8 Spain, the Catholic Church and the Civil War

Nowhere more than in Spain has the Catholic Church striven throughout the centuries to control all aspects of the nation’s life. Whether that is due to the Spanish temperament, which is inclined to extremism and falls in with the dogmatics of Catholicism, or whether it is due to other factors, the Catholic Church, from the early Middle Ages up to the present, has been a paramount power, shaping the cultural, social, economic, and political vicissitudes of that country.

In spite of the Church’s stranglehold on Spain, the Church and people have had turbulent relations since the very beginning. Although it was a Spaniard, the Emperor Theodosius, who in the year 380, under Pope Damasus (son of a Spaniard), first introduced the scheme of a partnership of Church and State, the Spanish people have always evinced resistance to Rome.

Rome and the ultra-Catholics in Spain, mortal enemies of even the slightest trend towards Liberalism, won the day in 1851. A Concordat was concluded, by which the State pledged that the Roman Catholic Religion was the only religion in Spain; other religious services were strictly forbidden; the Church could keep the closest supervision over both private schools and universities through its bishops, whose task was to make sure that all education was in absolute harmony with Catholicism. According to clauses in the Concordat the State promised to aid the bishops in suppressing any attempt to pervert believers and in preventing the circulation or publication of harmful papers or books. Every activity in Spain was controlled by the whims of the Church.

But the Democratic Constitution of 1869, while still pledges the State to pay the expenses of Church and clergy, infuriated the Catholic Church, for it at the same time granted religious freedom, freedom of teaching, and freedom of the Press. When the Civil War which followed, and in which the Catholic Church played a leading part, ended in victory for the moderate reactionary elements (1875), the Church once again tried to put the clock back, and in another of its attempts to stamp out the flames of Liberalism and religious and political freedom, it exerted all its power to force upon the unwilling Spanish people the Concordat of 1851.

The Church got almost, but not quite, all that it wanted. The new Constitution of 1876 had clauses by which the Catholic religion was declared to be the only religion of the State, the Catholic clergy and Church’s services were paid by the Government, and no other manifestations except those of the Catholic Church were permitted. Yet the Conservative Leader, Canovas, ignoring all the Pope’s protests and the Catholics’ threats, inserted also clauses by which no one could be prosecuted in Spanish territory for his religious opinions or his religious worship. Even such limited tolerance was fought by the Catholic Church during the closing decades of the last and the opening decades of the twentieth century. Henceforward it remained obstinately at the forefront, claiming more and more restriction of the religious and political liberties of the Spanish people, and forcing its rule upon them in all walks of life.

The successful rivals of the Catholic Church were the execrated Liberals, who, in spite of enormous opposition from the Church and Conservative elements, made persistent efforts to rid Spain of the religious encroachment of Catholicism. In virtue of the Constitution, they disputed the right of bishops to inspect private schools or to compel student of State schools to attend religious instruction. They demanded that in universities there should be no religious teaching, and that there should be freedom of the Press and other such liberties compatible with the Liberal and democratic principles of the modern State.

The Vatican’s relentless battle against Liberalism during the second half of the nineteenth century, although in many European countries a lost battle, was more successful in Spain. Here the people still remained at the mercy of the Catholic Church, and laws of a civil, social, and even economic and political nature were directly and indirectly made to fit within the framework of the ethical and social principles sponsored by the Church. The Catholic Church reigned everywhere, in schools, in the Press, in the courts, in the Government, in the Army; sustained by a militant and obdurate Hierarchy, wealthy religious Orders, the great landlords, and the Monarchy. It penetrated everywhere, but above all to places of power, and was able to imbue with its spirit of reaction the whole nation, and obstruct the efforts of all those (mainly Liberals) who tried to bring in the fresh wind of a new age.

The Catholic Church preached against democratic principles, asserting that as the masses could not wield the power which derives only from God, it was wrong of them to claim self-government. Thus it nipped in the bud any leaning towards self-government and collective responsibility, hampered the freedom of the Press, combated Modernism and the like and any ideas of emancipation of the lower classes or of women, and any wish for religious toleration or the introduction of divorce.

To show to what extent the Catholic Church in Spain was against any progressive ideas, it should be sufficient to point out that the secondary schools. The Catholic Church controlled, through the Catholic municipalities, almost all the State schools, in addition to its own, and it taught pupils that if they associated with Liberals, they went to hell. This frame of mind still existed in the third decade of the twentieth century, when a complete Church Catechism was republished and distributed in the schools (1927).

The book declares that the State must be subject to the Church as the body to the soul, as the temporal to the eternal. It enumerates the errors of Liberalism―namely, liberty of conscience, of education, of propaganda, of meetings, of speech, of the Press, stating categorically that it is heretical to believe in such principles. We quote some typical extracts:

“What does Liberalism teach? ”

“That the State is independent of the Church.”

“What kind of sin is Liberalism? ”

“It is a most grievous sin against Faith.”

“Why? ”

“Because it consists of a collection of heresies condemned by the Church.”

“Is it a sin for a Catholic to read a Liberal newspaper? ”

“He may read the Stock Exchange News.”

“What sin is committed by him who votes for a Liberal candidate? ”

“Generally a mortal sin.”

This incredible Catholic antagonism reached all strata of Spanish society, from the lowest to the highest, including the King himself. In 1910 the young King’s tutor and confessor, Father Montana, stated in El Siglo Futuro, that Liberalism was a sin and that Spaniards who ate with Protestants were excommunicated (H. B. Clarke).

It is easy to imagine the state of education and of preparation in social and political spheres of the Spanish people when this policy was enforced for decades. In 1870 more than 60 per cent of the population of Spain was illiterate. In 1900 the budget for education, including the State subvention to monastic schools, was 17,000,000 pesetas. In 1930, although increased to 166,000,000, it was still inadequate, of which the best proof is that in Madrid alone more than 80,000 children did not attend school. And those children who were fortunate enough to attend school. And those children who were fortunate enough to attend schools (generally supervised by the parish priests) were taught so little that “parents used to complain that in State schools the children passed half their class hours in saying the Rosary and in absorbing sacred history, and never learned to read” (see The Spanish Labyrinth, Brenan).

While exerting a virtual dictatorship on the mind, the Catholic Church also controlled an immense portion of the country’s wealth; and although it had lost millions of members during the last sixty years, yet from about 1874 until the fall of the Monarchy (1931) it steadily gained in riches and influence. On the death of Alfonso XII, the Queen Regent, in return for Leo’s protection, gave vast sums to the Catholic Church and to Catholic schools and colleges, which were populated by French clergy who had left France owing to the Secularization laws. The Vatican, the Spanish Hierarchy, the Queen and French Catholics worked hand in hand in a supreme effort to stamp out “Liberal Atheism.” A wave of clericalism swept Spain, which was crowded with more convents, colleges, and religious foundations than it had ever been before.

The leaders of this movement were the Jesuits (see Chapter 5), who had employed their riches to acquire political power (and vice versa) for centuries. Their wealth became so great that by 1912 they controlled “without exaggeration one-third of the capital wealth of Spain” (La Revue, J. Aguilera, Secretary of the Fomento, 1912). They owned railways, mines, factories, banks, shipping companies, and orange plantations, their working capital amounting to something like £60,000,000 sterling.

Their control of this wealth was certainly not a healthy thing for a nation like Spain, whose middle and lower classes lived in the most appalling economic misery. And when one considers that in order to keep and invest this money the Catholic Church had to preserve the status quo and keep in intimate alliance with the rich who gave them bequests, very often in return for the Church’s protection of the upper classes, it is easy to see that the fate of the Church was bound up with that of the most reactionary elements, in league against any cultural, economic, social, or political innovations. The result was that Spain was controlled by ruling castes, trying to maintain a past long since dead all over the rest of Europe.

To a great extent because of this the Catholic Church continued to lose adherents on a more and more alarming scale. By 1910 more than two-thirds of the population were no longer Catholic, and civil marriages and funerals had become common. On the fall of the Monarchy, skepticism and hostility towards the Catholic Church reached dangerous heights. According to Father Peiro, only 5 per cent of the villagers of Central Spain attended Mass; in Andalusia 1 per cent. and in many villages the priest said Mass alone. In a Madrid parish, from a population of 80,000 only 3 1/2 per cent attended Mass, 25 per cent of the children born were not baptized, and more than 40 per cent died without sacraments.

The reason for this, besides that of the age, was the obscurantism of the Catholic Church, its wealth, and the militant attitude of the Hierarchy in the political life of the nation.

The Catholic Church had tried to organize the working classes in order to rule them the better; in reality the workers’ interests were completely neglected. It is clear that all these movements were in nature a trap to tame the restless Catholic workers and thus prevent them from joining those who had already rejected the Catholic Church. The most anticlerical were the urban working classes, where Anarcho-Syndicalism spread like wildfire.

For there the Church was identified with the big landlords and exploiters, and the attitude of the Church towards the workers could be summed up by the words of Bravo Murillo, who is reputed to have declared: “You want me to authorize a school at which 600 working men are to attend? Not in my time. Here we don’t want men who think but oxen who work.” No wonder that, in face of this state of affairs, the Spanish people developed a dangerous streak of economical-social extremism, and that the working classes, instead of thinking of bringing about changes in the form of Socialism, thought of changes in the shape of Anarchism and Syndicalism.

When confronted with activities of this kind the Church, the Monarchy, and the ruling classes united to bring out the most ruthless methods of repression. In their endeavor to keep the status quo they persisted for more than half a century in persecuting all those elements aspiring to bring about change―not only the extremists, but also the moderates and anyone suspected of having revolutionary sympathy. From 1890 until the outbreak of the First World War, Spain was transformed into a gigantic prison; there were wholesale arrests, thousands were imprisoned, hundreds were shot, and methods of torture used in former times against heretics were employed against political prisoners.

In spite of this, and owing chiefly to the earthquake of war, the wave of unrest which swept the Continent, and the ideas of modern Spanish writers such as Galdos and Ibanez, the Spanish people began to move menacingly. The Catholic Church (which continued to lose the masses), the King (fearing the exposure of gross scandal), the Army, and the landlords―all conspired and set up one of the first post-war dictators, the aristocrat General de Rivera, in 1923. (The previous year, 1922, Mussolini had taken power in Italy.) The few liberties hitherto enjoyed by the Spanish people disappeared; the economic and social misery deepened; and, under the superficial screen of order maintained by the police, the dictator and his allies, and by the Hierarchy of the Catholic Church, the condition of the Spanish people grew worse than ever. The status quo was maintained, or rather movement backward ensued. The grant for education fell from 37.000. 000 to 33,000,000 pesetas; while the appropriation for the clergy rose from 62.000. 000 to 68,000,000 thus adding more wealth to the already colossal riches of the Catholic Church.

The dictatorship at one time was supported by many moderate Spaniards, tired of the old regime, who hoped that it would end with the summoning of the Constituent Cortes. It now became but a regime in which only the word of the dictator counted, whose pillars were espionage, repression, and censorship. Even the Army withdrew its support; and the new totalitarian regime, which reached its highest peak in 1926, had by 1928 come to be hated even by many of its supporters―with the exception of the Catholic Church and the most rabid Conservatives―and by January 1930 it had come to an end.

All the suppressed forces of the Spanish people emerged to the open light and boldly asked for the expulsion of the Catholic Monarchy and the disestablishment of the Catholic Church.

In 1931, at the municipal elections, the vote for the Republican-Socialist alliance was in many towns three to one. When, on the following day, the results were made known, the King hurriedly left the country, making France his headquarters. The general elections took place two months later; the Republicans (Liberals) won 145 seats, the Socialists 114, the Radical- Socialists 56, while all other Catholic and Conservative parties together obtained 121 seats.

As Azana declared at the Cortes, Spain had “ceased to be a Catholic country. ” The Monarchy was abolished; a Republic was declared; and during the following three years Spain began to open her gates to those reforms which the Catholic Church, the Monarchy, and their allies had so persistently prevented. The Cortes passed laws disestablishing and disendowing the immense wealth of the Catholic Church; expelling the Jesuits, who for so many years had been the minds behind the Catholic dictatorships; forbidding monks and nuns to tamper with trade and, above all, education, in which the Catholic Church had had a monopoly. Marriage was secularized, divorce introduced, and freedom of speech, of the Press, and religious tolerance were proclaimed everywhere.

The Catholic Church, through its Hierarchy and through the Vatican, fought by all means in its power, appealing to the religious conscience of the people not to let the “Red AntiChrist’s” rule Spain, but to “get rid of the enemies of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ” (Cardinal Segura). The Catholic Church in Spain, led by its Primate, published a pastoral letter of the Spanish bishops; while at the same time the Pope wrote an encyclical (June 3, 1933). Both invited the faithful to join “a holy crusade for the integral restoration of the Church’s right.” Cardinals and bishops continued to write and to preach to the people, inciting them against the Government and asking for open revolt.

Unlike the Catholic regimes of the past, the new Government, true to the principle of freedom, did not want reprisals, and anti-clerical parties, after their electoral triumphs, refrained from any victimization. It was only after almost a month had passed (twenty-seven days after the elections) that workers, enraged by the fanatical anathemas of the Catholic Church and by Cardinal Segura’s incitement to revolt, began to fire churches and monasteries. These acts of violence led to more, and the anti-Catholic parties, which had shown remarkable tolerance, had to resort to force in face of the continuous provocation and threats of the Catholic Church and its backers. The Church and its adherents constituted the reactionary forces of the former regimes, together with the most backward stratum of the peasantry, which, thanks to the Catholic Church, was still 80 per cent illiterate in the third decade of the twentieth century.

The Catholic Church organized itself to fight its opponent on their own ground―namely, through a political party. The Jesuits were once again the instruments of the new tactics. They tried to imitate the Centre Party in Germany, maintaining that the party must be composed not only of landlords, and Army officers, but also of the masses. Such a party was founded in 1931, and was known as Accion Popular, being the political branch of Catholic Action (see Chapter 5), Accion Catolica.

The policy of the party was to tolerate the Republic, but to fight it and to destroy its anti-Catholic laws by penetrating into the anti-Catholic Government through political channels. Thus, after having brought disruption into the enemy’s field, the party would try to seize political power. It was the tactic of the Trojan horse.

The Vatican, having reached the conclusion that new methods had to be employed, gave order to the Spanish Hierarchy to abandon their intransigence and follow the new lead. The chief controller of this new Catholic movement was the director of the paper controlled by the Jesuits (Debate―Angel Herrera) who put forward a Catholic leader,

Gil Robles, a pupil of the Silesian Fathers. Gil Robles visited Hitler, Dolfuss, and others, became an enthusiastic admirer of the Nazis, and began to talk of creating a Catholic Corporate State in Spain, as Dolfuss had done in Austria (see Chapter on Austria).

A blatant, nation-wide campaign of propaganda after the German style was initiated, the Catholic Hierarchy supporting it from churches and Catholic papers. It succeeded so well that Gil Robles, having contacted the Radicals, found common ground on which to co-operate―owing chiefly to economic problems―with the result that the Liberal leader, Lerroux, against the will of the Government, admitted Catholics into the Cabinet.

Meanwhile, those workers who were looking forward to a radical economic and social change became convinced that co-operation of the Liberals and Catholics and the procrastination of the Socialists would not bring about such changes, and organized a revolt which ended in utter failure (1933). The suppression of the revolt was so ruthless, the atrocities committed against the workers taken prisoner so appalling, that when a full inquiry was made the indignation of the whole of Spain was so great that Lerroux had to resign.

Two noteworthy facts emerge from this incident: the ferocity against the insurgents caused by the police, composed of Catholics determined to “exterminate these Godless enemies of the Church, ” and by the Moors. The Moors were brought from Africa to Spain by General Francisco Franco, who, shortly before the attempted rebellion, had a long interview with the War Minister. The latter had received instructions from Gil Robles to ask Franco to employ the Moors against the Reds. Gil Robles and the Catholic Church were already in close touch, and had already agreed to support each other when necessary.

By this time the Catholic Party had grown in influence, owing chiefly to disruption of the hostile camp and to the second step taken by the Catholics in their quest for power. By 1935 the Catholics had discarded almost all pretence of respect for legality, and became so emboldened that they organized their rank and file on the model of the Fascists and the Nazis, threatening and beating their opponents. Gil Robles had already prepared schemes for the abolition of divorce, for compulsory religious teaching, for the creation of a Spanish Corporate State, and so on.

But, not being as yet sure that they would secure authority so easily and so quickly, the Catholics were also preparing to fight the Republic with armies. They amalgamated political and military means in their bid for power. Gil Robles demanded and obtained the Ministry of War. Once installed, with General Franco as his right-hand man, he began to reorganize the Army, eliminating all officers suspected of Left tendencies. He built concrete trenches overlooking Madrid (at Sierra Guadarrama), and took over the command of the Civil Guards. In short, under the very nose of the Republic the Catholics took all the necessary steps to resort to open revolt if they were not able to attain power by political means. Riots broke out everywhere and there were many political murders throughout the year 1935 and early in 1936.

Meanwhile, the Left tried to unite, and Radical-Socialists, Socialists, Syndicalists, and Communists at last formed the Popular Front.

The fury of the Catholics knew no bounds, and, as well as the Catholic parties, the Church itself came to their aid. The Spanish Hierarchy, which had been working hand in hand with Gil Robles, directly and indirectly assisting his campaign, at this stage went farther. About a month before the general elections of 1936 Cardinal Goma y Tomas wrote a pastoral (January 24, 1936) in which he publicly aligned himself and the Catholic Church with the Accion Popular and with the others making up the C. E. D. A., and hurled anathemas against the Popular Front, urging the Faithful to vote against the Reds.

President Alcala’ Zamora, seeing the impossibility of maintaining a majority in the Cortes, signed an order for its dissolution. Polling day was fixed for February 16, 1936. The Popular Front gained an overwhelming majority, with 267 seats against 132 obtained by the Right, and 62 by the Centre.

The victory of the Popular Front fired the working classes with enthusiasm and gave the Catholics one their biggest shocks, as they had been confident of success. Panic followed the announcement of the results. The Catholics and the Right feared that the Socialists would rise in arms and create a Red Socialist Republic; while, on the other hand, the Socialists feared that the Right, seeing their hope of power smashed, would stage a coup d’ etat. This fear was well founded, for the Catholics had been preparing for just such an emergency. Their first and second steps having failed, a third would have to be tried: that of open rebellion.

And so the Vatican, with the Leaders of the Spanish Hierarchy and those who would lead such a rebellion, from that time onwards applied their thoughts to the question of how best to crush their victorious enemies.

Having seen that its first policy of acquiring power through political means had failed, as it had failed before in other countries, and that its second and bolder policy of seizing power by a semi-legal coup d’ etat had also failed, the Vatican was determined that force must be used. It was the only way left open to the Church, which had to count on the support of a minority in order to rule a hostile majority, and impose a Catholic Government upon the Spanish people. The move had been made all the more urgent by the result of the last election, when it had become clear that the Catholic Church had the support of less than one-third of the entire Spanish electorate, including the millions of women who were given the right to vote by the Republic and voted solidly for the Church, when even sick nuns were brought on stretchers to the polls.

Elements of the Right, led by Catholics, began, after the February defeat, openly to organize a campaign of violence. The Falange Espanola―founded in 1932 by the son of Primo de Rivera―although it had in 1934 merged with a Fascist group of Dr. Alvinana, and until the 1936 elections had remained insignificant, now came quickly to the foreground. The followers of Gil Robles, burning with desire to smash the Republic with violence, swelled the ranks of the Falange. The whole Catholic Youth Organization― under its Secretary, Serrano Suner, brother-in-law of General Franco―joined the Falange in April, while others flocked into the ranks of the Monarchists, whose leader, Calvo Sotelo, openly favored a military rising.

The Falangists began to beat up and murder their opponents, including tepid Catholics; they combed the streets of Madrid with machine-guns, killing judges, journalists, and especially Socialists, in an exact imitation of the Italian Fascists and the Nazi Storm Troops. Battles between the Falangists and the Republicans became a daily occurrence all over Spain.

In addition to the Falange, there was another movement, formed by Army officers belonging to the Union Militar Espanola, who, with a view to a military rising, had been in touch with the Italian Government as far back as 1933. Their chief had conducted secret negotiations with Mussolini in March of that year; and by March 1934 they had already planned for a coup d’ etat, with the co-operation of the Catholic Church and the Army. Previous to this they had visited Italy in order to secure “not only the support of the Italian Government, but also of the Fascist Party, in the event of the outbreak of civil war in Spain” (from a speech by Goicoechea at San Sebastian, on November 22, 1937— reported in the Manchester Guardian, December 4, 1937).

The co-ordination of plans for civil war of the Monarchists and the Catholics, backed by the Vatican and Mussolini, was so far advanced that, immediately after the victory of the Popular Front, the Catholic leaders, Gil Robles and General Franco, had the effrontery to propose to the Republican Prime Minister himself a military coup d’ etat before the new Cortes could meet (Declaration of Portela Valladares, ex Prime-Minister, at a meeting of the Cortes in Valencia, in 1937).

The spring and early summer of 1936 passed in an atmosphere of growing tension: strikes, battles, and murders followed one another in quick succession. By June, responsible people knew that a military rising was imminent. The Republicas asked the Government for arms, but were refused. On June 13, in reprisal for the murder of Socialists by Falangists a few days before, Calvo Sotelo was assassinated by Socialists.

The vast organization of the Catholics, the Monarchists, and their allies stood ready; and, at last, on July 16, 1936, the Army in the Spanish zone of Morocco rose and occupied Ceuta and Melilla. Officers rose in almost every Spanish town. The Catholic Hierarchy, which had followed the plot from the very beginning, asked for the blessing of the Almighty on the new Crusade; while the Catholic General Franco hastened to tell the Pope, before the news reached any other capital, that the revolt had begun. The Spanish Civil War had broken out.

The Catholic rebels expected to take the whole of Spain within a few days. They had made very careful preparations, and had at their disposal the greater part of the armed forces of the country, the Civil Guard, the Foreign Legion, a division of Moorish troops, four-fifths of the infantry and artillery officers, reliable regiments recruited in the north, Carlist levies which had been training secretly, and the promise of Italian and German tanks and war planes.

The Government, on the other hand, had only the Republican Assault Guards and a small Air Force. Yet the enthusiasm of the Spanish people disrupted Franco’s coup and he had to rely more and more on help from Mussolini and Hitler, who, knowing beforehand of the plot, sent arms and men from the very beginning. Russia intervened only in September. Soon the Spanish conflict became an international one. Its real nature was evident. It was an anticipatory struggle, in Spanish territory, of what was to tear the whole world asunder a few years later; an ideological conflict in which social systems and political doctrines, represented by various nations, took part: Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, and Franco (and later on the democracies―France, Great Britain) on one side, and the Republican Spain and Soviet Russia on the other side.

Even the Protestant United States of America intervened in the struggle and helped Franco, thanks to the American Catholic clergy, who mobilized to influence public opinion in favor of the rebels. The result was that the Republic was denied facilities to buy arms practically everywhere in Europe and also in the only open market left to her, namely the United States of America. This was done, not only by unleashing the most unscrupulous propaganda in the Catholic Press and the pulpit and using the Catholic Church’s influence in American politics, but, above all, by appealing directly to the State Department, where the Vatican found more ready help than it had dared to expect.

Thus not only the Governments of practically all European countries―Catholic, Fascist, or democratic―but also the powerful Protestant United States were against the Republic. Of the democratic nations, Great Britain, having undertaken a policy of appeasement towards Fascism, besides allowing the farce of non-intervention (thanks to which Mussolini was able to send about 100,000 troops to help Franco, while the Republic was denied arms), brought continual pressure to bear upon France to close her frontier. Russia saw that Franco, thanks to the Vatican, Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, Great Britain, and France, had by the spring of 1939 won the Civil War.

This is not the place in which to relate the incredible intrigues of the Spanish Civil War, our interest being the direct and indirect help given to Franco by the Vatican. We have already seen the part played by the Vatican in preparing for the Civil War. The Spanish Hierarchy, besides fighting the Republicans and organizing Catholic rebels, had been one of the plotters and messengers between Gil Robles, Franco, and others and Pope Pius XI and his Secretary of State, who months before knew what was going to happen. Once the revolt started, both the Hierarchy and the Vatican came out brazenly on the side of Franco, the Spanish bishops inciting Catholic Spaniards to fight the Reds, the Pope appealing to the whole Catholic world to help Catholic Spain, and the Vatican diplomacy working hand in hand with Mussolini and Hitler and came to an agreement with him by which, in exchange for Germany’s help to the Catholic rebels, the Vatican would start an all-out campaign against Bolshevism throughout the Catholic world. We shall have occasion later to see why Hitler asked for the co-operation of the Church.

The Vatican, starting from the Pope himself, as soon as it became clear that Franco could not immediately win, launched a furious anti-Bolshevik campaign, thus enormously strengthening Hitler’s political plans within and outside Germany, Hitler’s policy revolving round the Bolshevik bogy. The Pope himself initiated this international Catholic campaign against the Spanish Republic on December 14, 1936, when he (Pius XI), addressing 500 Spanish Fascist refugees, called upon the civilized world to rise against Bolshevism, which “had already given proof of its will to subvert all orders, from Russia to China, from Mexico to South America.” It had, he continued, “now started the fire of hatred and persecutions in Spain, ” which, unless quick measures to fight it were taken, would spread against “all divine and human institutions.” Men and nations must unite and take measures against it. The Pope ended his speech with a blessing “to all those who have taken the difficult and dangerous task to defend and reinstate the honor of God and of Religion.”

This began an anti-Bolshevik, anti-(Spanish) Republican campaign throughout the Catholic world, which for its slogans used the same words and phrases as the Fascist and Nazi propaganda machines blared forth until a few months before the outbreak of the Second World War.

In Germany, under the direct orders of the Secretary of State, Pacelli, the German bishops published a pastoral letter, dated August 30, 1936. They repeated what the Pope had said in his speech, and gave a frightening picture of what would happen to Europe if the Bolsheviks were allowed to conquer Spain, adding: “It is therefore clear what the duty of our people and of our fatherland should be.” The pastoral ended by expressing the hope that “the Chancellor (Hitler) could succeed with the help of God to solve this terrible issue with firmness and with the most faithful co-operation of all citizens.”

Four months later the Pope gave the campaign new impetus with another speech (December 25, 1936), in which he declared that the Spanish Civil War was “a warning so serious and menacing for the whole world.” From it “one could get revelations and disclosures of a terrifying nature, with the certainty of what was being prepared for Europe and the world unless the nations took appropriate measures against it.”

The bishops again followed the lead of the Pope, by a collective pastoral (against Bolshevism, January 3, 1937), in which they declared: “The Leader and Chancellor of the Reich, Adolph Hitler, has foreseen in time the advance of Bolshevism, and he has concentrated his thoughts and strength in the defense of the German people and of all the Western World against this frightful danger.

The German Bishops think it their duty to support the Reichschancellor in this war of defense, with all the means that the Church puts at their disposal.

Bolshevism being the sworn enemy of the State and at the same time of religion… as the events in Spain are now clearly demonstrating, it is outside any doubt that the cooperation to the defense against such satanic power has become a religious as well as an ecclesiastical duty. We Bishops…. do not want to mix religion with politics…. we only want to exhort the faithful’s conscience to fight against such frightful dangers with the weapons of the Church…

We Catholics, in spite of the mistrust fostered against us, are ready to give the State all that it has a right to, and to support the Fuehrer in the fight against Bolshevism and in all other just tasks he has undertaken.”

What were the “just tasks” that Hitler had undertaken at that time? The “just tasks” of sending bombers and tanks to fight against the legal Spanish Government, to massacre innocent Republican civilians, to wipe out whole villages (e. g. Guernica), and do his best to secure the victory to Catholic Franco.

The Catholic Church in other countries was no less zealous than in Germany. Catholic organizations and the hierarchies began a great campaign to recruit Catholic Legionnaires, and soon brigades of Catholic volunteers joined Franco’s Catholic armies. In addition to help of other kinds, money was collected in churches in response to the world-wide campaign, in the Catholic Press, of hatred towards the Republic. Small wonder that the first foreign flag to be unfurled at Franco’s headquarters at Burgos was the Papal flag, and that Franco’s banner was raised over the Vatican!

Naturally, the Spanish Hierarchy and clergy (with a few exceptions) incited the Spaniards to fight the Republic; and to show the extent to which the Catholic Church in Spain was tied up with the revolt, we quote an illuminating statement by Cardinal Goma:

“We are in complete agreement with the Nationalist Government, which, on the other hand, never takes a step without consulting me and obeying me.”

And when finally the Republic was crushed (spring, 1939), Pope Pius XII, after having stated that God should be thanked, for “once more the hand of Divine Providence has manifested itself over Spain” (broadcast, April 17, 1939), sent the following message to the victors:

“With great joy we address you, dearest sons of Catholic Spain, to express our paternal congratulations for the gift of peace and victory, with which God has chosen to crown the Christian heroism of your faith and charity, proved in so much and so generous suffering… the healthy Spanish people, with the characteristics of its most noble spirit, with generosity and frankness, rose decided to defend the ideals of faith and Christian civilization, deeply rooted in the rich soil of Spain. As a pledge of the bountiful grace which you will receive from the Immaculate Virgin and the apostle James, patron of Spain, and which you will merit from the great Spanish saints, we give to you, our dear sons of Catholic Spain, to the Head of the State and his illustrious Government, to the zealous Episcopate and its self-denying clergy, to the heroic combatants and to all the faithful, our apostolic benediction.”

Franco, on the other hand, paid tribute to the Catholic Church in Spain, which “collaborated in the victorious crusade and spiritualized the glory of Nationalist arms.”

On the very eve of the outbreak of the Second World War a new totalitarian State had joined the constellation of great European dictatorships―those of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy.

On what foundation was the new Spain built? On the religious, moral, social, economic, and finally political, principles dear to the Catholic Church. As authority, according to the Catholic Church, does not derive from the people (see Chapter 3), authority, absolute and uncontrolled, was invested in one man, who became the corner-stone of a State built as an exact model of the Catholic Church.

As in the Catholic Church, so also in the new Spain, there was a ruler who was responsible to no one but to his conscience; in all spheres of activity of the nation his powers were unlimited; his orders had to be obeyed and not discussed; and under him were miniature dictators at the head of the various ministries, who, in turn, had to be blindly obeyed.

As only one party could be right, all other parties were wrong and were destroyed. Trade unions were suppressed; freedom of speech, of the Press, and of political opinion was withdrawn; newspapers, films, broadcasts, and books were censored, purged, or suppressed, if they did not conform to the political system. On the other hand, everybody had to read books. see films, and hear broadcasts proclaiming the greatness of Franco’s new Spain, of his ideas and system; this not only in Spain, but also, whenever possible, outside the country in all Spanish-speaking nations of South and Central America, which had to imitate the mother-country. A powerful Ministry of Propaganda (equivalent to the Catholic Church’s Propaganda Fide) controlled all the cultural and literary life of the nation.

All enemies of Franco’s Spain were arrested and imprisoned, and mass executions took place. It was reckoned that, three years after the end of Civil War (1942), Spain’s jails contained over a million and a half political prisoners, thousands upon thousands of whom were made to face the firing squads. Anyone suspected of Socialism, Communism, or of democratic ideas, was watched by a secret police which penetrated all walks of life (a counterpart of the Inquisition).

Catholicism was proclaimed the religion of the State and the only true religion allowed. Protestants and other denominations were persecuted, and their ministers were arrested and even executed. A Corporate system, based on the Papal Encyclical Quadragesimo Anno, was made to function; religious education was made compulsory; textbooks were supervised by the Catholic Church and teachers who did not attend Mass were dismissed; the enormous wealth of the Catholic Church was returned, and privileges and grants to the clergy and bishops were restored.

During the following months Spanish defenders of the Catholic Church went on pilgrimages to the Vatican as an act of gratitude for what the Pope had done for them. In June 1939, 3,000 of Franco’s soldiers, having come to Italy to celebrate the victory with Italian Fascists, were received by Pius XII, who, after telling them that they had fought “for the triumph of Christian ideals” and that they had “brought him immense consolation as defenders of the Faith, ” imparted to them his paternal blessing.

In the following years prominent Spanish Fascists visited the Pope or the Vatican on political and international missions, most prominent of whom was Franco’s brother-in-law, Serrano Suner, a great friend of Mussolini and Hitler. On June 20, 1942, he was decorated by the Pope himself with the Grand Cross of the Order of Pius IX, together with a blessing for Spain and General Franco, “benemerito de la causa de Dios y de la Iglesia” (Bulletin of Spanish Studies).

But in Spain, as elsewhere, the Church and State, just because the essence of both was Totalitarianism, soon began to quarrel over the same problems which, as we shall find, they quarreled over in Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, and other European countries. Both wanted the upper hand on issues intimately affecting the new Spain, each in turn asserting that the education of youth was its concern alone, that the nomination of persons for key positions (such as bishops) was its sole right, and so on. Indeed at one time Franco went so far as to suppress Pius XI’s encyclical Mit Brennender Sorge, which was a Papal rebuke to that kind of Totalitarianism which sponsors State idolatry to the exclusion of the Catholic Church. Such differences, however, were of minor importance, and did not prevent either partner from continuing the more and more intimate alliance in the years ahead.

In the foreign field Spain followed in the trail of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, aligning herself with them whenever their policy was directed against either Soviet Russia or the Western Powers. When the Second World War broke out (September 3, 1939), Spain, although too weak to enter the conflict, gave all the help she could, in military, economic, and diplomatic fields, to the Fascist countries. Franco made speeches informing the world that only Hitler’s victory could save Europe, and at the same time proclaiming that “Spain will never ally herself with any country not guided by the principles of Catholicism” (1944).

In July 1940, when Nazi victory seemed assured, in his annual speech (July 17) he glorified “the German arms that are leading the battle for which Europe and Christianity have so long waited, ” at the same time attacking Britain’s “inhuman blockade of the Continent, ” declaring that “the freedom of the seas is a very grandiose farce, ” warning the United Sates off Europe, repudiating Anglo-American economic aid, and pontifically stating that the Allies had completely and finally lost the war (Sir Samuel Hoare, Britain’s Special Ambassador in Madrid during the Second World War, in My Mission to Spain).

In the following month (August 8, 1940), the German Ambassador Stohrer, in a “strictly secret” report to Berlin, said he had every assurance of Spain’s entry into the war.

Following words by deeds, Franco began to lay plans with Hitler for the capture of Gibraltar; these were discussed at a meeting of a Spanish Minister of the Interior (Suner) with Hitler in Berlin in September 1940. Suner assured Hitler that Spain was ready to enter the war as soon as her supplies of foodstuffs and raw materials were secure. After which the Spanish Minister (Franco’s brother-in-law) delivered a message from Franco, in which the Caudillo expressed his “gratitude, sympathy, and high esteem, ” and emphasized his “loyalty of yesterday, of to-day, and for always.”

In a letter dated September 22, 1940, Franco proclaimed his “unchangeable and sincere adherence to Hitler personally.” Here are his actual words:

“I would like to thank you, Der Feuhrer, once again for the offer of solidarity. I reply with the assurance of my unchangeable and sincere adherence to you personally, to the German people, and to the cause for which you fight.

I hope, in defense of this cause, to be able to renew the old bonds of comradeship between our armies (see fifteen documents dealing with the Spanish-Axis collaboration, released by the United States State Department).

Towards the end of the year, when England was standing completely alone and a relentless war was initiated by the German U-boats to starve her by sinking her merchant fleet, Franco put at Hitler’s disposal facilities for the refueling and repair of Nazi submarines. This went on almost throughout the war.

Not only did Franco give all the help compatible with the “official” neutrality of his country, but he never ceased to declare his support of Hitler and the Nazi New Order. Suffice it to quote a few sentences from another letter, dated February 26, 1941, which he addressed to Hitler:

“I consider, as you yourself do, that the destiny of history is united you with myself and with the Duce in the an indissoluble way. I have never needed to be convinced of this, and, as I have told you more than once, our civil war since its very inception and during its entire course is more than proof. I also share your opinion that the fact that Spain is situated on both shores of the Strait forces her to the utmost enmity towards England, who aspires to maintain control of it (Documents on Spanish-Axis collaboration).

Yet, despite all Franco’s willingness to help Hitler and share in the new Fascist Europe, Spain, although very near to declaring war, never actually entered into the fray.

The reasons which restrained Catholic Spain from participating in the conflict were given by Franco himself in a letter addressed to Hitler (February 26, 1941). Here are his words:

“We stand to-day where we have always stood, in a resolute manner and with the firmest conviction. You must have no doubt about my absolute loyalty to this political concept and to the realization of the union of our national destinies with those of Germany and Italy. With this same loyalty, I have made clear to you since the beginning of these negotiations the conditions of our economic situation, the only reasons why it has not been possible up to now to determine the date of Spain’s participation… (Documents on Spanish-Axis collaboration).”

In the same letter Franco, as if he had not already made himself clear on this point, once more declared his support of Hitler in the following words: “I shall always be a loyal follower of your cause.”

Speaking in the Alcazar, in Seville, on February 14 to a large meeting of Army officers, Franco declared that:

“For twenty years Germany has been the defender of European civilization…

If the road to Berlin were opened, then not merely would one division of Spaniards participate in the struggle, but one million Spaniards would be offered to help (Documents on Spanish-Axis collaboration).”

To support this statement Franco initiated a campaign for the recruitment of a Division to fight the Russians on the side of the Nazis. However, as volunteers were rather scarce, they were recruited through Army orders “under which whole batches of serving troops were transferred to the Division (the Blue Division) without the men concerned having any effective choice in the matter” (Sir Samuel Hoare). The combined result was an army unit of about 17,000 and an air detachment of two or three flights, all these men being encouraged and fired with enthusiasm by priests and bishops, who bestowed blessings and sacred medals on the heroic Catholic crusaders against the Reds.

In addition to this, Franco and Hitler reached an agreement by which U- boats were built and U-boat crews trained in the Iberian Peninsula. (Disclosed by Mr. Sidney Alderman, United States of America Deputy Prosecutor, at the Nuremberg Trial of Nazi war criminals, November 27, 1945.) And, not losing sight of what was going on in the Far East, Franco continued to congratulate on the blow at Pearl Harbor by another message (October 1943) to Jose Laurel, head of the puppet Government installed by the Japanese in the Philippines (see Wartime Mission to Spain, by United States of America ex-Ambassador Carlton Hayes).

While this was going on, Franco continued to make speeches declaring again and again that a Nazi victory was the best bulwark against the disintegration of civilization. This active co-operation with Hitler lasted practically until the collapse of Nazi Germany; so much so that, when Hitler’s suicide was made known, Franco’s Catholic Spain (although in a rather less provocative way than De Valera’s Catholic Eire) officially and unofficially expressed condolence on the death of Fuehrer and the downfall of the Nazi regime.

The Spanish Hierarchy continued, year after year, through pastoral letters, speeches, and sermons, to support Franco and incite the Spaniards to rally to the new regime. And even after Hitler and Mussolini had disappeared from the political stage of a battered Europe, at the end of the Second World War (1945), the rumbling of unrest was heard, menacing, underground in Catholic Spain. While the democracies indicted with words and diplomatic war the last great Fascist dictatorship still standing on the Continent, the Hierarchy went on blessing and supporting Franco. Suffice it to quote Archbishop Gonzales’ declaration:

“We turn our eyes to Mother Iberia and thank God that He has showered His blessings on her… It is thanks to God’s Providence that Spain has regained her youthful strength… It is a blessing to see how true and healthy is Spain’s revival in the social, economic, intellectual, and above all spiritual spheres―like the Rock of the Catholic Church, on which it is based… The nation is a defender of truth, and deserves the support of God (Broadcast by Archbishop Gonzales, Coadjutor of Bogota, quoted by Vatican Radio, 1945).”

That the new Spain deserved the support of God was again and again emphasized by Franco himself. As when, for instance, he was speaking to a gathering of priests and members of women’s Falangist organization, and declared: “I think that the battle has been to our advantage, since they are against God and we are His soldiers” (September 12, 1945).

How the Catholic Church and General Franco could reconcile this with the fact that “God’s soldiers” had to be steadily increased in order to keep down a rebellious people (90 per cent of whom were hostile to the regime) it is hard to understand. But perhaps, to a skeptical observer, the following figures may throw some light on the matter.

By the end of the Second World War the only Fascist country to survive in Europe― namely, Franco’s Spain―had the strongest Fascist army in the world and the strongest police force, which it had to strengthen as time went by in order to preserve the Spaniards within the fold of Catholicism and the social-political framework of Fascism.

In 1940 the Falange received a subsidy of 10,000,000 pesetas; in 1941, 14,000,000; in 1942, 142,000,000; in 1943, 154,000,000; in 1944, 164,000,000; and at the end of the Second World War, over 192,000,000. In addition, the State police received, in 1940, 950,000,000 pesetas; in 1941, 1,001,000,000; in 1942, 1,325,000,000; in 1943, 1,089.000,000; in 1944, 1,341,000,000; and in 1945, 1,475,000,000. These figures should be compared with the total Budget of the Spanish Republic, which, in 1936, was less than the figures allocated by Franco to his Army, Navy, and Air Force, while in the same period he was spending as much on his police as on his Army of one million men. With the dawn of peace, this enormous internal strength was deemed insufficient, and Franco, with the warmest support of the Church, re-created the “Somatens, ” consisting of groups of armed civilians under State control.

The model Catholic Fascist Spain had to rely on more solid support than that of God to enable her to continue to be a “defender of truth.” But did that really matter? The important thing was that the aims set by the Catholic Church should be reached. And the Vatican, thanks to its alliance with reaction, and by checking and finally arresting the reforming wind of the twentieth century, which had begun to rejuvenate anachronistic and decrepit Spain, achieved its twofold goal; the annihilation of its sworn enemies and the forcible installation of a Catholic State, built on Catholic authoritarian principles, where the Catholic Church reigned unchallenged and supreme.