Catholic Church in Spain fights Franco-era image

[inocente]

The Church in Spain clearly has a problem, not with the denizens of CAF but with the people of Spain and the message to the latter that Franco was really nice and good and stuff like that wouldn’t have seemed to have worked.

Perhaps ‘where does the Church go from here?’ might be more useful?

Exactly. Preaching that every Catholic who ever lived was a shining pinnacle of virtue is so profoundly unrealistic that it’s a great way to turn the people of Spain away from the Church.

but spain being the liberal bashtion of secularism rather paints franco as the enemy. he was the one who defended and protected the catholic church in spain under attacks from the aethists, communists and masons–who killed over 6,000 catholic clergy! the more i read about him, the more i like him. he may be a hero. franco is treated by today’s armchair quarterbacks unjustly like joseph mccarthy and pius xii.

Spain became secular so fast once it had democracy as a direct reaction against Franco and everything he stood for. History proves that another Catholic will leave the faith here every time someone tries to paint Franco as a hero. The way to protect the Church and to keep people in the faith would be to admit the past, draw a clean line and move on.

The Partido Popular under Mariano Rajoy seems to be gaining in strength, the party of Aznar. The Socialists under Zapatero seem to be weakening.

The Catholic Church in Spain is much smaller but much more committed.

The PP (conservatives) have been in power more often than the PSOE (socialists) and yet the numbers going to Mass keep dropping, now down to 14.4%. The PP will probably win the next election and history says the numbers will keep on dropping.

I see no evidence that the Church here is fighting back, rather it seems to be hiding in a bunker. Benedict has a real problem trying to motivate the hierarchy here and separate it from the past.

 

[OriginalJS]

How many Spanish Jews were shipped to Nazi death camps during World War II? How does that compare to the Jews in Italy and France?

Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492 or thereabouts weren’t they?

 

[gilliam]

Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492 or thereabouts weren’t they?

After hundreds of years abroad, Jews were finally permitted to return to Spain after the abolition of the Inquisition in 1834 and the creation of a new constitutional monarchy that allowed for the practice of faiths other than Catholicism in 1868, though the edict of expulsion was not repealed until 1968. (From 1868 until 1968, Jews were allowed to live in Spain as individuals, but not to practice Judaism as a community.) The Spanish Moroccan War of 1859-60 also brought many Jews to southern Spain who were fleeing Morocco. Small numbers of Jews started to arrive in Spain in the 19th century, and synagogues were eventually opened in Madrid and Barcelona. Slowly things began to improve and Spanish historians even started to take an interest in the history of Spain’s Jewish population and in the Sephardic language of Ladino (Judeo-Spanish). The government of Miguel Primo de Rivera (1923-1930) even granted the right of Spanish citizenship to Sephardim who applied before December 31, 1931.

In 1917, the Jews of Madrid numbers around 1,000 people. Most were German, Austrian-Hungarian and Turkish citizens who fled to Spain at the beginning of World War I. They inaugurated their first synagogue in a small apartment. The world economic crisis of 1929 brought additional Jews to the country.

During this period, Jews slowly began to return to Spain and take part in national affairs. During the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), many Jews from all over Europe and America volunteered to fight in support of the Spanish Second Republic. Despite the easing of tensions between the Spanish government and the Jews, synagogues in Spain remained closed.

During World War II , Franco-led Spain aided the Jews by permitting 25,600 Jews to use the country as an escape route from the European theater of war, provided they “passed through leaving no trace.” Paradoxically, though Spain later cultivated relations with Arab countries, it also assisted Moroccan and Egyptian Jews who survived pogroms.

Furthermore, Spanish diplomats such as Ángel Sanz Briz and Giorgio Perlasca protected some 4,000 Jews in France and the Balkans. In 1944, Spain accepted 2,750 Jewish refugees from Hungary. Later, as the Franco regime evolved, synagogues were opened and the communities were permitted to hold services discreetly.

jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vjw/spain1.html

 

[Kaninchen]

A downside to Franco and Jews.

 

[Rich_Olszewski]

A downside to Franco and Jews.

A very big downside.

 

[Rich_Olszewski]

Spain became secular so fast once it had democracy as a direct reaction against Franco and everything he stood for. History proves that another Catholic will leave the faith here every time someone tries to paint Franco as a hero. The way to protect the Church and to keep people in the faith would be to admit the past, draw a clean line and move on.

Insisting that Franco was “better” than Hitler or Stalin doesn’t hack it. You are right - own up to it, and move on.

I see no evidence that the Church here is fighting back, rather it seems to be hiding in a bunker. Benedict has a real problem trying to motivate the hierarchy here and separate it from the past.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I understand that even before Franco, the Church was strongly aligned with the aristocracy and the reactionaries of the right wing. That history may be part of why Benedict is not having much luck with the Spaniards.

 

[estesbob]

Insisting that Franco was “better” than Hitler or Stalin doesn’t hack it. You are right - own up to it, and move on.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I understand that even before Franco, the Church was strongly aligned with the aristocracy and the reactionaries of the right wing. That history may be part of why Benedict is not having much luck with the Spaniards.

What is a “reactionary”? Is that like the opposite of “comrade”?

 

[Rich_Olszewski]

What is a “reactionary”? Is that like the opposite of “comrade”?

It’s closer to “Sieg Heil!” than to “Comrade.”

Reactionaries represent extreme conservatism or rightism in politics, opposing political or social change.

 

[Ridgerunner]

While everybody is putting Franco down, one might as well add Constantine, Charles Martel, Charlemagne, the Teutonic Knights, every Crusader, Gustavus Adolphus, Henry VIII, Elizabeth II, Cromwell, every Russian Tsar and the Israelis today. All of them fought wars having religious overtones and killed people whom they perceived as threats. And, of course, our own American Revolutionaries were sufficiently motivated by religious beliefs to oppose with arms a governmental church that insisted on adherence.

Whatever his faults and sins and/or virtues, and no doubt they will be debated long after this generation passes away, he was by no means unique in history. But let’s at least be honest about this. He is not so much vilified in our era for supporting the Church or even for aggressive involvement in a civil war as he is for opposing a communism that pretended rather successfully to foreigners that it was something less vicious than it was. The Republicans were the darlings of the liberals and socialist-minded of the time, just as Stalin was for a time. Stalin’s supposed virtues have faded upon undeniable revelation of his crimes, but since the Republicans’ power was never complete and did not last long, and since their most egregious crimes were against churchmen that the left loves to hate anyway, they can still be idealized by those who think somehow that they would have been different from the likes of Stalin and Mao and Castro and Pol Pot. It’s sort of like those who still believe in an idealized ante-bellum south. Not having had to live under the dominion of “Ole Massa” they are able to persuade themselves that it was somehow better than it was and that the northern soldiers were criminals for disrupting it.

 

[Reservoir_Dog]

While everybody is putting Franco down, …

franco isn’t getting a free pass because of someone else’s criminal acts and diverting attention from mass murders and political oppression he is directly responsible for isn’t going to work.

 

[Rich_Olszewski]

Whatever his [Franco’s] faults and sins and/or virtues, and no doubt they will be debated long after this generation passes away,

I don’t think it is a matter of “whatever” they were and “debatable.” It’s all documented, and denial is impossible.

Thanks to the Church’s association with his regime, it has lost authority among most Spaniards, and it will be a task indeed for the Church in Spain to have the fervent religiosity that marks that in the countries where the Church opposed the regime. My opinion, of course.

 

[Rich_Olszewski]

While everybody is putting Franco down, one might as well add Constantine, Charles Martel, Charlemagne, the Teutonic Knights, every Crusader, Gustavus Adolphus, Henry VIII, Elizabeth II, Cromwell, every Russian Tsar and the Israelis today. All of them fought wars having religious overtones and killed people whom they perceived as threats. And, of course, our own American Revolutionaries were sufficiently motivated by religious beliefs to oppose with arms a governmental church that insisted on adherence.

Those killed people opposed to them, and Franco killed people opposed to him, so that makes it even-stephen okay? I don’t think so.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I don’t think it is a matter of “whatever” they were and “debatable.” It’s all documented, and denial is impossible.

Thanks to the Church’s association with his regime, it has lost authority among most Spaniards, and it will be a task indeed for the Church in Spain to have the fervent religiosity that marks that in the countries where the Church opposed the regime. My opinion, of course.

Of course they’re debateable, and this very thread (among others) demonstrates that. Also debateable is whether harsh measures are justified by alternatives; like the “Would it have been right to assassinate Hitler” debates.

I don’t think it can be assumed that the falling off in religious observance in Spain has anything to do with Franco. Franco never ruled in Italy, France, Britain or Scandinavia, and the adherence to religion in those places is no better than it is in Spain, and is worse in some.

The Church opposed various of the governments of France and actually fought a military action against the founders of modern Italy, and it didn’t prevent Italy from being religious during the 19th and early 20th centuries, then sliding into irreligion as the 20th progressed. Opposition to government, whether friendly or unfriendly to religion, is not necessarily conducive to or destructive of, religious observance.

I will agree, however, that those of socialist, or at least secular humanist, bent in Spain or any other country, doubtless find it convenient and helpful to accuse the Church of this or that. And, like the Black Legends in the Anglosphere, such things do have an effect. Whether those effects are lasting or not is difficult to know. The Church’s big problem presently, in my opinion, is more in the nature of the “live for yourself today, let tomorrow be what it will or be nothing at all” mentality that has become so very pervasive, particularly in the west. It’s Sartre without the expectation of “nausea”. The Church, which preaches “live for those who come after, and for you own hereafter” is diametrically opposed to that way of thinking. Presently, the Church appears to be losing that “culture war”, and certainly among many in society’s “elites”. But it will not necessarily do so long term.

 

[Rich_Olszewski]

.

I don’t think it can be assumed that the falling off in religious observance in Spain has anything to do with Franco. Franco never ruled in Italy, France, Britain or Scandinavia, and the adherence to religion in those places is no better than it is in Spain, and is worse in some.

The problems of Spain are connected with Spain’s history and the reaction against his regime had to have had something to do with it, regardless of what other countries’ reasons for falling away from religion are.

Sure, the Church might not lose the “culture war” long term, but again, it might. That’s entirely conjecture regardless of what position one takes. I’m inclined to believe that secularization will win leaving only pockets of religious believers - speaking of countries where Christianity once held sway, of course.

 

[inocente]

While everybody is putting Franco down

What purpose is served by trying to rehabilitate him while still fresh in the memory of so many Spanish?

Incidentally generally ignoring the fact that because of him Spain was isolated from the international community for a long time, regional diversity and languages were suppressed, women were not even allowed a bank account, poverty ruled until he was finally forced to adopt a free market and so on.

Ignoring also that political prisoners were forced to hack out the mausoleum at Valle de los Caídos until the late 50’s and that the European Parliament unanimous condemned his regime’s “multiple and serious violations” of human rights up to 1975.

It’s not even as though all the mass graves of those he executed have yet been found.

Yet somehow secularism in Spain, caused mainly by Franco, will be defeated by pretending he was a nice guy?

 

[Ridgerunner]

The problems of Spain are connected with Spain’s history and the reaction against his regime had to have had something to do with it, regardless of what other countries’ reasons for falling away from religion are.

Sure, the Church might not lose the “culture war” long term, but again, it might. That’s entirely conjecture regardless of what position one takes. I’m inclined to believe that secularization will win leaving only pockets of religious believers - speaking of countries where Christianity once held sway, of course.

Re your first point. You’re simply saying you think Franco’s rule in Spain is what caused a decline of religion there, just because you think it. If you can’t explain why religious observance in Spain is paralleled in virtually every western European country (and some in Eastern Europe), you can’t assert causation in the case of Spain, since the same cause(s) could be responsible for all, and Franco didn’t rule in any of the others.

As to the triumph of secular humanism long-term, I am more optimistic than you are. But neither of us has a crystal ball, right? Secular humanism has two great weaknesses. First, as Sartre did, indeed observe (Camus even more vigorously) human existence without God is absurd; hardly a formulation for human happiness on an ongoing basis. Second, it’s pitifully weak in the face of strongly-held belief. Thus its virtually Stockholm Syndrome reaction to communism and its whimpering reaction to militant Islam. (One may perhaps credit the French for doing a bit more than whimpering)

May well be that those “pockets of (Christian) religious believers” will eventually repopulate those places where belief in the future is so dim that people don’t even have children. One can hope so, and that those believers’ example will be a source of conversion to many.

 

[Rich_Olszewski]

Re your first point. You’re simply saying you think Franco’s rule in Spain is what caused a decline of religion there, just because you think it.

It was a contributor for certain. ReadI inocente’s post. I agree with it.

May well be that those “pockets of (Christian) religious believers” will eventually repopulate those places where belief in the future is so dim that people don’t even have children. One can hope so, and that those believers’ example will be a source of conversion to many.

Who knows? Stranger things have happened. And, yes, I am far more pessimistic than you are.

 

[Kaninchen]

Where would we be without American experts on Europe?

 

[Reservoir_Dog]

Where would we be without American experts on Europe?

I’d love to find out. In a happier (for the US, anyway) alternative history, no doubt.

 

[Kaninchen]

I’d love to find out. In a happier (for the US, anyway) alternative history, no doubt.

Perhaps we shouldn’t have shipped out our troublemakers in the first place?