Mujeres e identidad católica. Las congregacionistas en la España decimonónica

As it happened in other Catholic countries around, mid 19th century Spain experienced a multi-faceted process of religious feminization whose more evident characteristic was the emergence of many female active life congregations. Mainly dedicated to educative and charitable activities and with a more flexible and centralised organization than one in enclosed orders, these congregations contributed to renew the obsolete structures of the Spanish Catholic Church, which did not feel comfortable before the progressive consolidation of Liberalism and its cultural values. After a brief analysis of the evolution of the congregational phenomenon in Spain, this paper will focus on the leading figures of the founders and mother superiors. In particular, it will pay attention to María Antonia París, founder of Claretian Missionary Sisters and author of Points for the Church Reform, a really polemic text. Personal sources like her autobiography and her collected letters will allow us to get into her arduous process of identity construction as a woman and as a Catholic before the difficulties she had in order to go ahead with her project of religious congregation