Religious orders and hospitals in the constitutional debate of

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In this article we approach within the parliamentary debate on the Church the opinion of one of the fundamental deputies in the preparation and approval of the Constitution in relation to the link between religious orders and hospital work and that in To a large extent it includes some of the ideas that socialists had been denouncing since the beginning of the th century in the pages of El Socialista. We are referring to the prestigious jurist Luis Jiménez de Asúa president of the Constitutional Commission. The issue might seem secondary in the great debate on the separation between Church and State but let us not forget the fundamental role of religious orders in health and social care in that Spain and that it would continue to play until the much later transformations of the public healthcare.

On the other hand it is an issue that can be linked to the growing pressure from those seeking professional opportunities in this field especially from middle or lower-middle class women in relation to nursing. It could be argued that it would be very difficult to CXB Directory replace all the health service personnel if these religious communities were dissolved but since that service was no longer strictly “technical and scientific” it would be easier to solve it by making a call to fill those positions Jiménez de Asúa He referred to this topic in his long speech on the religious question



Beginning by alluding to a certain debate that had taken place in the Cortes with some dissenting vote or amendment about the need for religious communities dedicated to hospital care not to be dissolved. The socialist deputy drawing the attention of the parliamentarians who were doctors pointed out that it was very common for members of religious orders to disturb the conscience of the sick especially in the last moments of life seeking to “capture the soul of the dying.” making them receive “spiritual aid” when the patients had lived outside the Church. He also expressed that members of religious communities treated sick Catholics differently than those who were not.