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Abstinence has always played its own role in the human experience, whether voluntary or involuntary, religious or not. For Christians, the period of Lent marks their period of self-denial to commemorate the 40 days Jesus spent in the desert and to undertake a spiritual journey to connect better with their faith. During Lent, many Christians give up on many items including chocolate. But the link between Catholicism and chocolate is one that has a long past that reflects more than just religious history, but the development of culture itself.
It dates back to the Spanish invasion of the Americas, and when they landed to colonise Mexico to discover chocolate as one of the key parts of local religious rituals. The Spanish –perhaps inevitably – quickly associated chocolate with the Aztec religion that was a source of nutrition as well as a sacred elixir to alter mind, body and soul. A true gift from their gods and often associated with human sacrifice where the cacao pod depicted a human heart. Naturally, that didn’t stop them from bringing it back to Spain.
When they brought it to Spain, it struck up controversy. Upper-class women started drinking a beverage known as ‘chocolatl’ to increase their focus and many claimed the drink was purely for medicinal purposes. In 1569, Pope Pius V deemed it acceptable since he himself didn’t like the drink and therefore he didn’t see it as a ‘sacrifice’ worth giving up. But then ladies began having the drink delivered to them in church and that immediately aroused attention. Soon a decree was passed, either they stop drinking chocolate during mass or they stop coming to mass. Unfortunately for the church, many of these women chose chocolate.
This led to chocolate being demonised as a drink of the devil which was luring good Christians astray from their values. But even more, pressing than the carnal allure of chocolate was the raging debate about whether drinking chocolate would be counted as breaking a Lenten fast. As per their current stipulations, chocolate ought to have been exempted because as a liquid it did not violate a prohibition against eating only one full and two small meals a day. And since it was vegetal not animal in nature, it did not violate another against eating meat.
On the other hand, some chocolates contained milk or egg and moreover, their nature was luxurious and indulgent which flew in the face of Lenten restraint. The debate simmered for over 100 years with a number of high-ranking church officials arguing against each side with the Jesuits in particular coming forth on the part of cacao, a business in which they now had commercial interest. In 1662 Cardinal Francesco Maria Brancaccio declared that “liquidum non frangit jejunum” or that ‘drinking liquid [chocolate] does not constitute a break in fasting’. He followed this up in 1664 with a 16-page treatise called De Chocolatis Potu (On The Use Of Chocolate) which was promptly reprinted and distributed by the Jesuits.
By then the consumption of chocolate was a runaway train that even the might of the church couldn’t hope to slow. Though people like Pope Innocent XII definitely tried to curtail the spread of the substance there were others such as Popes Alexander VII, Gregory XIII, Benedict XIII, Clement XII, and Benedict XIV who were all staunchly pro-chocolate.
Though it took time and more than a little economic manipulation for the church to bend to the potential of chocolate it’s clear that while this began as a theological debate, it quickly became a battle of economics and cultural practices. It was the ordinary clergy, those in the day-to-day missionary circles and lay people of the time who shaped how Catholicism came to view chocolate. Though it’s still considered a source of gluttony and perhaps even sin by some, there is also a long history of chocolate in conjunction with the celebration of Easter. So we have to wonder, in this battle of the Catholic Church against the Mesoamerican Pantheon, who really came out the winner?
