I’m not saying Franco invented francoism, it was already alive and well when Jesus got angry with it. We could just as well call it Grayism. It’s simply that for many Spanish, Franco is linked to that non-spiritual version of religion, a misrepresentation of real Catholicism in which, amongst other things, for some Christ is now apparently unavailable to all but the right-wing.
My point is that the upsurge of secularism is partly the fault of religion losing touch. If we Christians just stand around blaming the rest of the world or trying to turn the clock back then it will get worse.
I don’t doubt many in Spain cite “Francoism” as a way of excusing faithlessness. After all, we hear the same kind of thing in the U.S., though it seems to be receding. Those who wished to interpret Vatican II as an invitation to faithlessness and licentiousness were fond of disparagingly talking about the “bad old days” pre VII, when the “old ladies would rattle their rosaries at Mass”, the “nuns taught religion by rote”, etc, etc, etc. I truly don’t think the critics of the “bad old days” really had any handle on what was going on in the souls of those they so blithely accused of “dryness” in religion.
I remember one of my former classmates explaining to me not too terribly long ago how he left the Church because there wasn’t enough “fellowshipping” and, besides, “Sister Martha” was hard on him years ago and (oh my!) made him memorize his catechism responses. I remember “Sister Martha” helping him daily so he could keep up with his classmates, and she was anything but hard on him. Of course, he divorced his wife of 30 years and married another, much younger, woman with whom he was having an affair before the divorce, so my “dubious meter” pegged out on every single element of his self-justification. “Sister Martha”, in truth, gave way to Hugh Hefner in this fellow’s life, and he found a way around the “rote” catechism response concerning the sin of adultery. He affirmed the sin and condemned the learning that taught him it was a sin. And Franco is nothing but some Spaniards’ “Sister Martha”. A scapegoat for one’s own bad behavior.
It isn’t just Catholics, either. The frequent “auditioning” process so many of those churches go through ought to be regarded with caution. The “elders” or “trustees” or whomever audition potential preachers to see if the preacher is going to tell them, not what they ought to hear, but what they want to hear.
So, are the churches to blame for the decline in religious observance? Undoubtedly they share it, or at least churchmen do. The churchmen who encouraged people in the idea that, e.g., their personal observance wasn’t important, that “being a loving person” (undefined) was the real point; the churchmen who had thousands of opportunities to really challenge the selfish materialism and sexual self-indulgence of their members, but who opted for “feel good” formulations that provided excuses for selfishness. The churchmen who persuade the wealthy and the non-wealthy that contribution to entertainment centers dubbed “crystal cathedrals” will save them. The churchmen who provide “drive through” church services and “magic crosses” made of olive wood from the Holy Land that will guarantee material prosperity. The churchmen who tell members that it doesn’t matter what they do in their personal lives as long as they vote for “social justice” in the political arena. But we can’t blame such people and get off the hook.
Nor we we can blame the old ladies who rattled their rosaries, anyone who tolerated their doing so, those who taught principles “by rote”, “Sister Martha” or even Franco for that. We can blame ourselves, and ourselves alone, for our own sins and faithlessness, and so should Spaniards. And we ought not to make excuses for it, not in ourselves or in society generally. And to the extent we scapegoat bad behavior, we’re doing nobody any spiritual favors. We’re only encouraging flight from moral responsibility.
I remember an interesting piece from Solzhenitsyn’s “Gulag Archipelago”. A man unjustly condemned to death by the Stalinist regime discussed his upcoming execution with Solzhenitsyn. Knowing how people complicit with the regime attempted to shift moral responsibility and escape facing their own corruption by blaming this or that, or asserting that they were “just taking orders” he asserted to Solzhenitsyn that, as he met his executioner, he would say to him “It is you and you alone who will be responsible for my death. Blame no one but yourself. It is you who will kill me.” The condemned man’s purpose, for whatever it was worth, was to express moral clarity; not that it would save him, but so the executioner would, at least that once, be confronted with the fact of his own moral responsibility; a responsibility so many participants shirked by blaming someone or something else for their murderous acts.
As with so many things in Solzhenitsn’s “Gulag” series, that story expresses a profound moral truth. “No, Spaniard”, we might say, “it is not Franco. It is not the Falange. It is not the communists. It is not even the libidinous, seductive Suecas or anyone else. It is you who live a life of fecklessness, faithlessness and sin. It is you who value your vacations and your car and your ease and your one night stands more than anything else. It is you who murdered your own child by encouraging your girlfriend to abort. It is you and only you who is to blame.”
And until modern westerners face the truth expressed by Solzhenitsyn, we will continue to descend into the pit of faithlessness and immorality.
Fortunately, it seems, there is a lot of reform going on among churchmen and with catechesis. But it will be a long and difficult road before we reach a point where excuse making will not be such an easy refuge of a bad conscience.
