Catholicism in the Second Spanish Republic

Catholicism in the Second Spanish Republic was an important area of dispute, and tensions between the Catholic hierarchy and the Republic were apparent from the beginning - the establishment of the Republic began 'the most dramatic phase in the contemporary history of both Spain and the Church.' The dispute over the role of the Catholic Church and the rights of Catholics were one of the major issues which worked against the securing of a broad democratic majority and "left the body politic divided almost from the start." The historian Mary Vincent has argued that the Catholic Church was an active element in the polarising politics of the years preceding the Spanish Civil War. Similarly, Frances Lannon

Frances Lannon

Dr Frances Lannon, FRHS is a British academic and educator. She is Principal of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford.She was educated at Lady Margaret Hall and at St Antony's College...

asserts that, "Catholic identity has usually been virtually synonymous with conservative politics in some form or other, ranged from extreme authoritarianism through gentler oligarchic tendencies to democratic reformism."
The municipal elections of 1931 that triggered the establishment of the Second Spanish Republic

Second Spanish Republic

The Second Spanish Republic was the government of Spain between April 14 1931, and its destruction by a military rebellion, led by General Francisco Franco....

and the Spanish Constitution of 1931

Spanish Constitution of 1931

The Spanish Constitution of 1931 meant the beginning of the Second Spanish Republic, the second period of Spanish history to date in which the election of both the positions of Head of State and Head of government were democratic. It was effective from 1931 until 1939...

"brought to power an anticlerical government." Prime Minister Manuel Azaña

Manuel Azaña

Manuel Azaña Díaz was a Spanish politician. He was the first Prime Minister of the Second Spanish Republic , and later served again as Prime Minister , and then as the second and last President of the Republic . The Spanish Civil War broke out while he was President...

asserted that the Catholic Church was responsible in part for what many perceived as Spain's backwardness and advocated the elimination of special privileges for the Church. An admirer of the pre-1914 Third French Republic, he wanted the Second Spanish Republic to emulate it, make secular schooling free and compulsory, and construct a non-religious basis for national culture and citizenship, part of the necessary updating and Europeanising of Spain.

Following elections in June 1931, the new parliament approved an amended constitutional draft on 9 December 1931. The constitution introduced female suffrage, civil marriage and divorce. It also established free, obligatory, secular education for all. However, anti-clerical laws nationalized Church properties and required the Church to pay rent for the use of properties which it had previously owned. In addition, the government forbade public manifestations of Catholicism such as processions on religious feast days, banished the crucifix

Crucifix

A crucifix is an independent image of Jesus on the cross with a representation of Jesus' body, referred to in English as the corpus , as distinct from a cross with no body....

from schools; the Jesuits were expelled. Catholic schools continued, but outside the state system, and in 1933 further legislation banned all monks and nuns from teaching.

In May 1931, after monarchist provocations, an outburst of mob violence against the Republic's perceived enemies had led to the burning of churches, convents and religious schools in Madrid and other cities. Anticlerical sentiment and anticlerical legislation, particularly that of 1931, meant that moderate Catholicism quickly became embattled and it was ultimately displaced.

In the election of November 1933, the right-wing

Right-wing politics

In politics, Right, right-wing and rightist generally refer to support for a hierarchical society justified on the basis of an appeal to natural law or tradition. To varying degrees, the Right rejects the egalitarian objectives of left-wing politics, claiming that the imposition of equality is...

CEDA emerged as the largest single party in the new Cortes. President Alcalá-Zamora however asked the Radical leader Alejandro Lerroux

Alejandro Lerroux

Alejandro Lerroux y García was a Spanish politician who was the leader of the Radical Republican Party during the Second Spanish Republic...

to become Spain's Prime Minister.

A general strike and armed rising of workers in October 1934 was forcefully put down by the government. This in turn energized political movements across the spectrum in Spain, including a revived anarchist

Anarchism

Anarchism is generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, or alternatively as opposing authority in the conduct of human relations...

movement and new reactionary

Reactionary

The term reactionary refers to viewpoints that seek to return to a previous state in a society. The term is meant to describe one end of a political spectrum whose opposite pole is "radical". While it has not been generally considered a term of praise it has been adopted as a self-description by...

and fascist groups, including the Falange

Falange

The Spanish Phalanx of the Assemblies of the National Syndicalist Offensive , known simply as the Falange, is the name assigned to several political movements and parties dating from the 1930s, most particularly the original fascist movement in Spain. The word means phalanx formation in Spanish....

and a revived Carlist

Carlism

Carlism is a traditionalist and legitimist political movement in Spain seeking the establishment of a separate line of the Bourbon family on the Spanish throne. This line descended from Infante Carlos, Count of Molina , and was founded due to dispute over the succession laws and widespread...

movement.

On the outbreak of Spanish Civil War

Spanish Civil War

The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...

in 1936, thirteen bishops and some 7,000 clergy, monks and nuns were killed by Republican forces, and thousands of churches were destroyed. After that, Catholics largely supported Francisco Franco

Francisco Franco

Francisco Franco y Bahamonde was a Spanish general, dictator and head of state of Spain from October 1936 , and de facto regent of the nominally restored Kingdom of Spain from 1947 until his death in November, 1975...

's rebel Nationalist

Spanish State

Francoist Spain refers to a period of Spanish history between 1936 and 1975 when Spain was under the authoritarian dictatorship of Francisco Franco....

forces against the Popular Front

Popular Front (Spain)

The Popular Front in Spain's Second Republic was an electoral coalition and pact signed in January 1936 by various left-wing political organisations, instigated by Manuel Azaña for the purpose of contesting that year's election....

government.

By the end of the war 20% percent of the nation's clergy had been killed. Individual clergymen and entire religious communities were executed with a death toll of 13 bishops, 4,172 diocesan priests and seminarists, 2,364 monks and friars and 283 nuns, for a total of 6,832 victims, as part of what is referred to as Spain's Red Terror

Red Terror (Spain)

The Red Terror in Spain is the name given by historians to various acts committed "by sections of nearly all the leftist groups" such as the killing of tens of thousands of people , as well as attacks on landowners, industrialists, and politicians, and the...

Background

Spain entered the twentieth century a predominantly agrarian nation – a nation which, moreover, had lost its colonies. It was marked by uneven social and cultural development between town and country, between regions, within classes. 'Spain was not one country but a number of countries and regions marked by their uneven historical development.' From the turn of the century, however, there had been a significant advance in industrial development. Between 1910 and 1930 the industrial working class more than doubled to over 2,500,000. Those engaged in agriculture fell from 66 per cent to 45 per cent in the same period. The coalition hoped to concentrate its major reforms on three sectors : the 'latifundist aristocracy', the church and the army – though the attempt would come at a moment of world economic crisis. In the south less than 2 per cent of all landowners had over two thirds of the land, while 750,000 labourers eked out a living on near starvation wages. The country was 'prone to centrifugal tendencies', for example there was a tension between Catalan

Catalan nationalism

Catalan nationalism or Catalanism , is a political movement advocating for either further political autonomy or full independence of Catalonia....

and Basque

Basque nationalism

Basque nationalism is a political movement advocating for either further political autonomy or, chiefly, full independence of the Basque Country in the wider sense...

nationalist sentiment away from an agrarian and centralist ruling class in Madrid. Moreover, whilst all Spain was Catholic by formal definition , in practice Catholic identity varied, affected by factors that ranged from region, to social strata, to the ownership of property, to age, and sex. General patterns were ones of higher levels of Catholic practice throughout much of the north and low levels in the south - ("the very regions of the final expulsion of the Moors

Moors

The description Moors has referred to several historic and modern populations of the Maghreb region who are predominately of Berber and Arab descent. They came to conquer and rule the Iberian Peninsula for nearly 800 years. At that time they were Muslim, although earlier the people had followed...

and Catholic reconquest in the fifteenth century

Reconquista

The Reconquista was a period of almost 800 years in the Middle Ages during which several Christian kingdoms succeeded in retaking the Muslim-controlled areas of the Iberian Peninsula broadly known as Al-Andalus...

seems never to have been truly conquered for the Church."), and higher levels of Catholic practice amongst peasant smallholders than landless peasant labourers. Further, "the urban proletariat of Madrid

Madrid

Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...

, or Barcelona

Barcelona

Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...

, or Bilbao

Bilbao

Bilbao ) is a Spanish municipality, capital of the province of Biscay, in the autonomous community of the Basque Country. With a population of 353,187 , it is the largest city of its autonomous community and the tenth largest in Spain...

, or Valencia, or Seville

Seville

Seville is the artistic, historic, cultural, and financial capital of southern Spain. It is the capital of the autonomous community of Andalusia and of the province of Seville. It is situated on the plain of the River Guadalquivir, with an average elevation of above sea level...

or the mining centres of the Asturias

Asturias

The Principality of Asturias is an autonomous community of the Kingdom of Spain, coextensive with the former Kingdom of Asturias in the Middle Ages...

rarely entered a church ..the Church and its affairs were simply alien to urban working-class culture. As Canon

Canon (priest)

A canon is a priest or minister who is a member of certain bodies of the Christian clergy subject to an ecclesiastical rule ....

Arboleya put it in his famous analysis in 1933, the dimensions of the problem were those of mass apostasy

Apostasy

Apostasy , 'a defection or revolt', from ἀπό, apo, 'away, apart', στάσις, stasis, 'stand, 'standing') is the formal disaffiliation from or abandonment or renunciation of a religion by a person. One who commits apostasy is known as an apostate. These terms have a pejorative implication in everyday...

, especially among the urban working classes."

Spanish Catholics participated in an enormous number of religious rites quite separate from the minimal obligations of orthodoxy - (church on Sundays, the sacraments) - processions and cults connected with statues and shrines, for example. Like the rosary and novenas, these were lay rather than sacerdotal forms of worship. In some public religious rituals the question of whether the ritual was primarily religious or political became an issue. The Jesuit campaign to spread the cult of the Sacred Heart

Sacred Heart

The Sacred Heart is one of the most famous religious devotions to Jesus' physical heart as the representation of His divine love for Humanity....

was " inextricably linked in the early 20th century with the integrist values of the extreme Right of the Catholic political spectrum." Its publication the Messenger of the Sacred Heart was anti-liberal, anti-Semitic, and enthusiastic to see 'the social reign of Jesus Christ in Spain.' It campaigned for the enthronement of the Sacred Heart in offices, schools, banks, town halls, and city streets. Statues were erected in hundreds of towns and villages. Seen as symbols of Catholic conservative intolerance the statues were 'executed' by some anarchists and socialists in the early months of the Spanish Civil War in 1936.

The Second Republic

The Second Spanish Republic

Second Spanish Republic

The Second Spanish Republic was the government of Spain between April 14 1931, and its destruction by a military rebellion, led by General Francisco Franco....

was established on 14 April 1931, after the abdication of King

King

- Centers of population :* King, Ontario, CanadaIn USA:* King, Indiana* King, North Carolina* King, Lincoln County, Wisconsin* King, Waupaca County, Wisconsin* King County, Washington- Moving-image works :Television:...

Alfonso XIII. The government, led by President Niceto Alcalá-Zamora

Niceto Alcalá-Zamora

Niceto Alcalá-Zamora y Torres was a Spanish lawyer and politician who served, briefly, as the first premier minister of the Second Spanish Republic, and then — from 1931 to 1936—as its president....

, instituted a reformist program, including agrarian reform, right to divorce, vote for women (November 1933), reform of the Army, autonomy for Catalonia and the Basque country (October 1936). The proposed reform was blocked by the right and rejected by the far-left Confederación Nacional del Trabajo

Confederación Nacional del Trabajo

The Confederación Nacional del Trabajo is a Spanish confederation of anarcho-syndicalist labor unions affiliated with the International Workers Association . When working with the latter group it is also known as CNT-AIT...

. One of the most controversial changes however, was the so-called "separation of the church and state". Article 26 of the 1931 republican constitution, and subsequent legislation, halted state funding for the Catholic Church, banned the Jesuits and other religious orders, banned clerics from all teaching in schools, appropriated the properties of the Catholic Church and banned processions, statues and other manifestations of Catholicism. These strictures helped to alienate a large mass of the Catholic population. Republicanism represented a confrontation with all that had gone before and could be combative : " In August 1931 in Málaga, for example, the usual celebrations in honour of Our Lady of Victory under whose patronage the Spanish Crown had driven out the 'Moors' in 1497 were replaced by a beauty pageant to find the city's Miss Republic. It would have been hard to devise a celebration more calculated to offend the Catholic right. To convinced Monarchists, the Republic was not merely distasteful, it was an anathema. The Carlist militias, long confined to their Navarrese heartlands, were training in the mountains as early as 1931. " The rights defeat in 1931 left some prepared to give the new regime a chance, "but many more , particularly those in the circles around Angel Herrera Oria

Ángel Herrera Oria

Ángel Herrera Oria was a Spanish journalist, Catholic lay leader, politician and later priest, bishop and cardinal...

and Gil Robles

José María Gil-Robles y Quiñones

José María Gil-Robles y Quiñones was a prominent Spanish politician in the period leading up to the Spanish Civil War....

accepted the rules of the democratic game only as a means to destroy the 1931 Republic." The Republic suffered attacks from the right (the failed coup of Sanjurjo in 1932), and the left (the uprising of Asturias in 1934

Asturian miners' strike of 1934

The Asturian miners' strike of 1934 was a major strike action which took place in Asturias in northern Spain soon developing into armed insurrection against the Spanish government.-Background:...

), also it suffered the impact of the Great Depression

Great Depression

The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...

.

While the coalition held political power, economic power escaped it. In historian Hugh Thomas

Hugh Thomas

Hugh Thomas , is a British historian and life peer.Hugh Thomas may also refer to:* Hugh Thomas , American choral conductor, pianist and educator* Hugh Thomas , Australian rules football coach...

's words, 'Like so many others before and since it frightened the middle class without satisfying the workers.' It adopted the measures of separation of church and state, genuine universal suffrage, a cabinet responsible to a single chamber parliament, a secular educational system. The new republican nation was partly to be created through a system of state education, which would be secular, obligatory, free of charge, and available to all. This last measure antagonised the Church. Pius XI's 1929encyclical

Encyclical

An encyclical was originally a circular letter sent to all the churches of a particular area in the ancient Catholic Church. At that time, the word could be used for a letter sent out by any bishop...

Divini illius magistri had said that the Church 'directly and perpetually' possessed 'the whole truth' in the moral sphere. Education was, therefore, 'first and super-eminently' the function of the Church. Primo de Rivera

Primo de Rivera

Primo de Rivera is a Spanish family prominent in politics of the 19th and 20th centuries:*Fernando Primo de Rivera, Spanish politician and soldier, 1831-1921*Miguel Primo de Rivera , dictator of Spain from 23 September 1923 to 1930...

's dictatorship had offered the Church the protection it felt was its due. Now however, the Second Republic excluded the Church from education by prohibiting teaching by religious orders, even in private schools), restricted Church property rights and investments, provided for confiscation of and prohibitions on ownership of Church property, and banned the Society of Jesus

Society of Jesus

The Society of Jesus is a Catholic male religious order that follows the teachings of the Catholic Church. The members are called Jesuits, and are also known colloquially as "God's Army" and as "The Company," these being references to founder Ignatius of Loyola's military background and a...

. (The Catholic revival heralded by the restoration of the monarchy in the person of Isabella

Isabella II of Spain

Isabella II was the only female monarch of Spain in modern times. She came to the throne as an infant, but her succession was disputed by the Carlists, who refused to recognise a female sovereign, leading to the Carlist Wars. After a troubled reign, she was deposed in the Glorious Revolution of...

's son Alfonso XII of Spain

Alfonso XII of Spain

Alfonso XII was king of Spain, reigning from 1874 to 1885, after a coup d'état restored the monarchy and ended the ephemeral First Spanish Republic.-Early life and paternity:Alfonso was the son of Queen Isabella II of Spain, and...

saw the number of religious in the religious Congregations soar. Catholic Spain was dominated by the schools ,colleges, missions, publications, clinics and hospitals of the religious orders. The Spanish landed aristocracy and upper middle classes gave buildings and income to the religious congregations to found schools, hospitals and orphanages - conspicuous examples included Tibidabo

Tibidabo

Tibidabo is a mountain overlooking Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. At 512 meters it is the tallest mountain in the Serra de Collserola. Rising sharply to the north-west, it affords spectacular views over the city and the surrounding coastline....

hill in Barcelona to Don Bosco

John Bosco

John Bosco , was an Italian Catholic priest, educator and writer of the 19th century, who put into practice the convictions of his religion, dedicating his life to the betterment and education of street children, juvenile delinquents, and other disadvantaged youth and employing teaching methods...

, and the Jesuit University in Deusto

University of Deusto

The University of Deusto is a Spanish Jesuit University, with campuses in Bilbao and San Sebastián, Spain.-History:The University of Deusto first opened in 1886, having been founded because of the Basque Country's desire to have its own university and the Society of Jesus's wish to move its School...

, from which young men would leave, 'fully armed against all modern errors.' Deemed illiberal they attracted particular attention in the years 1931-33. In the crucial 1933 election no fewer than 20 Deusto men were elected to the republican Cortes for various parties of the Right and Centre. Ángel Herrera Oria

Ángel Herrera Oria

Ángel Herrera Oria was a Spanish journalist, Catholic lay leader, politician and later priest, bishop and cardinal...

director of El Debate

El Debate

El Debate is a defunct Spanish Catholic daily newspaper, published in Madrid between 1910 and 1936. It was the most important Catholic newspaper of its time in Spain....

, inspirer of the Spanish Confederation of the Autonomous Right

Spanish Confederation of the Autonomous Right

The Spanish Confederation of the Autonomous Right was a Spanish political party in the Second Spanish Republic. A Catholic conservative force, it was the political heir to Angel Herrera Oria's Acción Popular and defined itself in terms of the 'affirmation and defence of the principles of Christian...

was a Deusto man. The most sustained intellectual onslaught against religious was probably that of Miguel de Unamuno

Miguel de Unamuno

Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo was a Spanish essayist, novelist, poet, playwright and philosopher.-Biography:...

and his denunciation of the 'degenerate sons' of Ignatius of Loyola

Ignatius of Loyola

Ignatius of Loyola was a Spanish knight from a Basque noble family, hermit, priest since 1537, and theologian, who founded the Society of Jesus and was its first Superior General. Ignatius emerged as a religious leader during the Counter-Reformation...

, the Jesuits. He accused their educational endeavours of being corrupted by materialistic and apologetical aims , that they were subservient to an anti-intellectual plutocracy

Plutocracy

Plutocracy is rule by the wealthy, or power provided by wealth. The combination of both plutocracy and oligarchy is called plutarchy. The word plutocracy is derived from the Ancient Greek root ploutos, meaning wealth and kratos, meaning to rule or to govern.-Usage:The term plutocracy is generally...

, and that they choked modernity, reform, creativity and even true spirituality with their philistinism

Philistinism

Philistinism is a derogatory term used to a particular attitude or set of values perceived as despising or undervaluing art, beauty, spirituality, or intellectualism. A person with this attitude is referred to as a Philistine and may also be considered materialistic, favoring conventional social...

and intolerance.)

During the democratic republic of 1931-36 many Catholic politicians favoured female suffrage

Women's suffrage

Women's suffrage or woman suffrage is the right of women to vote and to run for office. The expression is also used for the economic and political reform movement aimed at extending these rights to women and without any restrictions or qualifications such as property ownership, payment of tax, or...

because of its likely benefit to the Right, but simultaneously ridiculed campaigns for women's rights or women in parliament. Women constituted the majority of practising Catholics, but in church always listened to men preach and celebrate the sacraments. Male priests told them to obey their husbands, 'at every turn the message was clear; men were born for authority and social responsibility; women were born for domesticity, motherhood, or sexual renunciation.' Political militancy did not fit easily with these stereotypes, there was no Catholic equivalent of the anarchist Federica Montseny

Federica Montseny

Federica Montseny i Mañé was a Spanish anarchist, intellectual and Minister of Health during the social revolution that occurred in Spain parallel to the Civil War...

, 'though the Falange's Sección feminina was aggressive in its propagation of an authoritarian, anti-feminist and ever more conservative ideology.' "When some Catholic Basque

Basque people

The Basques as an ethnic group, primarily inhabit an area traditionally known as the Basque Country , a region that is located around the western end of the Pyrenees on the coast of the Bay of Biscay and straddles parts of north-central Spain and south-western France.The Basques are known in the...

nationalist women turned their attention in the 1930s to organising meetings and making public speechess, they shocked Catholic contemporaries..after conquering the Basque country during the first year of civil war, soldiers of the Catholic Crusade expressed their loathing for both Basque nationalism and politically active women by subjecting these Emakumes to the humiliation of being dosed with castor oil

Castor oil

Castor oil is a vegetable oil obtained from the castor bean . Castor oil is a colorless to very pale yellow liquid with mild or no odor or taste. Its boiling point is and its density is 961 kg/m3...

in public and having their heads shaved."

Since the Republican left considered moderation

Moderation

Moderation is the process of eliminating or lessening extremes. It is used to ensure normality throughout the medium on which it is being conducted...

of the anticlericalist aspects of the constitution as totally unacceptable, the historian Stanley Payne has written that "the Republic as a democratic constitutional regime

Regime

The word regime refers to a set of conditions, most often of a political nature.-Politics:...

was doomed from the outset". Commentators have posited that the "hostile" approach to the issues of church and state was a substantial cause of the breakdown of democracy and the onset of civil war. Victor Perez Diaz, in a recent book, characterised the Catholic reaction to the anticlerical offensive as one that mobilized "the mass of peasants and the middle classes and channeling them into professional and political right wing organisations, prepared for by decades of careful organizational work. The extreme right soon took upon itself the task of conspiring to overthrow the regime. The moderate right refused to state its unambiguous loyaly to the new institutions and openly flirted with authoritarianism."

Initial reaction of Catholics

Despite the anticlerical aspects of the constitution, the Republican coalition's electoral policy stated: "Catholics: the maximum program of the coalition is freedom of religion.... The Republic... will not persecute any religion." According to historian Stanley Payne , 'though a deliberate deception,.. this propaganda was obviously accepted by many Catholics.' Although at the outset tensions were apparent between the Church hierarchy and the republic, the hierarchy likewise formally accepted the statement, hoping for a continuation of the existing Concordat

Concordat

A concordat is an agreement between the Holy See of the Catholic Church and a sovereign state on religious matters. Legally, they are international treaties. They often includes both recognition and privileges for the Catholic Church in a particular country...

. Official or organized opposition did not exist at the beginning. The first formal dissent was in May 1931 when the archconservative Cardinal of the Archdiocese of Toledo, Pedro Segura

Pedro Segura y Sáenz

Pedro Segura y Sáenz was a Spanish Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church who served as Archbishop of Toledo from 1927 to 1931, and Archbishop of Seville from 1937 until his death...

, published a writing in defense of the former king.

Burning of the convents

Following a monarchist provocation on the previous day when the royal march was played to the crowds coming away from their Sunday paseo in Madrid's Retiro Park, mobs led by anarchists and some Radical Socialists sacked monarchist headquarters in Madrid on May 11, 1931 and then proceeded to set fire or otherwise wreck more than a dozen churches in the capital. Similar acts of arson and vandalism were perperated in a score of other cities in southern and eastern Spain. These attacks came to be referred to as the "quema de conventos" (the burning of the convents).

It was alleged that this anticlerical violence was carried, for the most part with the acquiescence and in some cases the active assistance of the official Republican authorities. Despite the protests of Miguel Maura

Miguel Maura

Miguel Maura Gamazo was a Spanish politician of the first third of the twentieth century.He was a son of the leading Conservative politician of the Restoration monarchy, Antonio Maura...

- who as minister of the Interior was ultimately responsible for public order - the government refused to intervene and the fever of anticlerical incendiarism spread rapidly around the country - Murcia

Murcia

-History:It is widely believed that Murcia's name is derived from the Latin words of Myrtea or Murtea, meaning land of Myrtle , although it may also be a derivation of the word Murtia, which would mean Murtius Village...

, Malaga

Málaga

Málaga is a city and a municipality in the Autonomous Community of Andalusia, Spain. With a population of 568,507 in 2010, it is the second most populous city of Andalusia and the sixth largest in Spain. This is the southernmost large city in Europe...

(the most extensive damage occurred in this city), Cadiz

Cádiz

Cadiz is a city and port in southwestern Spain. It is the capital of the homonymous province, one of eight which make up the autonomous community of Andalusia....

, Almeria

Almería

Almería is a city in Andalusia, Spain, on the Mediterranean Sea. It is the capital of the province of the same name.-Toponym:Tradition says that the name Almería stems from the Arabic المرية Al-Mariyya: "The Mirror", comparing it to "The Mirror of the Sea"...

. When criticized by the Catholic Church for not doing more to stop the burning of religious buildings in May 1931 Prime Minister Azaña

Manuel Azaña

famously retorted that the burning of "all the convents in Spain was not worth the life of a single Republican".

The burning of the convents set the tone for relations between the Republican left and the Catholic right. The events of 11 May came to be seen as a turning point in the history of the Second Republic. For example, José María Gil Robles claimed to regard the convent burnings as 'decisive'. He claimed that the fires of 11 May destroyed the precarious coexistence which had been established between Church and State. (Indeed Gil Robles persisted in seeing the burnings as the result of planned and co-ordinated action by the republican government. The liberal catholic Ossorio y Gallardo

Ángel Ossorio y Gallardo

Angel Ossorio y Gallardo was a liberal Catholic Spanish lawyer and statesman. He first came to political prominence as leader of the Partido Social Popular. Inspired by Luigi Sturzo's Italian People's Party, the PSP was founded in 1922 but broke up after Primo de Rivera's coup of 1923...

also believed in the likelihood of conspiracy - but as the work of monarchist agents provocateurs.)
"From now on", wrote Ossorio, " the right was utterly opposed to Maura as if he, a sincere Catholic, had been responsible for burning churches." The political fate of the moderate Catholic Miguel Maura

Miguel Maura

Miguel Maura Gamazo was a Spanish politician of the first third of the twentieth century.He was a son of the leading Conservative politician of the Restoration monarchy, Antonio Maura...

exemplified the predicament of the centre in periods of intense political polarization - though he demonstrated his defence of Church property in May 1931 he was still dubbed by the Catholic right as one who consented 'to Spain being lit by burning churches'.

Gil Robles was one of the prime beneficiaries of Maura's discomfiture and one of the first to capitalise on it. Following the passage of the 1931 Constitution with its anticlerical clauses Maura (on 14 October 1931) and Alcalá-Zamora resigned - though their resignations did nothing to reconcile them to the agrarian Catholic right. The position of the Catholic republicans was an isolated one.

1931 Constitution

In the fall of 1931, a new constitution was passed that prohibited public religious processions and outlawed much of the work of Catholic orders. No fewer than six constitutional articles were used to define the new, subordinate place of the Catholic Church, many modelled on the Portuguese Constitution of 1911.
The conservative Catholic Republicans Alcalá-Zamora and Miguel Maura

Miguel Maura

Miguel Maura Gamazo was a Spanish politician of the first third of the twentieth century.He was a son of the leading Conservative politician of the Restoration monarchy, Antonio Maura...

resigned from the government when the controversial articles 26 and 27 of the constitution, which committed the Spanish government to phasing out state funding of clergy stipends, and strictly controlled Church property and prohibited religious orders from engaging in education were passed. Not only advocates of a confessional state

Confessional state

A confessional state is a state which officially practices a particular religion, and at least encourages its citizens to do likewise.Over human history, most states have been confessional states; the idea of religious pluralism in modern terms is relatively recent, and until the beginning of the...

but also certain advocates of church/state separation saw the constitution as hostile; one such advocate of separation, Jose Ortega y Gasset

José Ortega y Gasset

José Ortega y Gasset was a Spanish liberal philosopher and essayist working during the first half of the 20th century while Spain oscillated between monarchy, republicanism and dictatorship. He was, along with Nietzsche, a proponent of the idea of perspectivism.-Biography:José Ortega y Gasset was...

, stated "the article in which the Constitution legislates the actions of the Church seems highly improper to me." Article 26 - " one of the most divisive articles in the constitution..debarred religious from teaching though not from welfare work. (This attempt to close the religious schools altogether and to keep religious out of the state system was unsuccessful - "the necessary legislation was only completed in June 1933 to take effect for 1 October 1933. The victory of the Right in elections at the end of 1933 immediately rendered it dead.")

In October 1931 José María Gil-Robles

José María Gil-Robles y Quiñones

José María Gil-Robles y Quiñones was a prominent Spanish politician in the period leading up to the Spanish Civil War....

the leading spokesman of the parliamentary right declared that the constitution was 'stillborn' - a 'dictatorial Constitution in the name of democracy.' Robles wanted to use mass meetings "to give supporters of the right a sense of their own strength and, ominously, to accustom them 'to fight, when necessary, for the possession of the street.'" Frances Lannon

Frances Lannon

Dr Frances Lannon, FRHS is a British academic and educator. She is Principal of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford.She was educated at Lady Margaret Hall and at St Antony's College...

characterizes the constitution as creating a secular democratic system based on equal rights for all, with provision for regional autonomy, but also calls the constitution "divisive" in that the articles on property and religion had a "disregard for civil rights" and ruined the prospect of conservative Catholics Republicans. Likewise, Stanley Payne agrees that the constitution generally accorded a wide range of civil liberties and representation with the notable exception of the rights of Catholics, a circumstance which prevented the formation of an expansive democratic majority.

Frances Lannon, addressing the fears of the Left that Church influence in the schools was a danger to the republic has observed that, "it was demonstrably the case the ideological ambience and spirit of the congregations was anti-socialist, illiberal, and pervaded with the values of the political Right." She gives as one example, "to convey the wider reality", a journal kept by a women's community with a prestigious convent school in Seville

Seville

. It laments, in April 1931, the departure of the King, its wariness of the Republic ante-dating any moves against the Church, in November 1933 they go to vote, 'a sacred duty', 'in grave circumstances', the Right's victory greeted as 'better than we could have hoped'. The Asturian rising brings forth the declaration that 'the conduct of the army was magnificent and the rebellion crushed step by step.' In February 1936 there is despair until, 'Relation of the heroic patriotic days of Seville, July 1936', the account of the rising against the Republic is euphoric. In 1937 the convent school hears from Queipo de Llano

Gonzalo Queipo de Llano

Gonzalo Queipo de Llano y Sierra, 1st Marquis of Queipo de Llano, a title bestowed upon him, to crown his professional career at the service of the "New" Spain forged by Dictator of Spain, 1939 - 1975, General Francisco Franco on 1 April 1950, once he had decided Spain would be again a Kingdom...

himself, and there are delirious accounts of military parades and speeches by Quiepo, and Franco in August, until 18 April 1939 official recognition of the school and a letter from Franco's secretary in Burgos

Burgos

Burgos is a city of northern Spain, historic capital of Castile. It is situated at the edge of the central plateau, with about 178,966 inhabitants in the city proper and another 20,000 in its suburbs. It is the capital of the province of Burgos, in the autonomous community of Castile and León...

thanking the community for its good wishes. "The journal is not exceptional" Lannon concludes, "The politically reactionary sympathies of the teaching religious were formed and sustained by the sociological context and limitations of the schools."

Religious communities - education/welfare

Disease, poverty, and illiteracy were urgent problems, but in a country with a fiscal system that left most real wealth untaxed, and a large army budget, little public money was directed towards meeting them. Education and welfare needs were met only patchily and religious communities filled the spaces between the patches. Frances Lannon (writing in Privilege, Persecution and Prophecy) observes that even institutions funded by the state or provincial or municipal authorities, were dependent upon religious personnel. The Brothers of St John of God

Brothers Hospitallers of St. John of God

The Brothers Hospitallers of St. John of God are a Roman Catholic order founded in 1572. They are also known commonly as the Fatebenefratelli, meaning "Do-Good Brothers" in Italian.-History:...

for example specialised in children's hospitals and mental homes. Where welfare was concerned central and local government relied absolutely on the religious congregations to staff as well as supplement their institutions. This was made explicit in the debates on the religious congregations in the constituent Cortes on 8–14 October 1931, and was a major reason then, why the congregations were not entirely disbanded. Yet the religious sometimes found themselves excoriated. Sometimes this was because of the different cultural worlds inhabited on the one hand by religious , almost always from devout and traditional milieux, and on the other by the urban poor. To the former it seemed axiomatic that religious practice should order the daily lives of their various charges, be they children, workmen or reformed prostitutes. There is overwhelming evidence however to show that this typical imposition of religious observance as a condition of eligibility for aid was widely resented. Working class areas of the large cities were notorious for the virtual absence of formal religious practice. fr:Margarita Nelken, in the 1920s, said that the poor residents of the most rundown areas of Madrid

Madrid

had terrible things to say about the charity given by women lay associations and 'not a single word of thanks'. Frances Lannon has further speculated that perhaps the resentment, generated by making charity dependent upon religious tests, and by the sale of goods and services from religious houses, (undercutting those struggling to make a living on the margins of urban society ) goes some way to explain why so many brothers, and even some nuns, whose laudable work might have been expected to save them from popular hatred, were nevertheless massacred in 1936 in the first months of the civil war.

The most bitter controversies about the congregations in the pre-war years, however, had always centred on their schools and colleges to which about half of all male communities and one third of the female were dedicated.

Formation of CEDA

The Spanish Confederation of the Autonomous Right (Confederación Española de Derechas Autónomas or CEDA) was founded in February 1933 and was led from its inception by José María Gil-Robles

José María Gil-Robles y Quiñones

José María Gil-Robles y Quiñones was a prominent Spanish politician in the period leading up to the Spanish Civil War....

. Despite dismissing the idea of a party as a 'rigid fiction', the CEDA leaders created a stable party organisation which would lead the Spanish right into the age of mass politics. The campaign against the constitution began in CEDA's Castilian heartlands.

Dilectissima Nobis

On 3 June 1933, in the encyclical

Encyclical

Dilectissima Nobis
Dilectissima Nobis
Dilectissima Nobis: On Oppression Of The Church Of Spain is an encyclical issued by Pope Pius XI on June 3, 1933 in which he decried persecution of the Church in Spain, specifically naming the expropriation of all Church buildings, episcopal residences, parish houses, seminaries and...

(On Oppression Of The Church Of Spain), Pope Pius XI

Pope Pius XI

Pope Pius XI , born Ambrogio Damiano Achille Ratti, was Pope from 6 February 1922, and sovereign of Vatican City from its creation as an independent state on 11 February 1929 until his death on 10 February 1939...

condemned the Spanish Government's deprivation of the civil liberties

Civil liberties

Civil liberties are rights and freedoms that provide an individual specific rights such as the freedom from slavery and forced labour, freedom from torture and death, the right to liberty and security, right to a fair trial, the right to defend one's self, the right to own and bear arms, the right...

on which the Republic was supposedly based, noting in particular the expropriation

Confiscation

Confiscation, from the Latin confiscatio 'joining to the fiscus, i.e. transfer to the treasury' is a legal seizure without compensation by a government or other public authority...

of Church property and schools and the persecution of religious communities and orders. He demanded restitution

Restitution

The law of restitution is the law of gains-based recovery. It is to be contrasted with the law of compensation, which is the law of loss-based recovery. Obligations to make restitution and obligations to pay compensation are each a type of legal response to events in the real world. When a court...

of the expropriated properties which were now, by law, property of the Spanish State, to which the Church had to pay rent and taxes in order to continue using these properties. "Thus the Catholic Church is compelled to pay taxes on what was violently taken from her" Religious vestments, liturgical instruments, statues, pictures, vases, gems and similar objects necessary for worship were expropriated as well. The encyclical urged Catholics in Spain to fight with all legal means against these injustices.

1933 election

The announcement of a general election in November 1933 brought about an unprecedented mobilization of the Spanish right. El Debate instructed its readers to make the coming elections into an "obsession", the " sublime culmination of citizenly duties," so that victory in the polls would bring an end to the nightmare of the republican bienio rojo. Great emphasis was placed on the techniques of electoral propaganda. Gil-Robles visited Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...

to study modern methods, including the Nuremburg rally. A national electoral committee was established, comprising CEDA, Alfonsist, Traditionalist, and Agrarian representatives - but excluding Miguel Maura

Miguel Maura

Miguel Maura Gamazo was a Spanish politician of the first third of the twentieth century.He was a son of the leading Conservative politician of the Restoration monarchy, Antonio Maura...

's Conservative Republicans. The CEDA swamped entire localities with electoral publicity. The party produced ten million leaflets, together with some two hundred thousand coloured posters and hundreds of cars were used to distribute this material through the provinces. In all of the major cities propaganda films were shown around the streets on screens mounted on large lorries.

The need for unity was the constant theme of the campaign fought by the CEDA and the election was presented as a confrontaion of ideas, not of personalities. The electors' choice was simple: they voted for redemption or revolution and they voted for Christianity or Communism. The fortunes of Republican Spain, according to one of its posters had been decided by 'immorality and anarchy'. Catholics who continued to proclaim their republicanism were moved into the revolutionary camp and many speeches argued that the Catholic republican option had become totally illegitimate. 'A good Catholic may not vote for the Conservative Republican party' declared a Gaceta Regional editorial and the impression was given that Conservative Republicans, far from being Catholics, were in fact anti-religious.

In this all-round attack on the political centre, the mobilization of women also became a major electoral tactic of the Catholic right. The Asociación Feminina de Educación had been formed in October 1931. As the 1933 general election approached women were warned that unless they voted correctly communism

Communism

Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...

would come " which will tear your children from your arms, your parish church will be detroyed, the husband you love will flee from your side authorized by the divorce law, anarchy will come to the countryside, hunger and misery to your home." AFEC orators and organisers urged women to vote 'For God and for Spain!' Mirroring the female qualities emphasized by AFEC the CEDA's self-styled seccíon de defensa brought young male activists to the fore. This new CEDA squad was very much in evidence on election day itself, when its members patrolled the streets and polling stations in the provincial capital, supposedly to prevent the left from tampering with the ballot boxes.

Lerroux government

In the 1933 elections

Spanish general election, 1933

Elections to Spain’s legislature, the Cortes Generales, were held on 19 November 1933 for all 473 seats in the unicameral Cortes of the Second Spanish Republic. Since the previous elections of 1931, a new constitution had been ratified, and the franchise extended to more than six million women...

, the CEDA won a plurality of seats; however, these were not enough to form a majority. Despite the CEDA's plurality of seats, President Niceto Alcalá-Zamora

Niceto Alcalá-Zamora

declined to invite its leader, José Maria Gil-Robles, to form a government, and instead assigned the task to Alejandro Lerroux

Alejandro Lerroux

Alejandro Lerroux y García was a Spanish politician who was the leader of the Radical Republican Party during the Second Spanish Republic...

of the Radical Republican Party

Radical Republican Party

The Radical Republican Party , sometimes shortened to the Radical Party was a Spanish political party founded in 1908 by Alejandro Lerroux in Santander, Cantabria by a split from the historical Republican Union party led by Nicolás Salmerón....

. CEDA supported the Lerroux government and subsequently received three ministerial positions.
Hostility between the left and the right increased after the 1933 formation of the Government. Spain experienced general strike

General strike

A general strike is a strike action by a critical mass of the labour force in a city, region, or country. While a general strike can be for political goals, economic goals, or both, it tends to gain its momentum from the ideological or class sympathies of the participants...

s and street conflicts. Noted among the strikes was the miners' revolt in northern Spain and riots in Madrid. Nearly all rebellions were crushed by the Government and political arrests followed.

Radicals became more aggressive, and conservatives turned to paramilitary and vigilante actions. According to official sources, 330 people were assassinated and 1,511 were wounded in political violence; records show 213 failed assassination attempts, 113 general strikes, and the destruction (typically by arson) of 160 religious buildings.

The Lerroux government suspended most of the reforms of the previous Manuel Azaña

Manuel Azaña

government, provoking an armed miners' rebellion in Asturias

Asturias

The Principality of Asturias is an autonomous community of the Kingdom of Spain, coextensive with the former Kingdom of Asturias in the Middle Ages...

on October 6, and an autonomist

Catalan nationalism

Catalan nationalism or Catalanism , is a political movement advocating for either further political autonomy or full independence of Catalonia....

rebellion in Catalonia

Catalonia

Catalonia is an autonomous community in northeastern Spain, with the official status of a "nationality" of Spain. Catalonia comprises four provinces: Barcelona, Girona, Lleida, and Tarragona. Its capital and largest city is Barcelona. Catalonia covers an area of 32,114 km² and has an...

. Both rebellions were suppressed (Asturias rebellion by young General Francisco Franco

Francisco Franco

and colonial troops), being followed by mass political arrests and trials.

Anti-leftist rhetoric

The Asturias revolt was another defeat for the European left - in Germany Hitler had destroyed organized labour, liquidating Europe's strongest communist party, in Austria, the Catholic corporatist Dolfuss

Engelbert Dollfuss

Engelbert Dollfuss was an Austrian Christian Social and Patriotic Front statesman. Serving previously as Minister for Forest and Agriculture, he ascended to Federal Chancellor in 1932 in the midst of a crisis for the conservative government...

, admired by the CEDA, had used paramilitary forces to crush Viennese Marxists of all varieties. To the right, Asturias was evidence of the revolutionary left's plans for Spain. The rebels had killed thirty-four priests and seminarians - the most clerical blood spilt in Spain for over a hundred years.

In Catholic Salamanca, for example, good sons and daughters of the Church were exhorted to mark the victory in Asturias by prayer and penance and make reparation to the majestic and victorious figure of Christ the King

Christ the King

Christ the King is a title of Jesus based on several passages of Scripture. It is used by most Christians. The Roman Catholic Church, together with many Protestant denominations, including the Anglican Churches, Presbyterians, Lutherans and Methodists, celebrate the Feast of Christ the King on the...

. "The figure of Christ clothed in majesty was also used by the Catholic right as a symbol of the triumph of their cause. In Spain, as in Belgium or Mexico, Christ the King had become the symbol of militant Catholicism." For example, the Catholic Gaceta Nacional celebrated the suppression of the rebellions and its editor that the uprisings had been followed not by repression but by justice. The CEDA paper, El Debate spoke of 'the passions of the beast'. Against the dehumanized forces of the international revolution - believed to be manipulated by the shadowy figures of Soviet Communists, freemasons and Jews - the army had stood firm.

As a prelude to the CEDA's 1933 election campaign, GIl Robles had announced the need to purge the fatherland of 'Judaizing Freemasons' and the stock figures of the grasping Jew and Machiavellian Mason accurred again and again in the party's electoral propaganda. The Dominican

Dominican Order

The Order of Preachers , after the 15th century more commonly known as the Dominican Order or Dominicans, is a Catholic religious order founded by Saint Dominic and approved by Pope Honorius III on 22 December 1216 in France...

journal La Ciencia Tomista issued from San Esteban

San Esteban

San Esteban may refer to:*Chile**San Esteban, Chile*Honduras**San Esteban, Honduras*Philippines**San Esteban, Nabua, Camarines Sur**San Esteban, Ilocos Sur*Mexico**San Esteban, Chihuahua...

in Salamanca

Salamanca (province)

Salamanca is a province of western Spain, in the western part of the autonomous community of Castile and León. It is bordered by the provinces of Zamora, Valladolid, Ávila, and Cáceres; and by Portugal....

proclaimed the continuing relevance of the Protocols of the Elders of Sion. Jewish Marxists, expelled from ghettos across the world, took refuge in Spain where 'they settle down and sprawl about, as in conquered territories'. "This conspiratorial rhetoric came to the fore during the election campaigns of November 1933 and February 1936, in both cases allowing the Catholic right to present the fight at the ballot box as an apocalyptic battle between good and evil. Extremist rhetoric and anti-semitic theory - prevalent among both supporters and orators of the CEDA - provided immediate common ground between Catholic parliamentarians and the extreme right."

In 1934, a Spanish cleric named Aniceto de Castro Albarrán

Aniceto de Castro Albarrán

Aniceto de Castro Albarrán was a Spanish priest and writer.Having studied at the Pontifical University of Comillas he shortly after became assistant canon of Salamanca....

gained notoriety as the author of El derecho a la rebeldia, a theological defence of armed rebellion that was serialised in the Carlist press, published under the usual ecclesiastical licences.

Juventudes de Acción Popular

The Juventudes de Acción Popular
Juventudes de Acción Popular
The Juventudes de Acción Popular was the youth wing of CEDA, a Spanish rightwing party in the 1930s.The JAP emphasized sporting and political activity. It had its own fortnightly paper, the first issue of which proclaimed : 'We want a new state.' The JAP's distaste for the principles of universal...

, the youth wing within the CEDA, soon developed its own identity differentiating itself from the main body of the CEDA. The JAP emphasized sporting and political activity. It had its own fortnightly paper, the first issue of which proclaimed: 'We want a new state.' The JAP's distaste for the principles of universal suffrage was such that internal decisions were never voted upon. As the thirteenth point of the JAP put it: 'Anti-parliamentarianism. Anti-dictatorship. The people participating in Government in an organic manner, not by degenerate democracy.' The line between Christian corporatism and fascist statism became very thin indeed. The fascist tendencies of the JAP were vividly demonstrated in the series of rallies held by the CEDA youth movement during the course of 1934. Using the title jefe, the JAP created an intense and often disturbing cult around the figure of Gil-Robles. Gil-Robles himself had returned from the 1933 Nuremberg rally

Nuremberg Rally

The Nuremberg Rally was the annual rally of the NSDAP in Germany, held from 1923 to 1938. Especially after Hitler's rise to power in 1933, they were large Nazi propaganda events...

and praised its " youthful enthusiasm, steeped in optimism, so different to the desolate and enervating scepticism of our defeatists and intellectuals."

Shift of the CEDA to the right

Between November 1934 and March 1935, the CEDA minister for agriculture, Manuel Giménez Fernández

Manuel Giménez Fernández

Manuel Giménez Fernández was a Spanish professor of canon law and politician most famous as Minister of Agriculture in the government of Alejandro Lerroux....

, introduced into parliament a series of agrarian reform measures designed to better conditions in the Spanish countryside. These moderate proposals met with a hostile response from reactionary elements within the Cortes, including the conservative wing of the CEDA and the proposed reform was defeated. A change of personnel in the ministry also followed. The agrarian reform bill proved to be a catalyst for a series of increasingly bitter divisions within the Catholic right, rifts that indicated that the broad based CEDA alliance was disintegrating. Partly as a result of the impetus of the JAP, the Catholic party had been moving further to the right, forcing the resignation of moderate government figures, including Filiberto Villalobos. Gil Robles was not prepared to return the agriculture portfolio to Gimenez Fernandez. Mary Vincent writes that, despite the CEDA's rhetoric supporting Catholic social teaching, the extreme right ultimately prevailed.

Failure of parliamentary Catholicism

In the 1936 Elections a new coalition of Socialists (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party

Spanish Socialist Workers' Party

The Spanish Socialist Workers' Party is a social-democratic political party in Spain. Its political position is Centre-left. The PSOE is the former ruling party of Spain, until beaten in the elections of November 2011 and the second oldest, exceeded only by the Partido Carlista, founded in...

, PSOE), liberals (Republican Left

Republican Left (Spain)

The Republican Left was a Spanish left-wing republican party founded in 1934.The party was founded in 1934 following the left's defeat in the 1933 election, by the merger of Manuel Azaña's Republican Action, part of Marcelino Domingo's Radical Socialist Republican Party and Santiago Casares...

and the Republican Union Party), Communists, and various regional nationalist groups won the extremely tight election. The results gave 34 percent of the popular vote to the Popular Front and 33 percent to the incumbent government of the CEDA. This result, when coupled with the Socialists' refusal to participate in the new government, led to a general fear of revolution.

In elections on February 16, 1936, CEDA lost power to the left-wing Popular Front

Popular Front (Spain)

. Support for Gil-Robles and his party evaporated almost overnight as the CEDA haemorrhaged members to the Falange

Falange

. Mary Vincent writes that, "(the) rapid radicalization of the CEDA youth movement effectively meant that all attempts to save parliamentary Catholicism were doomed to failure.

Catholic support for the rebellion

Many CEDA supporters welcomed the military rebellion in the summer of 1936 which led to the Spanish Civil War

Spanish Civil War

, and many of them joined Franco's National Movement

Falange

. However, General Franco was determined not to have competing right-wing parties in Spain and, in April 1937, CEDA was dissolved.

According to Mary Vincent, "The tragedy of the Second Spanish Republic

Second Spanish Republic

The Second Spanish Republic was the government of Spain between April 14 1931, and its destruction by a military rebellion, led by General Francisco Franco....

was that it abetted its own destruction; the tragedy of the Church was that it became so closely allied with its self-styled defenders that its own sphere of action was severely compromised. The Church, grateful for the championship offered first by José María Gil-Robles y Quiñones

José María Gil-Robles y Quiñones

José María Gil-Robles y Quiñones was a prominent Spanish politician in the period leading up to the Spanish Civil War....

and then by Franco, entered into a political alliance which would prevent it carrying out the pastoral task it had itself identified."

According to Mary Vincent, "The Church was to become the most important source of legitimation for the rebellious generals, justifying the rising as a crusade against godlessness, anarchy and communism. Although such a close identification with the Nationalist cause was not to be fully elaborated until the Spanish hierarchy's joint pastoral letter of July 1937, there was no doubt that the Church would line up with the rebels against the Republic. Nor , at local level, was there any hesitancy. The only sizeable group of Catholics to remain loyal to the republic were the Basques. " Similarly, Victor M Perez-Diaz wrote, "The church reacted to all this by mobilizing the mass of peasants and the middle classes and channeling them into professional and political right wing organisations prepared for by decades of careful organisation. The extreme right took upon itself the task of conspiring to overthrow the regime. The moderate right refused to state its unambiguous loyalty to the new institutions and openly flirted with authoritarianism."

Frances Lannon has propounded a view which suggests the existence of an 'exiguous Catholic minority which saw in the Church's crusade against the Republic not a defensive holy war that began in 1936 and deserved their support, but a long series of class commitments on political and socio-economic policies which themselves powerfully helped to create the ruthless and desperate anti-clericalism unleashed by the war. "Republican Catholics like José Manuel Gallegos Rocafull

José Manuel Gallegos Rocafull

José Manuel Gallegos Rocafull was a Spanish priest, canon of the Cathedral of Cordoba, theologian and philosopher....

, Ángel Ossorio y Gallardo

Ángel Ossorio y Gallardo

, and José Bergamín

José Bergamín

José Bergamín Gutiérrez was a Spanish writer, essayist, poet, and playwright. His father served as president of the canton of Málaga; his mother was a devout Catholic...

, all wrote scathing criticisms of the Church's role in covering with a religious cloak the political, military and class aims of the anti-Republicans. The ex-Jesuit Joan Vilar i Costa

Joan Vilar i Costa

Joan Vilar and Costa was an ecclesiastical writer. He joined the Jesuits and was librarian of the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome. Leaving the company, he joined the diocesan clergy....

refuted the 1937 collective pastoral letter , the Catalan democratic Catholic politician Manuel Carrasco Formiguera

Manuel Carrasco Formiguera

Manuel Carrasco i Formiguera , Spanish lawyer and Christian democrat Catalan nationalist politician, in the twentieth century.- Early life :...

was executed on Franco's orders in April 1938 because he also failed to agree with official Catholic views. These men emphasised that the Church's anti-Republican alignment did not originate in, although it was certainly strengthened by, the slaughter of priests by uncontrolled groups on Republican territory, and Lannon concludes: "The crusade had been waged for a long time by the Church for its own institutional interests, for survival. The cost of its survival was the destruction of the Republic."

The Red Terror

An estimated 55,000 civilians died in Republican-held territories. The Republican government was anticlerical and supporters attacked and murdered Roman Catholic clergy in reaction to news of the military revolt. In Republican held territories, Roman Catholic churches, convents, monasteries, and cemeteries were desecrated. Through the war, nearly all segments of the Republicans, Basques being a notable exception took part in semi-organized anti-Roman Catholic, anticlerical killing of 6,832 members of the Catholic clergy and religious orders.

Although to a much lesser extent, there were also incidents in which Nationalists murdered Catholic clerics. In one particular incident, following the capture of Bilbao, hundreds of people, including 16 priests who had served as chaplains for the Republican forces, were taken to the countryside or to graveyards to be murdered.}

Pope Pius XI

Pope Pius XI

referred to Mexico, Spain and Soviet Union as a "Terrible Triangle

Terrible Triangle

Terrible Triangle was a term used by Pope Pius XI for the simultaneous persecution of Christians in general and the Catholic Church in particular in three countries: the Soviet Union, Mexico, and Spain. These events are said to have influenced his position on Communism throughout his pontificate...

" and deemed the failure to protest in Europe and the United States as a Conspiracy of Silence

Conspiracy of Silence (Church persecutions)

Conspiracy of Silence is a term used by the Catholic Church since Pope Pius XI to describe the lack of reaction to the persecution of Christians by Nazis and Communists in such countries as the Soviet Union, Mexico, Germany and Spain....

.

13 bishops were killed from the dioceses of Sigüenza

Sigüenza

Sigüenza is a city in the province of Guadalajara in Spain.-History:The site of the ancient Segontia of the Celtiberian Arevaci, now called Villavieja , is half a league distant from the present Sigüenza...

, Lleida

Lleida

Lleida is a city in the west of Catalonia, Spain. It is the capital city of the province of Lleida, as well as the largest city in the province and it had 137,387 inhabitants , including the contiguous municipalities of Raimat and Sucs. The metro area has about 250,000 inhabitants...

, Cuenca

Cuenca, Spain

-History:When the Iberian peninsula was part of the Roman Empire there were several important settlements in the province, such as Segóbriga, Ercávica and Gran Valeria...

, Barbastro

Barbastro

Barbastro is a city in the Somontano county, province of Huesca, Spain...

Segorbe

Segorbe is a municipality in the mountainous coastal province of Castelló, autonomous community of Valencia, Spain. The former Palace of the Dukes of Medinaceli now houses the city's mayor...

, Jaén

Jaén, Spain

Jaén is a city in south-central Spain, the name is derived from the Arabic word Jayyan, . It is the capital of the province of Jaén. It is located in the autonomous community of Andalusia....

, Ciudad Real

Ciudad Real

Ciudad Real is a city in Castile-La Mancha, Spain, with a population of c. 74,000. It is the capital of the province of Ciudad Real. It has a stop on the AVE high-speed rail line and has begun to grow as a long-distance commuter suburb of Madrid, located 115 miles to the north. A high capacity...

, Almería

Almería

, Guadix

Guadix

Guadix, a city of southern Spain, in the province of Granada; on the left bank of the river Guadix, a sub-tributary of the Guadiana Menor, and on the Madrid-Valdepeñas-Almería railway...

, Barcelona

Barcelona

Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...

, Teruel

Teruel

Teruel is a town in Aragon, eastern Spain, and the capital of Teruel Province. It has a population of 34,240 in 2006 making it one of the least populated provincial capitals in the country...

and the auxiliary of Tarragona

Tarragona

Tarragona is a city located in the south of Catalonia on the north-east of Spain, by the Mediterranean. It is the capital of the Spanish province of the same name and the capital of the Catalan comarca Tarragonès. In the medieval and modern times it was the capital of the Vegueria of Tarragona...

. Aware of the dangers, they all decided to remain in their cities. I cannot go, only here is my responsibility, whatever may happen, said the Bishop of Cuenca In addition 4,172 diocesan priests, 2,364 monks and friars, among them 259 Clarentians, 226 Franciscan

Franciscan

Most Franciscans are members of Roman Catholic religious orders founded by Saint Francis of Assisi. Besides Roman Catholic communities, there are also Old Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, ecumenical and Non-denominational Franciscan communities....

s, 204 Piarists

Piarists

The Order of Poor Clerics Regular of the Mother of God of the Pious Schools or, in short, Piarists , is the name of the oldest Catholic educational order also known as the Scolopi, Escolapios or Poor Clerics of the Mother of God...

, 176 Brothers of Mary, 165 Christian Brothers

Congregation of Christian Brothers

The Congregation of Christian Brothers is a worldwide religious community within the Catholic Church, founded by Blessed Edmund Rice. The Christian Brothers, as they are commonly known, chiefly work for the evangelisation and education of youth, but are involved in many ministries, especially with...

, 155 Augustinians

Augustinians

The term Augustinians, named after Saint Augustine of Hippo , applies to two separate and unrelated types of Catholic religious orders:...

, 132 Dominican

Dominican Order

s, and 114 Jesuits were killed. In some dioceses, a number of secular priests were killed:

In Barbastro
Barbastro
Barbastro is a city in the Somontano county, province of Huesca, Spain...

123 of 140 priests were killed. about 88 percent of the secular clergy were murdered, 66 percent
In Lleida
Lleida
Lleida is a city in the west of Catalonia, Spain. It is the capital city of the province of Lleida, as well as the largest city in the province and it had 137,387 inhabitants , including the contiguous municipalities of Raimat and Sucs. The metro area has about 250,000 inhabitants...

, 270 of 410 priests were killed. about 62 percent
In Tortosa
Tortosa
-External links:* *** * * *...

, 44 percent of the secular priests were killed.
In Toledo
Toledo, Spain
Toledo's Alcázar became renowned in the 19th and 20th centuries as a military academy. At the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936 its garrison was famously besieged by Republican forces.-Economy:...

286 of 600 priests priests were killed.
In the dioceses of Málaga
Málaga
Málaga is a city and a municipality in the Autonomous Community of Andalusia, Spain. With a population of 568,507 in 2010, it is the second most populous city of Andalusia and the sixth largest in Spain. This is the southernmost large city in Europe...

, Minorca
Minorca
Min Orca or Menorca is one of the Balearic Islands located in the Mediterranean Sea belonging to Spain. It takes its name from being smaller than the nearby island of Majorca....

and Segorbe
Segorbe
Segorbe is a municipality in the mountainous coastal province of Castelló, autonomous community of Valencia, Spain. The former Palace of the Dukes of Medinaceli now houses the city's mayor...

, about half of the priests were killed"
In Madrid 4,000 priests priests were murdered.

One source records that 283 nuns were killed, some of whom were badly tortured. There are accounts of Catholic faithful being forced to swallow rosary beads, thrown down mine shafts and priests being forced to dig their own graves before being buried alive. The Catholic Church has canonized several martyrs of the Spanish Civil War

Martyrs of the Spanish Civil War

Martyrs of the Spanish Civil War is the name given by the Catholic Church to the people who were killed by Republicans during the war because of their faith. As of July 2008, almost one thousand Spanish martyrs have been beatified or canonized...

and beatified

Beatification

Beatification is a recognition accorded by the Catholic Church of a dead person's entrance into Heaven and capacity to intercede on behalf of individuals who pray in his or her name . Beatification is the third of the four steps in the canonization process...

hundreds more.

Foreign involvement

The Catholic Church portrayed the war in Spain as a holy one against "godless communists" and called for Catholics in other countries to support the Nationalists against the Republicans. Approximately 183,000 foreign troops fought for Franco's Nationalists. Not all of them were volunteers and not all who volunteered did so for religious reasons. Hitler sent the Condor Legion - 15,000 German pilots, gunners and tank crews. Mussolini sent 80,000 Italian troops, a move which improved his popularity with Italian Catholics. Portugal's Salazar sent 20,000 troops. Approximately 3000 volunteers from around the world joined the Nationalists from countries such as the United Kingdom, Australiz, France, Ireland, Poland, Argentina, Belgium and Norway.

Beatifications

Pope John Paul II

Blessed Pope John Paul II , born Karol Józef Wojtyła , reigned as Pope of the Catholic Church and Sovereign of Vatican City from 16 October 1978 until his death on 2 April 2005, at of age. His was the second-longest documented pontificate, which lasted ; only Pope Pius IX ...

beatified a total of about 500 martyrs in the years 1987, 1989, 1990, 1992, 1993, 1995, 1997 and March 11, 2001. Some 233 executed clergy were beatified by Pope John Paul II on the 11th of March 2001. Regarding the selection of Candidates, Archbishop Edward Novack from theCongregation of Saints explained in an interview with L'Osservatore Romano

L'Osservatore Romano

L'Osservatore Romano is the "semi-official" newspaper of the Holy See. It covers all the Pope's public activities, publishes editorials by important churchmen, and runs official documents after being released...

: "Ideologies such as Nazism or Communism serve as a context of martyrdom, but in the foreground the person stands out with his conduct, and, case by case, it is important that the people among whom the person lived should affirm and recognize his fame as a martyr and then pray to him, obtaining graces. It is not so much ideologies that concern us, as the sense of faith of the People of God, who judge the person's behaviour

Benedict XVI beatified 498 more Spanish martyrs in October 2007, in what has become the largest beatification ceremony in the history of the Catholic Church. In a speech to 30,000 pilgrims in St Peter’s Square, Pope Benedict XVI paid tribute to the martyrs of the Civil War and put them on the path to sainthood. “Their forgiveness towards their persecutors should enable us to work towards reconciliation and peaceful coexistence,” he said.
The Pope's mass beatification of clergy allied with Franco’s side during the Civil War caused outrage on the Left in Spain. Some have criticized the beatifications as dishonoring non-clergy who were also killed in the war, and as being an attempt to draw attention away from the church's support of Franco (some quarters of the Church called the Nationalist cause a "crusade"). Critics have pointed out that only priests aligned with Franco’s troops were honoured. In this group of people, the Vatican has not included all Spanish martyrs, nor any of the 16 priests who were executed by the nationalist side in the first years of the war. This decision has caused numerous criticisms from surviving family members and several political organisations in Spain. “Priests killed in Catalonia or the Basque Country loyal to the republic are not being beatified,” Alejandro Quiroga, Professor of Spanish History at the University of Newcastle,characterized the beatifications as “...a very selective, political reading of the whole thing.”

The act of beatification has also coincided in time with the debate on the Law of Historical Memory (about the treatment of the victims of the war and its aftermath) promoted by the Spanish Government.

Responding to the criticism, the Vatican has described the October 2007 beatifications as relating to personal virtues and holiness, not ideology. They are not about "resentment but... reconciliation". The Vatican said it was not taking sides, but merely wished to honour those who had died for their religious beliefs.The Spanish government has supported the beatifications, sending Foreign Minister Miguel Ángel Moratinos

Miguel Ángel Moratinos

Miguel Ángel Moratinos Cuyaubé is a Spanish diplomat and politician, a member of the Socialist Workers' Party and member of Congress where he represents Córdoba....

to attend the ceremony.

The October 2007 beatifications have brought the number of martyred persons beatified by the Church to 977, eleven of whom have already been canonized as Saints. Because of the extent of the persecution, many more cases could be proposed; as many as 10,000 according to Catholic Church sources. The process for beatification has already been initiated for about 2,000 people.

Apology

For the most part, the Catholic Church has always highlighted its role as a victim in the 1936-39 war. The most famous happening of the joint assembly of bishops and priests in September 1971 however, saw the passage by a majority, but not the requisite two-thirds majority for formal acceptance, of the statement that;
"We humbly recognise and ask pardon that we did not know how, when it was necessary, to be true ministers of reconciliation in the midst of our people torn by a fratricidal war." In November 2007, Bishop Ricardo Blázquez, head of Spain’s Episcopal Conference, said that the Church must also seek forgiveness for “concrete acts” during the strife-torn period. “On many occasions we have reasons to thank God for what was done and for the people who acted, [but] probably in other moments. . . we should ask for forgiveness and change direction,”

Background

The Second Republic

Initial reaction of Catholics

Burning of the convents

1931 Constitution

Religious communities - education/welfare

Formation of CEDA

Dilectissima Nobis

1933 election

Lerroux government

Anti-leftist rhetoric

Juventudes de Acción Popular

Shift of the CEDA to the right

Failure of parliamentary Catholicism

Catholic support for the rebellion

The Red Terror

Foreign involvement

Beatifications

Apology

See also