El marqués de La Ensenada y la Iglesia. Aproximación a su relación con la Compañía de Jesús

Résumé

Zenón de Somodevilla y Bengoechea, Marquis of La Ensenada, old Christian and nobleman from La Rioja, was appointed in April 1743 by Philip V secretary of the Treasury, lndies, War and Navy, positions in which Femando VI confirmed him in 1746. During his work as a minister, he had encounters and disagreements with the Spanish Church and the Vatican Curia, but he always enjoyed the firm support of the monarch's confessor, the Jesuit Father Francisco de Rávago. The unity of action with lhis lgnalian and the enmities that the Society of Jesus generated with the enlightened. other religious orders, enemies of older schoolchildren and above all the confrontation with the royal authority in the missions of Paraguay were decisive elements for the arrival of a second ministerial team of Fernando VI, prior to the exile to Granada of lhe Marquis of Ensenada in July 1754 and the subsequent replacement ayear later of Father Rávago in !he royal confessional. The return of the Marquis to the court in 1760 after Charles 111 was crowned was facilitated by his friendship with the Marquis of Esquilache, but the fall of the latter during the Easter riots of 1766 allowed the revenge of the Count of Aranda appointed by the king as captain general of Madrid, and by then his worst and latent enemy who exiled him to Medina del Campo. In this town the Marquis of Ensenada died on December 2, 1781, from where he had helplessly assisted in 1767 al the expulsion of the Society of Jesus from the territories of the Hispanic Monarchy.