The Martyrs of the Spanish Civil War and the Repercussions on the
Missionary World
by Fr. Marcón Rincón Cruz, O.F.M. , Rev. Jorge
López Teulón
General introduction
MEN AND WOMEN RELIGIOUS MARTYRS AND EVANGELISATION
In the meantime what was happening in the missions?
The testimonial of a Claretian
THE CHURCH WAS AGAINST THE WAR
WAR AGAINST RELIGION AND FOR RELIGION
Towards a Marxist revolution
Left wing press reveals the objectives of its
struggle
Even the government takes sides against religion
Religious persecution in republican areas during the
war
The Church speaks about the persecution
Negrín's government and minister Irujo
SOME TESTIMONIALS
Blessed Narciso De Estenaga y Echevarría,
Bishop of Ciudad Real
Blessed Francisco Maqueda López
The Servant of God, Mother Candida of the Heart of
Jesus
Blessed Ceferino Giménez Malla, first gypsy
to be beatified
The Servant of God, Santiago Mosquera y
Suárez de Figueroa
GENERAL INTRODUCTION
The number of Christians martyred during a religious persecution which,
starting from 1931, raged in Spain and which, above all, coincided with
regard to the period of time, the dark days of the Spanish Civil War
(1936-1939), amounted to a total of 6,832. According to an historical
investigation undertaken by Archbishop Antonio Montero Moreno, emeritus
Archbishop of Mérida-Badajoz, published in 1960, of those 6,832
martyrs, 4,184 were members of the secular clergy: twelve bishops, one
apostolic administrator and about thirty seminarians; 2,365 Brothers
and 238 Sisters.
In view of the celebrations for the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000,
Pope John Paul II asked for a register to be drafted of Christian
martyrs of the 20th century. Along with many other countries, Spain
responded and registers drafted by the different dioceses various
dioceses were forwarded to Rome for the Ecumenical Prayer to
commemorate the Witnesses of the Faith presided by the Pope at the
Colosseum on Rome in March 2000. Already at that stage Mgr. Vicente
Cárcel Ortí, a well known historian, began to speak of
more than 10.000 Spaniards murdered in that period. Their number more
in detail was as follows: twelve bishops, one apostolic administrator,
about 7,000 priests, men and women religious and about three thousand
lay people, most of them members of Catholic Action. Work continues in
the different dioceses to put the information together and make an
analytic break-down of the figure.
March 29, 1987 was an historic date in the process of Spanish
canonisations: Pope John Paul II raised to the honour of the altars
three women religious and two priests, five witnesses of the faith and
holiness which has always flourished in the land of Iberia. It was ten
in the morning when the Roman Pontiff seated under Bernini's
magnificent baldacchino, over the tomb of Saint Peter the Apostle,
pronounced the names of the five Servants of God: Maria del Pilar de
San Francisco de Borja, Teresa del Niño Jesús y de San
Juan de la Cruz, Maria de los Ángeles de San José,
Marcelo Spínola y Maestre y Manuel Domingo y Sol, declaring that
from then on they were to be called Blessed and could be locally
venerated in keeping with the Code of Canon Law. The three women
religious de Carmelo de San José de Guadalajara were the first
to be beatified of a host of Spanish martyrs, victims of religious
persecution in 1931-1939.
The milestone is represented by the martyrs of Turón, eight La
Salle Brothers and one Passionist Brother, killed in the Asturian town
on 9 October 1934. To this group belongs another La Salle Brother Jaime
Hilari Barbal, from Lérida shot in Tarragona on 18 January 1937.
The ten men were beatified on 29 April 1990 and canonised on 21
November 1999. They were the first saints of the bitter and cruel
episode of Spanish history. Lastly they were joined by Fr Pedro Poveda
Castroverde, shot early in the morning on 28 July, 1936. Fr. Poveda was
beatified on 10 October 1993 and canonised in Spain on 4 May 2003, by
John Paul II on his last visit to our country.
In a Pastoral Letter to the faithful on the occasion of the
beatification in March 1987, His Eminence Cardinal Marcelo
González Martín wrote:
"Today, fifty years later, if the intention is not
to write history inspired by silence, conventional dissimulation or
deceit, this questioning with regard to the glaring fact of authentic
religious persecution is very suspicious. That persecution happened,
even though the reasons of the conflict were other. It would be an
authentic anti-historic, anti-pastoral and anti-theological aberration
perpetrated in the light of day, to claim to explain otherwise a
perfidious death, the result of obstinacy and perpetrated with impunity
in the light of day after pursuing through the city centre the three
nuns who had abandoned their enclosed convent suspected of being
"sisters". Of little importance the fact that the anti-Christian
doggedness of those times was incarnated in gangs which ruled the
streets, not formed spontaneously, but instead the sociological fruit
of ideologies, pass-words and plans mainly hatched in visceral, social
and political hatred of God and the Church. These facts with the
programmed profusion, impunity and uniformity by which they were marked
in those regions of Spain which were in the conflict at the mercy of
one of the warring parties, will never have an exact historical
explanation as long as people attempt to dissimulate or eliminate in
the ideological and social origin, the fact of deep lying hatred for
religion".
On 28 October 2007 in Rome 498 of our brothers and sisters in the faith
were beatified: bishops, priests, men and women religious and lay
people who gave their lives for love of Jesus Christ, in Spain during
religious persecution in the 1930s. The Church solemnly recognised,
once again, that they were martyrs, heroic witnesses to the Gospel. It
was the most numerous beatification in the Church's history!
As on previous occasions, every case had been carefully examined
separately for years. The 498 martyrs gave their lives in different
places in Spain in the years 1934, 1936 and 1937. Among them, the
Bishops of Cuenca and Ciudad Real, several diocesan priests, numerous
religious - Augustinians and Dominicans, Salesians and Brothers of
Christian Schools, Marists, different types of Carmelites, Franciscan
Friars and Franciscan Sisters, Trinitarian fathers and sisters,
Marianists, Missionaries of the Sacred Heart, Missionary Daughters of
the Heart of Mary -, seminarians and laity, young people, married
couples. Biographies, photographs and reports from the respective
dioceses can be found in a book Quiénes son y de dónde
vienen. 498 mártires del siglo XX en España (Spain's 498
martyrs of the 20th century: who they were and where they came from),
published in Madrid 2007.
Before that event, 479 others had been beatified in eleven
Beatifications beginning in 1987. Of those 479, 11 were already Saints.
This time almost 500 martyrs were united in one Beatification.
May the Blessed Virgin Mary, Queen of Martyrs, open hearts so that
everyone may accept and put into practice the message left by the word
and life of these brothers and sisters whose names are written on the
calendar of the saints.
MEN AND WOMEN RELIGIOUS MARTYRS AND EVANGELISATION
Without a doubt, people not aware of the cruel persecution which took
place in Spain in the 1930s, in 2007 were able to be briefly updated
with all the information made available in no time by the media,
especially the Internet. For example the web site of the Spanish
Bishops' Conference gave the figures of those to be beatified on 28
October: 2 bishops (Cuenca and Ciudad Real), 24 diocesan priests, 462
religious priests, 1 deacon, 1 sub-deacon, 1 seminarian and 7 lay
people.
The numbers tilted the scales in favour of the religious life: in fact
462 of those beatified were members of institutes of consecrated life:
98 O.S.A, Order of St Augustine - Augustinians,
62 O.P, Order of Preachers- Dominicans,
59 S.D.B, Salesian Society of Saint John Bosco - Salesians,
58 F.S.C, de La Salle Brothers of the Christian Schools,
47 F.M.S, Marist Teaching Brothers,
31 O.C.D, Discalced Carmelites
29 O.F.M, The Order of Friars Minor - Franciscans,
23 A.A.S.C, Adoring Sisters, Servants of the Blessed Sacrament and
Charity,
16 O.Carm, Order of Carmel - Carmelites,
9 O.S.D, Order San Dominic - Dominicans,
9 O.SS.T, Order of the Most Holy Trinity - Trinitarians,
4 C.M, Carmelite Missionary Sisters,
4 M.SS.CC, Missionaries of the Sacred Hearts (of Jesus and Mary)
4 S.M, Society of Mary - Marianists,
3 C.M.F, Missionary Daughters of the Heart of Mary,
2 F.H.M, Franciscan Daughters of Poverty,
1 O.P, Order of St Dominic – (enclosed nuns),
1 HH.C.a.CH, Carmelite Sisters of Charity,
1 O.SS.T Order of Trinitarian Sisters (enclosed)
1 Carmelite Sisters of the Presentation
If we examine the carefully prepared dossier, to see what happened
between 1987, when there was the first beatification of a group of
enclosed Carmelite nuns slain in Guadalajara, and October 2007, we
would note the following: 10 of those beatified between 1987 and 2005,
were canonised and they were all Religious: the first to be canonised
were 9 De La Salle Brothers of Christian Schools, eight of which were
martyred in Turón (Asturias), victims of religious persecution
during the October Revolution 1934, and another martyred at Tarragona
on 28 July 1937, plus a Passionist priest who was also martyred 1934.
These ten men were beatified in Rome on 24 September 1990 and canonised
in Rome on 21 November 1999, by Pope John Paul II.
The second canonisation of a martyr of religious persecution in Spain
was that of diocesan priest Fr Pedro Poveda Castroverde, martyred in
Madrid on 28 July 1936. The canonisation took place on 4 May 2003 in
Madrid, during Pope John Paul II's first apostolic visit to Spain.
During the same Liturgy four other Blessed, not martyrs, were also
canonised. Saint Pedro Poveda had been beatified in Rome on 10 October
1993.
A total number of 468 were beatified, not counting the 11 saints
mentioned above, who were also beatified.
The first to be beatified were three Discalced Carmelites of
Guadalajara, on 29 March 1987, followed on 1 October 1989, by 26
Passionist religious of Ciudad Real. Then there was the beatification
on 29 April 1990, of one Sister of the Society of di Santa Teresa from
Barcelona, together with 9 De La Salle Brothers and one Passionist
priest, now canonised. During the fourth Celebration, on 25 October
1992, the Pope beatified 122 martyrs: 71 St John of God Hospitaller
Brothers from Madrid and Barcelona, and 51 Missionary Sons of the Heart
of Mary, from Barbastro. The fifth beatification was of 10 martyrs in
three different causes: those of Almeria, with the Bishops of Almeria
and Guadix, and 7 Brothers of Christian Schools, diocesan priest Fr
Pedro Poveda, from Madrid, now canonised, and a school teacher at the
Teresiana Institute whose cause was started in Cordoba.
The fifth beatification of 1993 involved the first two bishops and the
first diocesan priest. Two years later there was that of the first lay
martyr.
We are speaking of more than 150 religious beatified in those years.
Historiographers affirm that altogether 8,000 Spaniards were slain "out
of hatred for the faith": 3.000 men religious and 296 Sisters of
enclosed and active life of various congregations who served in homes
for the elderly, orphanages, hospitals and schools.
It should be pointed out that religious persecution in Spain began in
1931 and not in 1936 as many think. The Republican Constitution was
approved on 9 December 1931, and by 16 January 1932 a circular letter
had been sent to every school in Spain with instructions to remove all
religious symbols from the school. Crucifixes were banned. On 24
January the Society of Jesus was disbanded. On 6 February the state
confiscated all cemeteries. On 11 March religious instruction was
banned in every school. In 1932 the Society of Jesus was outlawed in
Spain, the fathers were exiled and the Society's property confiscated.
Jesuit Father Alejandro Rey-Stolle (who uses a penname Adro Xavier), in
his Jesuit Martyrs: 1934 - 1939, says that 118 Jesuits were slain.
The martyrs resided in various convents and colleges and homes. A
community of Augustinians, O.S.A, for example, priests, professed
theology students, novices and seminarians, fled their monastery and
were taken in by local families. They were hunted down and found;
identified as religious, arrested, imprisoned and then executed:
typical methods used by communist militia. Other brothers, later
martyred, who taught in free schools for poor children, took refuge
where their could. Their bodies were never found, and it is said of one
particular case that he was thrown alive, with his hands tied to his
waist and a large stone around his neck, to drown in the sea.
Another example was that of the martyrs of the St John of God
Hospitaller Brothers. On the web page of the Confraternity of
Paracuellos de Jarama (Madrid), locality in which 22 of them were
slain, we find the following information, taken from the ecclesiastical
historiographer Vicente Cárcel Ortí:
"They are a clear proof that persecution was not
limited to some aspects of political and social life, its aim was total
elimination of all religious significance. No exceptions were made, no
consideration was given either to the specific nature of the
institutions, or to the difficulties of filling the gaps left.
The St John of God Hospitaller Brothers, bound by
holy vows to serve the infirm, could not leave the sick in order to
save themselves without betraying the sublime ideal of their vocation,
which was to dedicate their lives to poor sick persons, as their
Constitutions state".
"Of the 71 martyrs beatified, 64 belonged to the 30
provinces across the geographical area of Spain; the remaining seven St
John of God Hospitaller Brothers were from Colombia.
35 members of the Community were slain (including
seven Colombians in Barcelona) at San José de Ciempozuelos
Psychiatric Sanatorium; 54 Brothers of this House spent several months
in Madrid's famous San Antón Prison, and 22 of them were slain
at Paracuellos de Jarama. Five religious of the Community were slain in
an isolated manner at San Rafael Paediatric Hospital Madrid, where they
were serving".
With regard to the dioceses, we will present the case of Barcelona
(which includes some people not of the diocese, who were just passing
through), where those murdered were as follows: 12 Augustinians; 23
Benedictines, nearly all from Montserrat; 1 Camillian Brother; 27
Capuchins, most of them from Sarriá; 15 Discalced Carmelites; 4
Carmelites; 3 Tertiary Carmelite Brothers; 6 Cistercians from Tiana; 28
Jesuits; 10 Dominicans; 60 Scolapi Fathers; 7 Friars Minor O.F.M.; 6
conventual Friars Minor; 42 Brothers of Christian Schools; 46
‘Gabrielistas’ (Brothers of Saint Gabriel); 91 Marists; 2 Mercedarians;
3 Minimum Fathers; 36 Claretians; 3 Sacred Heart Missionaries; 3
Missionaries of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary; 4 Missionaries of
the Sacred Heart founded by Fr. Roselló of Majorca; 4 ‘operarios
diocesanos’; 9 Oratorians; 3 Paulist Fathers; 4 Passionists; 17 Sons of
the Holy Family; 21 Salesians; 9 Religious of San Pietro in Vincoli; 29
St John of God Brothers; 9 Brothers of Charity of the Holy Cross; 1
Trinitarian Father. A total of over 500.
Why do we present this great quantity of information? In order to
formulate the thesis of our article: how did Religious Orders survive
despite the holocaust of entire communities? What about Spaniards
engaged in ad gentes activity in the rest of the world?
For example many of the 462 religious beatified on 28 October 2007, had
worked in various countries of four different continents: in Europe:
Austria, France, Ireland, Italy and Poland; in America: United States,
Mexico, Costa Rica, Salvador, Nicaragua, Puerto Rico, Venezuela,
Colombia, Brazil, Peru and Argentina; in Asia: Terra Santa, China,
Philippines; in Africa: Egypt and Morocco… the young men who were
sacrificed were preparing to take the place of those who had returned
from the missions.
And in the meantime what was happening in the missions?
The Order of Saint Augustine reports that, due to obstacles raised by
the Communist government, which threatened the continuity of studies
for candidates to the priesthood obliging them to fulfill their
military service before ordination, the Provincial and his Council
decided to send 8 theology students who were of age for military
service, to Brazil accompanied by three fathers and one brother. They
arrived in 1933, and there completed their studies.
At the end of the Spanish Civil War, the Augustinian Province of Madrid
lost many members since it was the most affected of all the Spanish
provinces by the war. The order of St Augustine lost 118 religious. A
group of religious on mission in Brazil and Argentina had to return to
Spain in order to continue the activity of the Madrid Province. It was
necessary to close a parish in Buenos Aires which depended on that
Vicaria and later to leave Santa Isabel and São Sebastião
de Bento Ribeiro, Bom Sucesso and Calafate, between 1941 and 1942.
We could mention hundreds of other similar examples of Spanish
missionaries on mission sometimes for centuries drawing new life from
the novitiates in Spanish religious houses. By the time the war, and
therefore also religious persecution, had ended, many missionaries of
various Orders and Congregations - mainly of men religious - had to
return to Spain …
Once again the words used by the early Church were heard: "The blood of
martyrs is seed of Christians". It was in fact seed of vocations,
future missionaries who were to carry the seed of the martyrs in their
own vocation story. They carried on from those companions training in
Novitiates, from those superiors who with the experience of missionary
work trained novices and were slain out of hatred for the faith.
Houses, Novitiatates, whole communities were exterminated; in some,
through divine providence, a few members remained to tell the story…
The time had come to start again, yet again! And with fidelity they
took up the challenge.
The testimonial of a Claretian
The present emeritus Archbishop of Pamplona (Navarra), Archbishop
Fernando Sebastián Aguilar, in the prologue of Esta es nuestra
sangre (This is our Blood), by Gabriel Campo (Madrid 1990) - a book on
the martyrdom of 51 Claretians of Barbastro - writes:
As young Claretians we grew up nourished by the
exemplary devotion and heroic fidelity of the missionaries – of our own
young age - who had given their lives for the salvation of Spain and
the world in the unexplainable earthquake of 1936.
In my years as a novice and seminarian in Claretian
communities we breathed the spirit, devotion, fervour of the martyrs
and their unswerving fidelity. A few of their superiors and formators,
those who has escaped death, were still living; some in our midst were
relations or neighbours of the martyrs who told stories and anecdotes.
The houses in which we lived, the books we used, our conversations, the
places of our excursions, were imbued with the memory of the martyrs.
From the human and religious point of view they became familiar to us
and their diffused spiritual presence shaped our religious and
missionary personality.
There were years in which, with no pressure from
anyone, the Claretian martyrs, and the young martyrs of Barbastro in
particular, were for us authentic teachers of spirituality. Austerity,
work, rigid discipline, radical availability, missionary enthusiasm,
came naturally as a consequence of familiarity with the memory of the
martyrs. I still member the profound emotion we felt when we used to
sing the same hymn they sang as they went to their martyrdom: "Jesus,
you know well, I am your soldier; ever at your side I will fight; with
you till I die; one flag one ideal; for You my King, my blood to give".
Without realising it we had become disciples, sons, of the missionaries.
THE CHURCH DID NOT WANT THE WAR
On 18 July 1936 in Spain there was a military uprising against the
government to protest against the situation of political and social
violence, chaos and absence of authority into which the Republic had
fallen. I will cite only a few sentences by Pio Moa: "The country's
conservative masses rose up in 1936 against a real and imminent threat
of revolution ". Later he writes: "It will be sufficient to establish,
with a very small margin of doubt, that it was the leftist forces
which, moved by their aspirations, broke the rules and pushed the
regime to civil war, which they considered a deplorable but necessary
undertaking to reach a new and supposedly luminous world; and that it
was the conservatives who, anxious to avoid the conflict, maintained,
at times with a majority, a moderate attitude, close to cowardice,
until the threat to themselves became a question of life or death". (1)
The insurrection turned to civil war, which lasted until 1 April 1939.
The purpose of this exposition is not to describe in detail the causes,
agents and evolution of the insurrection and conflict; however it must
be made clear that Spain experienced real religious persecution and
that the death of so many priests and religious cannot be attributed to
the fact that they were among the combatants, or that they had joined
the rebels, or had taken an active part in the conflict.
Testimony on the part of the Bishops
In a Joint Letter dated 1 July 1937, the Spanish Bishops in no half
terms rejected these accusations. They wrote: we Bishops, from 1931
onwards, "in keeping with the tradition of the Church and following the
norms of the Holy See, resolutely sided with the established
authorities, making every effort to collaborate with them to promote
the common good. Despite repeated offences to Church members, things
and rights, we were steadfast in our resolve not to break the
established agreement ".
"The Church did not want this war neither did she ask for it and we see
no reason to avenge the accusations against her of belligerence with
which some foreign newspapers have censured the Church in Spain.
Certainly thousands of her sons and daughters obedient to the dictates
of their conscience and their patriotism, and acting on their own
personal responsibility, rose up with arms to save the principles of
religion and Christian justice which for centuries had formed the life
of the nation; therefore those who accuse the Church of having caused
this war or conspired to start it, or not doing everything possible to
avoid it, either do not know the truth or they falsify it".
“We have sided with no one - person, authority or institution -,
although we are grateful for the protection received from those
liberated us from an enemy which wanted us to go astray, and we are
ready to collaborate as Spanish bishops and citizens, with those who
are working to restore a rule of peace and justice in Spain. No
political authority will be able to say that we strayed at any time
from this line." (2)
WAR AGAINST RELIGION AND FOR RELIGION
There has been much discussion about the sense of the Spanish Civil war
and the cause for which the two sides fought. Some saw it as a
political-economic class struggle, for others it was a religious war, a
crusade. It is not our task to enter into the question, already
sufficiently clarified by historiographers. Taking for granted that the
uprising was military, that there was no explicit reference to
religion, and that the Church played no part in it, we will examine
certain facts which reveal that a real attempt to destroy the Church
and Christian religion did take place.
Towards a Marxist revolution
The Joint Letter issued by the Spanish Bishops on 1 July 1937 affirms
that Soviet Communism was behind the war being fought by the republican
alignment. Historiographers distinguish between the beginning of the
war and its successive internationalisation. So, Madariaga considers
the war the result of two Spanish 'pronunciamientos' or attempted
coups, rather than the interest which Russia, Germany or Italy might
have in it, despite the fact that once it had started, they intervened.
Here, however, we are not interested in this political aspect
concerning actual powers or nations. Our intention is to show that
there was always a strong move to introduce Marxist Communist
totalitarianism in which religion would be destroyed. In this, an
important role was played by the accentuated extremism of the "Spanish
Lenin", Largo Caballero, in vogue in the Communist Party following the
Revolution of Asturias, and by the Frente Popular approved by the
International Communist Congress in 1935 (3).
Independently from and prior to the military conspiracy, preparations
were underway for an extreme leftist revolution to take power and
introduce a dictatorship of the proletariat. "The year 1935 closed with
the ousting of Gil Robles; with a Leftist wing creating militia and
determined to win the next elections and complete the revolution of
October 1934". Largo Caballero said that if the right were to win, they
and their allies would declare "civil war", because the elections would
not achieve the total transformation of the country, and "we have had
enough of experiments with democracy ". Even before the 1936 February
elections the civil war was announced with clamour. (4) Communists and
anarchists proclaimed Largo Caballero without subterfuge. "The
extremist insurrection could be read on every face and breathed at
every corner. It was an authentic community certainty". Those who
supported it defended neither republic nor democracy, but Marxist ideas
and a regime identical to the Soviet model. Already in the Asturias it
was called the red army (5). It is sufficient to see in Claridad e El
Socialista late 1935 and early 1936 Largo Caballero's statements and
declarations. Here is what he wrote on 21 December 1935: “We must
accept in the party programme postulates of Marxist socialism, we must
reach a dictatorship of the proletariat". 15 January 1936: "No
compromises or shameful hobbling: or with Marxism or sterling
socialists, that is, anti-Marxists, I am talking about revolutionary
socialism". 23 January 1936: "We prefer a thousands times to receive
orders from Moscow than from Rome.... I say never again will we spare
the lives of our enemies as we did on 14 April. Never again!" (6)
It was these groups which in fact led the war from the beginning. The
republicans of the government of 20 July, no longer counted. Of the
government there remained only "dust and ashes of the state". Those
groups took to the streets to fight not for the Republic, but for the
Revolution. They would be the ones to arm the country and to form the
government presided by Largo Caballero on 4 September 1936. (7)
The Left wing press reveals the objectives of its war
The press, from the beginning of the Republic, was a first class tool
for the benefit of secularism, with a great quantity and diffusion of
anticlerical and anti-religious newspapers and magazines. Many of those
publications used tones of low cultural quality and even bad taste, in
order to more easily incite the uneducated masses. Long before the
military insurrection of 18 July 1936, religion and its ministers were
ridiculed and the press was full of defamation, calumny, jokes and
cartoons against clerics. La Traca published in Valenza launched an
investigation: "What would you do to that cassock?”, and the answers
were made public on 17 July. Among the examples of the time,
immediately prior to the war, we cite El Pueblo, of Huesca. It read:
"Let the rude screeching of the clerical parrot cease. Instead of
fearing what is passed, let him fear what may still befall him". And
after accusing clerics of being sectarian, cowardly and full of vice,
concluded: "To think that because of a deplorable equivocal of the
society which continues to tolerate them, ‘these savages' live among
decent people! ”.(8)
When the war had started, the ABC Madrid, run by the Republicans,
stated with regard to a decree confiscating church properties:
"Fortunately, the friars and nuns will soon be swept
away towards innocuousness and towards death, according to where they
find themselves in the conflict of the moment.... In the will and in
the rifles of our revolutionary army, among countless noble ambitions,
there is determination, to do away once and for all with oppressive
obscurantism which represents, or used to represent confessional
education in our country ".
A few days later the same paper wrote:
"Military, politicians, ancient and archaeological
aristocracy and members of their outdated Church, shall fall, all
together, like a heap of infamy, in the same malediction, while the
Justice of the Republic, without fainting, implacable, calm, will make
heard its voice and its sentence without appeal".(9)
At a meeting in Barcelona on 1 August 1936, organised by POUM, its
leader Andrés Nin expressed the Party's travail with these
words: “There were many problems Spain, but the bourgeois republicans
never bothered to solve them. The problem of the Church has been solved
without leaving even one church standing". In the same month, La
Batalla, official POUM publication, wrote:
“Our Revolution is the Revolution of the global
proletariat.... The proletariat never forgives an enemy ".
“It is not a question of setting fire to churches
and putting to death ecclesiastics, but rather of destroying the Church
as a social institution…"(10)
In the same period, an editorial in Solidaridad Obrera, the official
publication of the CNT, with the title: DOWN WITH THE CHURCH! accused
the Church of being reactionary and priests of not showing solidarity
(never defending the "needy"), of being thieves, blackmailers and
criminals. It read: "In Spain, religion has always stained its hands
with the blood of innocent people.... The Church must disappear for
ever.... it must be pulled out at the roots.... Religious Orders must
be dissolved. Bishops and cardinals must be shot. Ecclesiastical
property must be confiscated".
The same paper in May 1937, with regard to a proposal on freedom of
worship presented by government minister Irujo, said:
"What does re-establishing freedom of worship mean?
Permission to say Mass again? With regard to Barcelona and Madrid, we
have no idea where they could hold these pantomime lessons. There is
not one place of worship still standing, not one altar on which to put
a chalice... ". It accused the Church of intervening in the army
rebellion, of blessing it and firing guns from churches and convents.
“Did we not agree that that the Church in the July insurrection was
another belligerent? We all knew this and the official propaganda of
the government in which Mr Irujo was minister ‘without portfolio’, said
this justified the disappearance of both places of worship and the
clergy". It affirms that freedom of worship would be an "imposition in
those regions where people lived - and happily-. without religion!
Catholic coercion. Intolerable provocation". Two days later it repeated
the same accusations and affirmed that the priestly profession "is
simply selling‘an opium plant’, as Lenin would say". (11)
No comment is needed. The ultimate ends of the struggle for republican
troops were clear: to eradicate religion, 'opium' , according to the
Marxist-Leninist version. So the troops were incited to fight, to
destroy and to kill. This went much further than a fight against a
clergy with little social sense and, for the greater part, marked by an
ultraconservative and closed political mentality, allied with the rich
and the powerful, according to the accusations made at that time,
admissible but with reserve.
Even the government takes sides against religion
The government showed itself weak and passive, leaving its powers in
the hands of the masses led by the leftist press. If it did anything at
all, it was to accuse the Church of belligerence - as we saw in our
last newspaper citation - or to launch suspicions or implicit
accusations against her, as we see in a Ministry of Justice decree
dated 11 August 1936, which established the closing of institutes
belonging to religious orders and the dissolution of the latter if they
had co-operated with the army insurrection.
The preamble to the decree affirms “since it has been noted that some
religious associations have cooperated more or less directly with the
insurrection movement declared on the 18 July we will proceed with the
application of article 23 of the Law dated 2 June 1933" (Religious
Confessions and Congregations Law. Article 23 prohibited the exercise
of political activity and established special sanctions if the
mentioned activities should constitute a "danger for the security of
the state"). Sanctions were to be placed on Institutes which had
directly or indirectly participated in the insurrection, promoting or
assisting it (art. 1º). That is, if they participated in the
following cases: being part of a group of combatants, services of
connection, supplies, as well as in the case of quantitative
contribution, cession of proper moveable or non moveable goods,
provided accommodation in the same, having joined any group in some way
even without active participation, prayed for victory, praised the
objectives of the insurrection, possessed weapons, opened fire on
troops loyal to the government from the buildings of the community's
Congregation, or “carried out any other act which, although not
included in the mentioned cases, may be considered direct or indirect
participation or form of help mediated or immediate to the seditious
movement" (Art. 2º, nn. 1-6). A Commission was to have the task of
judging cases of offence and proposing to the minister of justice or to
parliament the closing of the houses or dissolution of the
Congregation, whose goods would be nationalised. (12)
As we see the decree left no loopholes. It condemned not only direct or
indirect participation but anything which could be seen as such. The
fact was that it started from an assumption: the religious orders
supported the army insurrection, they fought against "soldiers" loyal
to the republic and, what it worse, they were a "threat to the security
of the state", and for this reason were condemned a priori. The
government of the Republic cannot escape responsibility for the death
of priests and religious. From the lines of the government came
incitement to kill, not only as a passive attitude but with defamation
and calumny, over the radio, in the press - we saw this in the cited
Solidaridad Obrera - sanctioned by decrees like the one we have just
mentioned. It cannot be proved with documents that the government
ordered persecution against the Church, but it did allow and justify
it. "In the delirium of the last days of July 1936, Manuel
Azaña, President of the Spanish Republic, pronounced these
famous words: ‘Only now has the Republic been truly proclaimed” (13).
There can be no mistake, the aim of the Government was to be rid of
religion. This was the opinion of Communist Jesús
Hernández Tomás, Minister of Public Education in the two
governments led by Largo Caballero and the first government led by Juan
Negrín, from 4 September 1936 to May 1938. In February 1937,
Hernández Tomás sent the following telegramme to the
Anti-God Congress in Moscow: "Your fight against religion is also ours.
It is our duty to make Spain a land of militant atheists. The struggle
will not be easy because all over our country there are large masses of
reactionaries, opposed to the absorption of Soviet culture. Every
school in Spain will made into a communist school". The Council of the
Soviet League of Atheists replied expressing gratitude to Largo
Caballero for fighting religion and making him an honorary member of
the League of Atheists. (14) There should be no regret that before all
this, before massacres of priests and religious, destruction and
sacking of churches, those who fought on the side of the army
insurrection realised that they were fighting not only for public order
and social peace but to defend their faith, to defend the Christian
religion. The army made no mention of religion in its preliminary plans
or in the first proclamations at the beginning of the conflict, but the
facts clearly showed very soon that, besides political and social
goals, some were fighting against religion and others were fighting for
religion.
Religious persecution in republican areas during the war
When the army insurrection starts on 18 July 1936, Spain is divided as
follows:
Under control of the Republic: Nueva Castiglia,
Badajoz, Andalusia (except Cadice and Siviglia), east Aragona,
Catalogna, Valenza, Murcia, Minorca, Bilbao, Guipuzcoa, Santander and
Asturias.
Under the army rebels: Canarie, Baleari (except
Minorca), Cadice, Siviglia, Caceres, Castiglia Antica, León,
Galizia, Alava, Navarra and west Aragona, as well as the capital
Granada and surrounding area. (15)
From the very beginning, religious persecution was present in the
republican zone and, although in gradual diminution, religious freedom
and normality disappeared in this zone for the whole period of the war.
The high numbers of slain priests, religious and lay Catholics as well
as confiscation and destruction of churches, images and sacred objects
were recorded in many writings and in many causes of beatification
which had already been started by dioceses and by religious orders.
We will give some facts to present a situation of religious
persecution, caused by a determination to wipe out religion, not solely
for socio-economic or political reasons, although the latter did exist.
We will take as our source the work of A. Montero.
1. Elevated number of violent deaths among members of the clergy,
religious orders and committed Catholics of all ages and social
conditions, throughout the territory dominated by the Republic,
perpetrated by militia, members of leftist organisms or parties and
townships. Between 1 January and 18 July 1936, a total number of 17
priests and religious were slain. In the last two weeks of July another
861 were killed. In the August 2,077, including ten 10 bishops, were
murdered. By mid September the victims were almost 3,400. On 1 July the
following year 1937, the number of dead was 6,500. From July 1937 to
the end of the year, another 332 victims were registered.
The total number of victims among the clergy, besides 13 bishops, is
thus divided:
Secular clergy, including seminarians…. 4.184
Men
Religious................................................... 2.365
Women
Religious.....................................................283 (note
16)
Total........................................................6.832
To this number must be added the lay Christians sacrificed, whose
number has never been accurately established, and priests, religious
and lay faithful who were imprisoned and tortured but did not die. (17).
2. The swiftness with which they were slain. Arrest and then killing of
priests and religious began contextually with the military
insurrection, even in regions and localities where it had previously
not existed or where the victims managed to express support for the
rebels or escape. So, to mention only a few cases, on 20 July there was
the attack - and consequent slaughter - at the Claretian Theology
College in Barbastro; Passionist Fathers in Daimiel were forced to
leave their house during the night of 21 July and some were shot dead
in the early hours of the 22nd; five Franciscan communities in
Castiglia were expelled from their Friaries on the 21 and 24 July,
although none of the persons in the cases mentioned had been involved
political events of any kind. Municipal notices were circulated
offering rewards in money to anyone who revealed the whereabouts of
priests, or handed them over to the authorities, and ‘exposures ’ were
immediately celebrated in the press. (18) Expulsion from convents in
the case of religious and the imprisonment of priests, religious and
laity was usually ordered on behalf of the local authorities, and the
executions were witnessed by mayors and municipal assessors.
3. Immediate shooting of ecclesiastics, without a real or even a
simulated trial in front of the "peoples tribunal". The majority were
shot without imputation, or killed actually during the assault on the
convent, or when they were identified in a refuge or on the road, as in
the case of the three Carmelite nuns from Guadalajara, already
Beatified. (19)
4. Cases in which a reason for a death sentence or for an execution
already carried out was given, in general the causes cited were not
social or political, but simply priestly or religious state of the
victims. There exists abundant testimony in this sense: "We kill not
your brother in law but his cassock". "Soutane copped, soutane slain".
"you're wearing a cassock and that's enough". A placard placed on the
corpse of a priest: "For being a priest". "Our orders are to get rid of
all this corn seed". "All the clergy, religious or non religious, are
being persecuted simply because they are priests ". "The destruction of
the Church is an act of justice.... to kill God, if He existed... would
be something most natural” (20)
5. Extermination of whole religious communities, regardless of age,
without asking for names or identification. The murdering of
seminarians, men and women religious who on the basis of the categories
of age (elderly, newly professed students such as the Passionaists at
Daimiel, the Franciscan theology students at Consuegra and others), of
culture and practical work in the congregation, type of life, (active
or contemplative), of economic level (poor priests and religious),
etc., did not influence political or social life, indeed they did good
to the sick and the poor. (21)
6. Imprisonment or shooting of thousands of lay Catholics for being
members of some religious association, or relatives of priests or
religious, or were thought to be priests or religious, or because they
defended the latter, or had been found assisting at a secret Mass or in
possession of religious books, crucifixes, rosaries or medals, or other
Christian symbols, or "simply because they were Catholics". (22)
7. Cruelty and types of martyrdom. Demanding that the victims commit
blasphemy, trample a crucifix, pronounce apostasy or break the
sacramental secret of the confessional, as well as attacks against the
celibacy of consecrated persons. (23)
8. What Montero calls the martyrdom of things: confiscation of
religious buildings, torching, destruction or profanation of churches,
burning of sacred images and objects, decided at times by the
municipality, and even cities where the insurrection never matured such
as Ciudad Real, Valenza. Lerida, Jaen. An estimated 20,000 churches
were partially or completely destroyed. The few left standing were used
for other purposes, not for worship. (24) This cannot be attributed to
the fact that the clergy had joined the rebels. Neither was the theory
that the Church was allied with the rich valid here.
9. The most ridiculous and coarse calumnies were perpetrated against
the clergy (poison in holy water stoups or chocolates), accusations of
possessing millions of pesetas, weapons, shooting at the people from
churches and convents, of being members of the rebel army etc., to
justify murder. What is more, the government gave juridical foundation
to these acts "allowing the practice of the Catholic religion or the
fact of being a member of the clergy to be used as evidence and made
public". (25)
Pio Moa says the religious persecution "reached giant proportions,
greater than those of the French Revolution and probably those of the
ancient Roman Empire". In his opinion, "religious persecution was
driven by more than political hatred". He qualifies as false,
affirmations that the persecution was justified because of the Church's
political power or her anti-democratic intransigence. "The reality - he
says - was the complete opposite. It was not the Church which
frustrated the republic, but the Jacobins and revolutionaries of the
Republic who frustrated the Church unceasingly". False also was the
claim that the Church had neglected the poor and the needy, because
this in any case could have been applied to only a part of the clergy
and would not justify the assassination of so many priests and
religious who lived a life of poverty and gave instruction to the
working classes and served in homes and hospitals. "What the Church was
doing, however little or much, but which was not little, no one else
did ". To conclude, let us listen to these words of Moa: "The Church
suffers a lethal attack which starts not on 18 July, but on 16
February; and when the conflict resumed, that wild persecution did not
wait for the ecclesiastic hierarchy to take sides for this or that
belligerent"(26)
The Church speaks about the persecution
1. Instruction issued by the Bishops of Vitoria and Pamplona
We noted that in the beginning the ecclesiastic hierarchy made no
statement with regard to the army insurrection. We have just heard the
words of Madariaga that qualify as extraneous the connivance of Basque
Catholics with those who were persecuting the Church. The hierarchy's
first statement was issued under particular circumstances. On 6 August
the bishops of Vitoria, Mateo Múgica, and Pamplona, Marcelino
Olaechea, addressed a Pastoral Instruction to the faithful. That same
day the Instruction was distributed in leaflets to parish priests and
then published in the September 1st issue of Church Bulletin of the
diocese of Vitoria. In the document the bishops tell the faithful that
Catholics may not be allied with the enemies of the religion, nor may
they be divided in front of the common enemy, atheist communism; that
the interests of religion must prevail over political interests, such
as the aim to obtain autonomy for the Basque region. In a speech on
September 8 the Bishop of Vitoria, confirms the authenticity of the
Instruction and, in the face of fierce religious persecution in the
republican zone, expresses support for the insurrection. At the end of
September a long pastoral letter was issued by Bishop Enrique Pla y
Deniel of Salamanca, who under the symbol of the two cities, stated the
position of the hierarchical Church with regard to the conflict and was
the first to define the military insurrection, a "crusade"(27)
2. Pope Pius XI
The first authoritative voice on the persecution was that of Pius XI in
an audience to 500 Spanish Catholics, who had taken refuge in Italy, to
which they were accompanied by four bishops. The audience took place on
14 September 1936. The Pope spoke of "authentic martyrs in all the
sacred and glorious sense of the word ", he denounced religious
persecution motivated "by real satanic hatred for God ", "repeated
examples and confession of special hatred for the Catholic religion and
the Catholic Church in the tragic events in Spain", unleashed violence,
cruelty, massacres, the snare of collaboration with Marxism on the part
of Catholics. And the Pope added:
"It would seem that satanic preparation has kindled
once again, fiercer than ever, in neighbouring Spain, that fire of
hatred and ferocious persecution openly reserved for the Church and the
Catholic religion, as the sole obstacle to the unleashing of certain
forces which have already given reason and measure of themselves, in
their efforts of subversion in every order, from Russia to China, from
Mexico to South America". He imparted his blessing upon Spain "which to
hundreds of thousands (and you belong to the glorious pleiad) has added
confessors and martyrs to the already glorious martyrology of the
Church of Spain ". He also said: "Over and above any political or
earthly consideration, our Blessing goes especially to those who have
assumed the difficult and dangerous task of defending and restoring the
rights and honour of Church and religion.".
In his Christmas radio message, on 24 December, he mentioned the war in
Spain, in which enemies of the Church “have launched a supreme
experiment of the dangerous forces at their service and which are found
in every country. Another warning, the most grave and threatening, for
the whole world and especially for Europe and her Christian
civilisation".
On 19 March 1937, Pius XI published his encyclical Divini Redemptoris
on atheist communism. In it he speaks of religious persecution on the
part of Communism in Russia and in Mexico. At paragraph 20 he speaks of
the Communist fury, unleashed in Spain with even more furious violence:
Not only this or that church or isolated monastery
has been sacked, but as far as possible every church and every
monastery has been destroyed. Every vestige of the Christian religion
eradicated(…)The fury of Communism has not confined itself to the
indiscriminate slaughter of Bishops, of thousands of priests and
religious of both sexes; it searches out above all those who have been
devoting their lives to the welfare of the working classes and the
poor. But the majority of its victims have been laymen of all
conditions and classes. Even up to the present moment, masses of them
are slain almost daily for no other offence than the fact that they are
good Christians or at least opposed to atheistic Communism. And this
fearful destruction has been carried out with a hatred and a savage
barbarity one would not have believed possible in our age"(28).
3. Spanish Bishops issue Joint Letter on the War in Spain (1 July 1937)
Several Bishops made statements with regard to the war and, especially
following the encyclical Divini Redemptoris, they decided to issue a
Joint Pastoral Letter on the civil war and religious persecution.
Cardinal Gomá was entrusted to write the document. It bore the
date 1 July 1937, practically a year after the war started, when
already thousands of priests, religious and lay Catholics had been
slain. Approved by Holy See before publication, it was signed by all
the Spanish Bishops, except Vidal y Barraquer and Múgica both
out of the country at the time, but only made public in the month of
August. It was addressed to the Bishops of the world and had a great
impact. The Spanish bishops received 580 messages of support from other
Bishops' Conferences and from individual bishops. The under secretary
of the Holy See, Cardinal Pacelli, on 5 March 1938 wrote to
congratulate Cardinal Gomá for the Joint Letter and for the
response it brought from the bishops of the world.
Here is a summary of the contents. The Joint Letter intended to remove
speculation in other countries on facts and attitude of the
ecclesiastical hierarchy also in the Catholic press. Rather than
demonstrate an argument, it exposed the facts. The war was predictable
from the moment the Republic began to attack the Church, in 1931.
Despite those attacks the hierarchy remained subject to the regime and
called on the country to do the same. The Church did not want the war
and if at this point it had spoken out , this was due to its
repercussions on religious order and because “it was clear from the
beginning that the aim of one of the parties was to eliminate the
Catholic religion in Spain, an aspect to which we as Catholic bishops,
could not fail to react". The Letter speaks of plans and actions
against religion in the five years previous to the war and a plan to
exterminate the clergy and establish Communism, a fact which the
military insurrection had in part avoided. The war was between two
Spains, two tendencies: the spiritual Spain, on the side of the
insurgents, and the materialist Spain. "The Church, despite her spirit
of peace and the fact that she did not want the war, nor had she
collaborated with it in any way, could not remain indifferent to the
conflict because of her doctrine and her spirit". Only the victory of
the military insurrection could ensure justice and peace. It described
the Communist revolution as "ruthless", "inhuman", "barbarous",
"anti-Spain" an, above all, "anti-Christian", briefly exposing the
facts and characteristics of the religious persecution which in a few
weeks had been worse than all other persecutions for the number of
victims and demonstrations of "hatred for Jesus Christ and his holy
religion".
It spoke of the characteristics of Spagna nacional and recalled the
words of Pius XI, who had said that the events in Spain were a real
form of martyrdom. It replied to those who accused the Church of being
rich, of attacking the nation from her churches and letting herself be
involved in the war. It affirmed the independence of the Church, the
fact that she was not connected with any power, although she welcomed
those who defended her against annihilation which was the aim of
Communism. Then came these enlightened words:
"With regard to the future we cannot foresee what
will happen at the end of the war. But we do assert that the war was
not undertaken to impose an autocratic state on a humiliated nation,
but to revive the national spirit with vigour and the Christian freedom
of former times.... We would be the first to grieve of the
irresponsible autocracy of a parliament were to be replaced by the most
terrible dictatorship not rooted in the nation. It is our legitimate
hope that this will not happen".
The Letter had a positive influence on the republican zone. The
Republic had shown itself to the world. The cruel persecution which had
lost considerable its consistence since the beginning in 1937,
diminished further. Nonetheless, another 332 victims were sacrificed
before the end of the war, most of them in 1937. (29)
Negrín's government and minister Irujo
1. Testimony and activity of Catholic government minister Manuel de
Irujo
On 17 May 1937 a new government was formed and presided by socialist
Juan Negrín. The minister of Justice was Manuel de Irujo, a
Catholic a member of the PNV, who already since 1936 had been a member
of the two governments led by Largo Caballero as Minister without
portfolio (30). Irujo worked courageously although in vain in those
governments to stop the religious persecution. On 9 January 1937 he
presented the Consejo de Ministros with a Memorandum bearing the date
of 7 January. The Memorandum described the situation of the
persecution, the detention and shooting of priests and religious, the
destruction and profanation or occupation of churches, destruction of
religious objects, of which even private possession was prohibited and
house searches in this regard. He called for the persecution to stop
for the good of the Republic and continued:
"Public opinion in the civilised world watches with
scorn, which turns to repulsion, the behaviour of the Republican
government, which has done nothing to prevent these acts of violence
and allows these things to happen in the form and content which
everyone sees. The revolutionary wave may be considered blind,
overwhelming and out of control since the very beginning. However, the
systematic destruction of churches, altars and sacred objects is no
longer uncontrolled activity. In fact the participation of official
bodies in the transformation of churches and sacred objects for
industrial purposes, the detention and execution in state prisons of
priests and religious, the continuity of a truly Fascist system in
whose name the individual consciences of believers in the intimacy of
their homes is violated day after day by the official public
authorities, all this, no longer has any possible explanation, and it
places the government of the Republic before the dilemma of its
complicity or its powerlessness".
He then demanded freedom for the priests and religious detained in
prison, respect for churches, an explicit declaration which affirmed
the legality of all religious practice and banned the police from
hindering religious practice in private homes.
The government rejected these petitions, which obtained only the
support of Irujo (31). This refusal and the accusations stated in the
Memorandum were irrefutable proof that the religious persecution was
not fortuitous, it was part of the Republican government's plans.
The situation did not change when Irujo was made head of the Ministry
of Justice in May 1937, in the first government led by Negrín.
Irujo's statement that as long as he was in charge of that Ministry,
the law would be respected and killing would stop, were taken as a joke
by the press. Irujo thought that the new government would back his
plans, but he obtained the freedom of very few priests, the majority
remained in prison. The measures taken by Irujo were virtually annulled
by other decrees issued by the government and the presidency. At the
end of July he presented a Bill to authorise public worship, which was
rejected. "In the face of this refusal Irujo reduced his aspirations
and at a meeting on 6 August urged the government to approve a bill
authorising worship in private, but his plea went unheard, although
many historiographers say that on 7 August a decree in this sense was
approved and the next day was published in the Gaceta became public. In
actual fact the decree was neither approved or published (32)". What
Irujo signed on 7 August was an ordinance that anyone who made false
accusations against the Republic would be punished "including those who
denounced a citizen for being a Priest or a Religious or for
administering Sacraments (33)
With regard to religious freedom, they merely opened two chapels in
Barcelona for the private worship of Basque residents. "The rest of the
Catholics were harassed as before and the Basques could only worship in
a sort of semi-legal hiding, the same as the other Catholics who
worshiped in tolerated hiding, in an atmosphere of semi permission, not
excluding frequent raids in homes where Catholic gathered to
participate in Mass or receive the Sacraments ". Negrín allowed
Irujo freedom of action, but did nothing to rectify the anti-religious
policies. The Minister of Justice continued to meet obstacles and in
the end presented his resignation on 11 December. He had even started
negotiations to establish diplomatic relations between the Republic and
the Holy See, but these too were unsuccessful, and in 1937 he ended his
mandate without the mentioned diplomatic relations, which would not be
reached even in 1938. (34)
2. Negrín's new government and programme with thirteen points
On 5 April 1938 Negrín formed his second government, in which
Irujo, already replaced following his resignation by Mariano
Ansó from Navarra, continued to participate as Minister without
portfolio until 17 August. The new government promised to create
national unity and to lay the foundations for a democratic republic
which would provide the outside world with an image of moderation. To
this end on 30 April it presented a programme with 13 points. The
document was widely publicised but received scarce credibility. Point 6
stated literally: "The Spanish state will guarantee all citizens full
rights in civil and social life, freedom of conscience and free
exercise of religious belief and practice ".
In the religious field, Negrín, more and more in the hands of
the Communists, was anxious to "normalise" the situation, but copying
the Soviet model, rather than that of the western democracies.
"At the religious level no progress had been made at all. When the
French ambassador M. Labonne arrived in Spain the spectacle which met
his eyes was one of total disappearance of religion, extinct, ‘under
the pall of the oppression of silence’. Negrín himself told the
Ambassador that ‘the reestablishment of religious practice had not yet
been examined seriously by the government', and this he said on 30 June
1938, two months since the formulation of the 13 points" (35)
The only concessions granted were that Basque exiles were allowed to
frequent two private chapels and religious could be assigned to health
care service, this latter order being motivated by a petition presented
by two Basque nationalists and rendered executive by Indalecio Prieto,
Minister of defence, in March 1938 (36).
Like the minister of defence, Negrín issued a decree on 25 June
1938, that all who requested it should receive spiritual assistance.
The Decree read: "All commanders of land, sea and air units will ensure
that those who request it may receive spiritual assistance from
ministers of the religion they profess". This decree was rarely put
into practice because the priests had either been sentenced to death
and executed, or moved to the Nacional zone, or left the country or
gone into hiding (37).
3. A complaint and a belated decree
No longer as a minister, but as a member of parliament, Irujo addressed
parliament at San Cugat del Vallés on 30 September 1938.
Complaining that the government had not implemented the law on
religion, he said:
"As a democratic liberal, and a fervent Christian,
and Catholic I feel bound to tell the government of the Republic that
the time has come to ensure that we Catholics have at our disposal a
church which is open. I made this request many times as a minister; I
do not intend here to discuss where or when, but I urge the ministers
seated here in this hall and all the members of parliament who are
listening, to go through Europe and see the concern of those peoples
who, aware that we are fighting for a democratic republic, fail to
understand how, after eighteen months, or perhaps even two years, of
taking control of all the negative situation which we are living in our
streets and with all the resources in the hands of the government as we
have just heard from the Prime Minister, we Catholics still have to go
to private chapels if we wish to fulfil the precepts of our religion"
(38)
The government of the Republic failed to implement its declarations and
programmes for religious freedom, except on paper. An interesting
decree was issued on 8 December 1938 to create a General Commissariat
for Religion. The measure showed obvious signs of self-defence, and an
attempt to keep face. It attributed the excesses of the war to the
country's reaction to defend its freedom in the face of certain Church
leaders who had omitted their duty to promote social harmony. It
announced that one of the war's goals was freedom of conscience and
that “the Republic has always nurtured deep respect for religious
convictions". The decree established "a General Commissariat for
Religion in charge of information, procedures and proposals in matters
relative to worship and religious activity in Spain"(39). Only four
months later, the war would end.
SOME TESTIMONIALS
They are many. Almost a thousand Blessed, another thousand whose causes
are ready to be entrusted to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints,
and another 900 cases on which our archdiocese of Toledo and that of
Avila have been working in recent years … However an even greater
number are still missing. We have chosen the following to offer them to
you as examples of life: God's saints, holy martyrs who gave everything
to the very end.
I BLESSED NARCISO DE ESTENAGA y ECHEVARRÍA
Bishop of Ciudad Real
He was born at Logroño on 29 October 1882 and baptised on 1
November. While still a child he lost his mother and father and was
given a home by charitable people who took him to Vitoria. Blessed
Joaquín de la Madrid Arespacochaga, beatified on 28 October
2007, put little Narciso, whose vivacity and intelligence deeply
impressed him, in the school for orphans and poor children which he
himself had opened in Toledo.
Under the priest's wise guidance, he started ecclesiastic studies at
the Seminary of Toledo, which culminated with a diploma and ordination
to the priesthood in 1907. Because of his exceptional gifts he was soon
appointed canon and then dean of the cathedral. On 20 November 1922 he
was appointed Bishop of Ciudad Real, where he was installed on 12
August 1923.
A man of spirit, which he transmitted to others with his deeds and
words, the activity of the new bishop extended to all fields.
When the situation became complicated, particularly in mid July 1936,
and the members of the Church were in danger, friends tried to persuade
the Bishop and his relations to leave the diocese and move to safety,
but he refused. He said: “My place is here”. Later, on the 26 or 27 of
July, they offered him another opportunity to escape, but his reply was
the same: "This is where I must be”. On 5 August a group of armed
soldiers came to the Bishops' residence and started a meticulous search.
The Bishop defended the tabernacle from imminent profanation. At one
point they threatened to kill the Prelate who knelt and said: "Kill
me". But they did not. On 12 August they were all told to leave the
Residence. They were taken in by a friendly family, where they stayed
until the 22. That day the troops attacked the house and took away the
Bishop and his secretary, who made no resistance. They took them along
the path for Peralvillo Bajo, towards the river and there they shot the
two men dead. Bishop Narciso was 53 years old. The next day the bodies
were seen and recognised by some local people. Taken to the local
cemetery they were put in two wooden coffins, and then buried at
Cabildo. On 10 May 1940 the body of Bishop Narciso was moved to the
cathedral.
2 BLESSED FRANCISCO MAQUEDA LÓPEZ
Born on 10 October, 1914 at Villacañas (Toledo). In 1925, not
yet 11 years old, he entered the minor seminary of Toledo. On 5 June
1936 he was ordained sub-deacon. The life of sub-deacon Francisco
Maqueda López was short; he was not even 22 when he encountered
death. Despite his youth, his was a life of marked human maturity and
strength of character. He also emerged for his ascetic and mystic
virtues. Still a very young boy, he felt called to the spiritual life
and the things of God. He wanted to learn - through reading - about the
lives of the saints, to whom he felt deeply drawn and whom he wished to
imitate. He always concentrated on his vocation. He distinguished
himself for his sincerity, justice and fortitude.
When the war broke out, young Maqueda had already been arrested once on
23 June 1936 for teaching Christian doctrine to children. He was fined
and released the next day. On 11 September he was arrested again. A few
hours earlier he had asked Rev Gonzalo Zaragoza to hear his confession.
It is known that the evening before he fasted, taking only bread and
water. Kneeling beside his mother he said: "Mother, give me your
blessing because I am going to heaven".
While those who took him away jeered at him, Francisco said goodbye to
his family for the last time: "Farewell mother, we will meet again in
heaven! Goodbye, goodbye everyone, we will see one other in heaven!".
From his home he was taken to the Hermitage of the Mother of Sorrows,
which the soldiers had made into a prison, and where they had put
fifteen other people, most of them young. Francisco immediately
gathered them together. His intention was to offer them spiritual
assistance to face death which was imminent. He said: "Let us prepare
ourselves, tonight they will send us to heaven. Will you join me in
praying the rosary to Our Lady?”. The others welcomed the idea and
knelt to pray with deep devotion in front of an image of the Blessed
Virgin Mary.
About midnight the troops came. They put the prisoners in a truck and
took them along the Andalusia regional road. Very close to Dosbarrios,
at km. 67, between the towns of La Guardia and Ocaña, they made
them descend from the truck; it was two in the morning of 12 September.
The prisoners went to their death praying and singing hymns, Francisco,
in their midst, with his arms uplifted. The soldiers said to him: "Your
father is over there”. And, although it was actually true, because a
few days earlier they had shot his father half a kilometre away, he
replied: “You are mistaken, my Father is in heaven ". Indignant, they
scorned him: "And you are still smiling?".
Imagining that the time was near, he asked to be the last to die so he
could help his brothers in Christ to die well. The soldiers stripped
the prisoners, leaving them half naked and, according to eyewitnesses,
opened fire on them from the legs downwards. Then they finished them
off with the knife.
3 SERVANT OF GOD - MOTHER CANDIDA DEL CUORE DI GESÙ
Who has never heard of Saint Maximilian Maria Kolbe? Who - without
exaggeration, in the whole world– has not heard of the testimony of
true charity offered by Fr Kolbe? Who does not know that he offered his
life in exchange for the life of a total stranger, a father of
children, and that he was able to console and lead to a good death, a
group of persons condemned to the bunker of death? And who in the end
was murdered with an injection of hydrochloric acid in the square of
Auschwitz concentration camp? It was 14 August 1941.
Some years earlier, on 21 May 1937, during the cruel civil war which
devastated our beloved Spain, Mother Candida del Cuore di Gesù
was another Kolbe of charity… The only difference was that instead of
giving her life for a stranger, she offered herself as a nun to die in
the place of her sister a married woman with young children. On both
occasions the executioner had a chance to add a "volunteer" to those
condemned; but on both occasions Mother Candida and Saint Maximilian
took the place of someone else giving their life, as did Our Lord Jesus
Christ: "There is no greater love than to give one's life for one's
friends ".
Cándida López-Romero y Gómez del Pulgar was born
at Mora de Toledo on 3 October 1895. The Society of Santa Teresa de
Gesù (Teresian sisters of St Henry of Ossò) arrived in
the district of Toledo in September 1920, to found, through Senorita
Maria Martin Maestro, Maria Immacolata College, which opened in the
month of October. Candida joined the Society on 6 June 1923, she took
her habit on 12 December of the same year, made her first vows on 12
December 1925 and her perpetual profession on 15 December 1928.
The present day community of the Teresian Sisters of Mora allowed us,
through the Mother House in Rome, to consult the Society's records
where there is a description of the person and the martyrdom of the
Servant of God. In the records we read Candida " allowed herself to be
moulded, as soft as wax, in the hands of her Superiors; simple,
ingenuous and always full of enthusiasm and optimism, her name Candida
suited her perfectly as a symbol of her life and her death".
Monseñor Antonio Montero recalls the case of this Teresian
sister in his “Historia de la persecución religiosa en
España (1936-1939)”. He recalls that when the civil war started
Mother Candida was destined to a school in Valenza. "She was forced to
live in the modest room of the school maid, after the sad experience of
being refused hospitality by some members of her family who lived in
that town but were afraid of the consequences of giving shelter to a
helpless nun ".
After various attempts she managed to reach her home town, but was
fiercely persecuted there from the moment she arrived. First of all she
was put in prison with her sisters who were hated because they taught
catechism in the parish. With courage and serenity which amazed her
torturers, she bore all sorts of vexation in prison, beating and cruel
torments which more than once made her spit blood. She was the set
target for the worst maltreatment; they denied her even the relief of a
chair on which to sit or a mattress on which to lay her painful limbs.
"Imprisoned on three occasions, once they pulled her out and took her
on a truck saying she was going for a tragic ‘walk’. To frighten her
even more, that asked if she would prefer to be poisoned or shot.
Mother Candida replied that they should decide which death was best for
her, and continued calmly to pray her rosary. Long weeks of humiliation
and suffering were lacking for her glory and triumph. Although that
night she saw so close the palm of victory, she could not yet grasp it
…".
The Curia report continues "so ingenuous in death as in life, she never
once tried to hide her condition as a bride of Jesus Christ, showing
holy pride with regard to her religious profession, which made her the
target of those cruel tormentors. She never abandoned her pious
practices, and so fervent was her devotion that one of the soldiers,
obsessed with the memory of his mother whom he had seen pray in the
same way, accompanied her more than once in the recitation of the
rosary ".
Enrique Líster declared with impunity in the review Triunfo (19
November 1977, n. 773), in reply to a question about the death of
numerous peasants and anarchists: "I had to establish a Court at Mora
de Toledo and take certain severe measures… Later they accused me of
having had this or that person shot. I relied, yes I had them shot and
would do it again whenever necessary. Because I was not fighting a war
to protect bandits or exploit farmers; I was fighting a war to give the
people freedom".
It is not difficult to imagine that if he did this to his own
co-religionists, what he would have done to those who had distinguished
themselves for defending the Church at Mora and had not been executed
in the first months of the war. As soon as Líster set foot in
the town, about twenty persons were arrested.
As far as it is known, on 21 May 1937, the soldiers went to the house
of the López-Romero family to arrest the two unmarried sisters
(Edmunda and Carmen) and a third married sister with young children
(one of whom, six years old at the time, was to become a priest). At
that moment Mother Candida came out of her hiding place and offered to
take the place of her sister, an exchange which the soldiers accepted.
At ten in the evening 20 people were pulled out of prison by an
international firing squad. They were taken out of the town to a place
near the local flour factory; they were murdered and the bodies were
thrown into a pit in the open countryside. What was even worse, as it
was seen when the bodies were exhumed, they had been savagely mutilated
and probably before death. Mother Candida is buried with the other
martyrs in the parish church at Mora. Her Cause has been at the
diocesan stage since 2002.
4 BLESSED CEFERINO GIMÉNEZ MALLA - The first member of the gypsy
people to be beatified
The son of Spanish gypsy parents, Blessed Ceferino Giménez
Malla, known as el Pelé, was born in Fraga (Huesca), probably on
26 August 1861, the feast day of Pope Saint Ceferino, after whom he was
named when he was baptised on the same day. Like his family Ceferino
was a gypsy who always lived as such, professing gypsy laws as he grew
up and later.
As a boy he walked the hills of the region selling baskets he made
himself. Still young he married with a gypsy wedding rite Teresa
Giménez de Castro, a gypsy from Lerida with a strong character.
The couple settled in Barbastro. In 1912 he legalised his union with
Teresa with a Catholic marriage. He then began to frequent church
becoming an exemplary Catholic. He had no children but adopted a niece
of his wife called Pepita.
El Pelé dedicated the best years of his life to trading cattle,
he was an expert in horses for the fairs in the region. He reached a
good social and economic position, which he put at the disposal of
people in need. Accused unjustly of theft and put in prison, he was
declared innocent. The lawyer who defended him said: el Pelé is
no thief, he is holy Ceferino, model for gypsies. Extremely honest, he
never cheated anyone in his trading.
At the beginning of the civil war he was arrested simply for openly
defending a priest who was being dragged through the streets of
Barbastro on the way to the prison, and for the fact that he carried a
rosary in his pocket. They offered to let him go if he promised to stop
praying the rosary. He chose to remain in prison and face martyrdom. At
dawn on 8 August 1936, he was shot against the wall of Barbastro
cemetery. He died with his rosary in his hands as he cried out his
faith: Long live Christ the King!
5 THE SERVANT OF GOD - SANTIAGO MOSQUERA y SUÁREZ DE FIGUEROA
In a work written by the famous Benedictine Fr Justo López de
Urbel, Los mártires de la Iglesia, there is a chapter dedicated
to the Servant of God Santiago Mosquera. In it we read: "He was a boy
of fifteen. It is difficult to see what kind of men would have
sufficient courage to murder a child. Sad to say the story is not new.
Since the beginning, the Church's footsteps have been marked with the
blood of infants. And this, on reflection, is highly significant …".
Santiago was born on 3 February 1920 at Villanueva de Alcardete
(Toledo). As his sister declares, he was extrovert, mischievous and
likeable boy.... They were eight, and like the first three Santiago was
a member of the Congregation of Saint Luis Gonzaga de Madrid. They were
educated at Jesuit schools. Ramón aged 24, an artillery man and
in his last year in Law at university, had been to the College of
Nuestra Señora del Recuerdo at Chamartín de la Rosa
(Madrid). José Maria and Luis, educated at Areneros (Madrid),
were preparing to enter respectively the Naval Academy and the Military
Academy. Santiago was educated at a school run by the Jesuits in
Estremoz (Portugal).
Santiago was 16 when the war started. On 25 July 1936 the soldiers came
to the home of the Mosquera family. They were looking for arms and
found two hunting rifles. The father was away from home. His brothers
Ramón and Luis were arrested. Santiago was indignant at the
unjust arrest and cried out: "Why? If everyone in town has a gun fir
hunting rabbits and partridges!". He too was arrested.
Taken to the parish church of St James the Apostle, which like many
other places had been turned into a prison, they were shut behind
padlocked iron gates in the side chapels. They were savagely
maltreated. They were held until 15 August the solemnity of the
Assumption. That day at dawn a group of twelve people was seen with the
parish of Villanueva de Alcardete at the head. They were shot about
three kilometres from La Villa de Don Fadrique. Ramón and Luis,
the brothers of Santiago were among the twelve.
In the meantime they arrested Santiago's mother, from whom they wanted
to know where her husband was hiding. The father, unaware of what was
happening, was on business in Portugal for the periodical El Debate.
After maltreating the mother physically and verbally they sent her home
saying that her son Santiago would be held until her husband
reappeared. Although the other brother, José Maria, had managed
to escape through the fields during the early weeks, he too was later
murdered on the road to Valenza.
Fray Justo Pérez de Urbel writes: "Santiago, an adolescent of
sixteen, deserved, even before his martyrdom, to be portrayed among the
images of angels in the procession of Jesus Christ the Spotless Lamb,
because of his goodness, docility, angelic purity, brotherly tenderness
and filial obedience ".
In the church-prison six people remained: next to Santiago was the
assistant priest of Villanueva parish, the Servant of God Eugenio Rubio
Pradillo. They tied Santiago to a pole. There followed the usual
horrible sing-song:
- Blaspheme.
- Never. Not even if you kill me.
A blow filled his mouth with blood.
- Blaspheme.
- You can hit me again. I will not blaspheme.
Another blow drew blood on blood. Tied to the pole, for two days he was
given nothing to eat or drink. By this time the boy was groaning with
pain...
- If you do what we do...you will eat and we will
spare your life.
The young man closed his eyes and gave no reply.
- Open your eyes or I will shoot you.
One of the criminals stuck a pistol in the boy's stomach.
- I do not want to see.
- You don't want to see us…? Now you will see, you
will see the stars!
And they struck Santiago's face with a rod again and again.
It is pointless to prolong for the reader the martyrdom of describing
what they did to that young boy. Comparable with the authentic
martyrdom of the early centuries, with the Roman persecutions, updated
with such truthfulness that we seem almost to hear Tarcisius, Cecilia,
Eulogius, Sixtus or Cornelius...
The night of 24 August 1936, the six remaining prisoners were taken to
the cemetery of Villanueva de Alcardete to be shot.
It is Fray Justo who continues his narration: “They are already against
the war. One round of fire, two rounds of fire and the crime was
committed". Santiago did not die, he was seriously wounded by the rifle
shots in both legs. The scene was Dantesque. "We want to help the
reader imagine the scene. A boy with his legs were shattered by shots,
lies among the corpses of his friends in a cemetery for a whole
night.... and he still trusted in the pity of men …".
Every 25 August Villanueva remembers with horror the end of the story.
Although he attempted to move it was impossible. He waited for dawn.
Santiago heard someone coming: "It was the gravedigger. Confidence
grows in the breast of Santiago, his hope increases and his heart beat
quickens, he says: have pity on me, good man, have pity on me!”.
The answer is better not told. Eyewitnesses say the grave digger tried
once again to make him blaspheme against God and the Blessed Virgin
Mary, but Santiago said he could not, it was a sin against God. The
grave digger said if he refused to blaspheme he would kill him and to
this Santiago replied: "I prefer to die rather than offend God ". The
cruel assassin raised a pickaxe and with one blow put an end to the
boy's life.
Several witnesses tell how after the war, when no one knew where it had
been buried, his body was discovered miraculously.... He had his rosary
in the left hand and his face reflected the serenity of an encounter
with God.
We write these few lines close to a relic of the Servant of God. A
white ribbon on which is written: "In memory of my First Holy
Communion". It is one of those ribbons which children used to wear on
the shoulder of their 1st Communion dress. The Postulators preserve it
as a precious treasure. His Cause was started in 2002. Dossier prepared
by Rev. Jorge López Teulón, Postulator of the Cause for
the Beatication of the martyrs of the diocese of Toledo, and by Fr.
Marcón Rincón Cruz, O.F.M.
1. Los mitos de la guerra civil, 34ª ed., Madrid
December 2004, 189, 193. On the civil war in general, cf. ibid., espec.
21-77, 183-195; P. Moa, El derrumbe de la segunda república y la
guerra civil (ed. Encuentro, Ensayos 173), Madrid 2001, 510-557; W. J.
Callahan, La Iglesia Católica, cit., 273-286.
2. Joint Letter, n. 3, Nuestra posición ante la
guerra.
3. Cf. MADARIAGA, ibid.
4. C. VIDAL, Paracuellos, cit., 109, 110 y cf. 111.
5. Cf. GARCIA ESCUDERO, o.c., III, 1316-1321, 1359-1360
(words in inverted commas taken from page 1319); MADARIAGA, o.c.,
379-380.
6. Claridad, 24 (21-12-1935) 8; 29 (15-1-1936) 1 y 7. El
Socialista, 8.040 (23-1-1936) 3.
7. Gobierno de Largo Caballero: Gaceta M, 249 (5-9-1936)
1671-1672; VOLTES, Tablas, cit., 97-98; Cf. GARCIA ESCUDERO, ibid.,
1366-1368.
8. Pellizcos y coscorrones, in El Pueblo, de Huesca, 1.014
(2-3-1936) 1. See press references in MONTERO, o.c., 34-39.
9. La enseñanza confesional para los trabajadores
de la enseñanza (signed by Gabriel García Maroto), in ABC
Madrid, 10.347 (28-7-1936) 25; Serenidad de la República, ibid.,
10.362 (14-8-1936) 6.
10. La Vanguardia, 22.585 (2-8-1936) 3. La Batalla, 14
(18-8-1936) 8; 15 (19-8-1936) 1
11. ¡ABAJO LA IGLESIA!, en Solidaridad Obrera, 1.353
(15-8-1936) 1; La Máscara y el Rostro. La libertad de cultos,
(firmado por Ezequiel Endériz), ibid., 1597 (25-5-1937) 3; Un
poco de demagogia, (by the same author), ibid., 1599 (27-5-1937) 3.
12. Decreto del Ministerio de Justicia; Gaceta M, 226
(13-8-1936) 1222-1223.
13. CARCEL ORTI, V., La persecución..., cit., 219.
14. Cf. MONTERO, o.c., 36, con nota 51. Governments between 1936
and 1937: VOLTES, Tablas, cit., 98-100
15. Cf. BAU, C., La persecuzione religiosa..., cit. 27-28; SALAS
LARRAZABAL, Historia General de la Guerra, cit., 60-69; TAMAMES, La
República. La era de Franco, cit., 236-240; TUÑON, La
España del siglo XX, cit., III, 529-550.
16. 16 G. RODRÍGUEZ FERNÁNDEZ, in his book El
hábito y la cruz (Madrid 2006), estimates that 296 women
religious of 62 different orders were slain.
17. Cf. IRIBARREN, J., Doc Col, Introducción, 42-43:
MONTERO, o.c., 762; en 763-768, figures of the dead by diocese and
religious institutes.
18. Cf. MONTERO, 61, 209, 301-302.
19. Cf. ID., 62; PORSI, L., Informatio, Positio super martyrio
servarum Dei Mariae Pilar a S. Francisco de Borgia duarumque sociarum,
monialium Ord. Carm., Roma 1983, 33-36
20. Cf. MONTERO, 79, nota 72; BAU, o.c., 59-61. Ver Memorandum
de M. de Irujo en PALACIO ATARD, Cinco Historias de la
República, cit. 82 y 86. Cf. CARCEL ORTI, V., La
persecuión..., cit. 222-223.
21. Cf. MONTERO, 209-541; AMBROGI, A.- MOCCIA, F., Informatio,
Positio super martyrio servorum Dei Nicephori a Jesu et Maria et XXV
sociorum, Roma 1987, 86, n. 32.
22. Cf. MONTERO, 541-589 y 79, note 72. A case worth mentioning:
"
23. "When the legionaries of Beorlegui entered San
Sebastián, the 'jelkides' had established a sort of 'holy guard'
at the doors of the churches.- ¡Eh...! ¿What are you doing
here? - they demanded.- we are guarding the churches -they replied-,
certain that as Christians you will be grateful to us for this service.
Their reply was: - ¡you are under arrest! This was the reply of
those ingenuous Catholic combatants and two hours later they were shot
dead unawares of thegreatness of their act." (E. ENDERIZ, La
Máscara y el Rostro. La libertad de cultos, en Solidaridad
Obrera, 1597 (25-5-1937) 3. Cf. CARCEL ORTI, V., La
persecución..., cit., 248.
24. Cf. MONTERO, especially 589-626.
25. ID., 67-68 y 627-653. Pages 629-630 figures by diocese of
destroyed churches.
26. ID., 79; the same 63-66 y 69.
27. Los mitos de la guerra civil, cit., 223, 229, 231, 233,
235-236. With regard to the words “al reanudarse la contienda”, it is
necessary to keep in mind that for the author this started with the
revolution of October 1934, as we explain when treating this point.
28. See the three documents in MONTERO, o.c., 682-708.
29. Speech by Pius XI: AAS, 28 (1936) 373-381; also in El
Vaticano y España. Hitos documentales desde 1936, ed. N. LOPEZ
MARTINEZ, edic. Aldecoa, Burgos 1972, 25-46. Mensaje
radiofónico: AAS, 29 (1937) 6-8; El Vaticano y España,
cit., 47-48. Encíclica Divini Redemptoris: AAS, 29 (1937)
65-106; Col. Enc., I, Madrid 1967, 154-177. (paragraphs relative to
Russia, Mexico and Spain (19-24), pages 159-160). Pius XII, Radio
message 16 April 1939, congratulations "por el don de la paz y la
victoria con que Dios se ha dignado coronar el heroísmo
cristiano de vuestra fe y caridad", gave a Christian sense to the
victory and recalled texts cited by his predecessor. (Cf. AAS, 31
(1939) 131-154, y El Vaticano y España, cit., 69-72.
30. Texts cited in the Joint Letter: Doc Col, 224, 230, 238.
Text of the Letter, 219-242. We prescind from the political aspects of
the Letter which are foreign to the finalities of our exposition.
Letter from secretary of state to Cardinal Primado, Gomá, in El
Vaticano y España, cit., 55-56. For historical dates at this
point, cf. IRIBARREN, Doc Col, cit., Introducción, 42-44;
MONTERO, o.c., 71-75; CARCEL ORTI, La Iglesia durante la II
República, cit., 379-380; SALAS LARRAZABAL, Historia General de
la Guerra, cit., 239-241.
31. VOLTES, Tablas, cit., 98-100.
32. Cf. PALACIO ATARD, Cinco Historias de la República,
cit., 81-89. El Memorandum, partly reproduced by ATARD, complete text
published the brother of Manuel de Irujo, Andrés, under the
pseudonymom A. de LIZARRA, en "Los vascos y la República
Española. Contribución a la historia de la guerra civil,
Buenos Aires 1944, 201 ss.
33. SALAS LARRAZABAL, o.c., 242. Although most books and
articles (including MONTERO) say the 7 August 1937 was the date of the
decree authorising Catholic worship, the affirmation of the SALAS
brothers is reliable. The decree did not appear in the Gaceta de la
República.
34. Orden del Ministerio de Justicia: Gaceta R, 224 (12-8-1937)
590-591.
35. Cf. SALAS LARRAZABAL, o.c., 242-243; PALACIO ATARD, o.c.,
89-116.
36. SALAS LARRAZABAL, ibid., 335, Cf. 334-336; TUÑON DE
LARA, o.c., 744-745; VOLTES, Tablas, cit., 100. Los 13 puntos del
Gobierno: DIAZ-PLAJA, F., La guerra de España en sus documentos,
cit., 323-325.
37. Orden del Ministerio de Defensa del 1 de marzo: DOMDN,
Barcelona, 53 (3-3-1938) 637. Cf. SALAS LARRAZABAL, o.c., 335.
38. Orden del 25 de junio: DOMDN, 157 (26-6-1938) 1091. Cf.
también SALAS LARRAZABAL, o.c., 336.
39. LIZARRA, A. de, Los Vascos y la República, cit., 255,
cit. en PALACIO ATARD, Cinco Historias de la República, 118.
40. Gaceta R, 343 (9-12-1938) 1004.
Dossier by P.L.R. - Agenzia Fides 19/3/2008; Editor Luca de Mata
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