Roca was one of very few recognizable figures of the Catholic Church who openly and systematically supported the Carlist cause. He inherited Carlist enthusiasm from his father. As Vich was “a city known as a centre of clerical Carlism and Integrism” Roca got his zeal reinforced during the seminary years; involved in Carlist conspiracy in the early 1870s, he was then forced to move to the Canary Islands. Under his management "El Golgota", theoretically a Catholic diocesan periodical, became almost undistinguishable from local Las Palmas Traditionalist reviews of the late 1870s; also Roca’s sermons and writings were increasingly saturated with the Traditionalist vision of religion and politics. The same line was maintained in "La Revista" of the 1880s; the bi-weekly assaulted Carlist breakaways led by and supported the intransigent anti-regime line advocated by Nocedal. However, when in 1888 the latter broke away from orthodox Carlism himself to set up the branch known as Integrism, Roca did not take sides and remained equidistant. Some sources refer to him as “ardent Integrist”, some name him “blockhead Carlist”, and some note that his departure to Andalusia weakened the position of both Canarian Carlists and Integrists.