Galdós, the (religious) dream of an illustrated

Abstract

About the religiosity or irreligiousness of Galdós, much has been said from the irrefutable reality of the fact that he did not confess on the day of his death, as well as the fact that he existed publicly and privately outside the "clericalism" of the "preconciliar" Church of his space-time circumstance. This is about Galdós' radical commitment to the most unfortunate, the "condemned of the earth", those who, unfortunate, seem "left out of God's hand", but in whom, against all appearances, Galdós knew how to discover the "incarnation" of Mercy, and see in them (whether or not he is aware of it), the loving face of the one called by Kant "Master of the Gospel." Hence I understand his commitment to "the middle ground", his no to revolutionary violence, his prioritizing, from Krausism, the necessary education of the Spanish people as the most important thing. If the dominant religious-political-social intransigence prevented him, yes, the thematic realization of Christianity itself, this does not exclude, in my opinion, and that is my conclusion: that Galdós was (always, as in everything, “ in his own way ”) what Karl Rahner has called“ anonymous Christian ”. And that is already Enlightenment: "Ideal", and not a mere "dream", not a mere "idea" (according to the distinction of Sanz del Río), religiosity, then, "enlightened", but not against reason, nor necessarily against all popular religiosity.