the parish priests. On the other hand, we believe that the protests of the priests are related to the break that the reform of the tariff produced in the image that the priests had of themselves, an image that was returned to them by the "mirror of society".