PHOTO: Manuel Castells

Fermin Labarga, Associate Professor of the School of Theology of the University of Navarra, has defended the thesis "La Santa Escuela de Cristo: una peculiar institución del barroco hispano", within the doctoral program of History, of the School of Philosophy and Letters. This is his second doctorate.

The research is about La Santa Escuela de Cristo, an institution founded in Madrid in 1653 by the Sicilian priest Juan Bautista Ferruzzo. Throughout its history, 400 schools were created throughout Spain, attended by more than 100,000 men, both ecclesiastical and secular, from various social backgrounds. Among them were figures such as Saint Anthony Mary Claret, Blessed Juan de Palafox, Miguel de Molinos, or intellectuals of the stature of Nicolás Antonio, José María Blanco White or Alberto Lista. After the period of expansion and apogee of the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, the schools entered a process of decline throughout the nineteenth century.

Expert in popular religiosity

Professor Labarga holds a doctorate from the School of Theology of the University of Navarra for his thesis "Las Cofradías de la Vera Cruz en La Rioja. History and Spirituality" which he defended in 2000. For it he obtained the grade of A cum laude and the extraordinary award of doctorate. Throughout his academic degree program , he has focused his field of study and research on popular religiosity, highlighting the historical study of the confraternities. He was director attachment of the file Diocesan of Logroño between 1993 and 1994. He is currently a member of the association National Archivists of the Catholic Church. He is also researcher attaché of high school of programs of study Riojanos.