Estragos tropicales de la lujuria: las transgresiones venéreas del clero de Puerto Rico, 1798-1852

Abstract

This article analyses the sexual transgressions of three secular priests in Puerto Rico during the 19th Century from a socio-cultural perspective. In order to describe the venereal life of those who vowed to a chaste one, we set out taking into account the priestly identity discourse –developed by the ecclesiastical magisterium- and the geographical determinism –a Nineteenth Century explanation for the island‘s inhabitants‘ behavior. The clergy did not fulfill what was expected from them. Instead of climate as an explanatory cause, the concepts here used will be the 'masculinity‘ and 'networks of power‘ to think those transgressions beyond the historiographical simplistic references to lack of priestly vocation, social ascent or human weakness.

URI: http://hdl.handle.net/11721/1516