José Roca y Ponsa
José Roca y Ponsa (1852–1938), known also as "Magistral de Sevilla", was a Spanish Roman Catholic priest. In historiography he is known mostly for his role in the 1899 conflict between the archbishops of Toledo and Seville. Catapulted to nationwide notoriety, in the early 1900s he was a point of reference for heated debates on religion and politics; today he is considered a representative of intransigent religious fundamentalism. Roca served as lecturing canon by the cathedrals of Las Palmas (1876-1892) and Seville (1892-1917), animated some diocesan periodicals, and published numerous booklets. He was one of very few nationally recognizable personalities of the Spanish Church who openly and systematically supported the Carlist cause, though he remained sympathetic also towards the Integrist breed of Traditionalism. Family and youth The ancient Catalan family of Roca became very branched throughout the centuries, with its representatives scattered across all of the region. It is not clear what particular line the ancestors of Roca y Ponsa followed; none of the sources consulted provides any information on his distant forefathers. It is established that his father, Cayetano Roca Subirachs (1828-1918), was a native of Vich; he formed part of the local bourgeoisie and in the mid-19th century either owned or otherwise operated a corset factory, manufacture or workshop. At an unspecified time he married Engracia Ponsa; nothing is known either about her or about her family. The couple settled at Calle de la Riera. It is not clear how many children they had; among José's siblings there was at least one brother Cayetano and two sisters, Dolores and Margarita. The children were brought up in a pious and religious home, though there is no available information on José's childhood. A few sources claim that he “commenced ecclesiastic education” upon entering the local diocesan Vich seminary in 1861; it is not clear whether at the age of 9 he was indeed admitted to the seminary or was rather attending a school run by local Church structures. Roca y Ponsa spent teenage years in his native town as a seminarian preparing for religious service. His education in Seminario de Vich was terminated in unclear circumstances, related to the fall of the Isabelline monarchy and the Glorious Revolution. Later, vague accounts suggest that in the early 1870s he was engaged either in the Carlist conspiracy or Carlist propaganda, and that “in times of political agitation, persecutions, deportations” Roca y Ponsa was “declared undesirable and expelled from the peninsula in order not to interfere in consolidation of revolutionary work”. Either in late 1872 or in early 1873 Roca y Ponsa and 3 other Vich seminarians were transferred to the seminary in Las Palmas; it is there he completed bachillerato in teología in 1873. He became a deacon in 1874 and was ordained a priest in 1875; he held his first Mass on March 27, 1875. Between June and September Roca y Ponsa served as ecónomo in the Canarian village of Artenara, where in 1876 he ascended to párroco castrense. The same