Accounting at the boundaries of the sacred: the regulation of the Spanish brotherhoods in the eighteenth century

Abstract

Recently, accounting research on religious organizations has concentrated on the sacred/profane dichotomy. We analyse how dissimilar perceptions of the sacred led to different roles of accounting in sacred organizations and, consequently, to different behaviours in a process of accountability. We study the accountability process imposed after 1769 by Spanish Enlightenment governments upon the brotherhoods, secular institutions within the Catholic Church that were formed to conduct charitable activities and improve worship, and that broadly influenced Spanish society. In their responses to a government census, most of the brotherhoods obscured accounting information. Finally, the government enacted a law that was intended to subjugate the brotherhoods to the civil power but did not actually impose accountability on them. We conclude that all those involved in this process shared a perception that rendering accounts was part of the sacred sphere, yet considered accountability as a profane tool.