Avatar of secularism faces blowback for pro-papal line

I cannot fathom what the members of a religious movement, Opus Dei, have to do with the Spanish banking system? If there are OD members in influential positions in a bank, that bank will be noteworthy for its ethical behaviour! OD members are followers of Christ in every way in their personal and working lives, they are not followers of Mammon.

Even a shred of proof for this paranoia?

I find this to be a truly senseless accusation. This "colkoch1" person has left some really forgettable doozies on these pages. But by far this one is the most inane. God bless Pope Benedict and all of the holy WYD Pilgrims as well as the Spanish people, who are going through extremely tough economic times. St James the Apostle, pray for us all!...

thanks

and like the Arbenz overthrow in Guatemala and the Allende coup in Chile, where was the USA? Why were we NOT supporting the standing democratically elected governments? Why were we supplying and directing the right wing militaries destroying democratically elected governments which sided with the poor and the dispossessed, the hungry and the sick.

Remember Guernica.

Remember the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, in which our private citizens fought and died for liberty against Franco, while our government took the other side, as usual.

this was a set up. Zapatero thought he could make friends but discovered the unethical Opus Dei church more commited to destroying him and to compromising and cooperating

Historical note to Demetrius:

The Church did not "fully support" the falange. The opposition to the Republicans were made up predominantly of two quite different factions: The Carlists, and the Falange. The Carlists were royalist Catholics. The Falange were fascist nationalists. The Church was terribly persecuted under the Republic, so it was not surprising that the Church backed the Revolutionaries. But, of those two factions, the Church was far more comfortable with the Carlists. The attrocities of the War were committed by the Falange and the Republicans. The Carlists largely resisted many of the excessses of the war.

Let's not forget that the Republicans marched priests, nuns, and monks off the concentration camps where they were subjected to horrendous conditions and then executed.

Yes, the Church supported Franco and why should it not? During the Spanish Civil War, the Communist Government executed thousands of priests, nuns and ordinary Catholics the government deemed 'dangerous". Some were executed by cruxifiction to church doors. Very civilised? Hmmm. Warren H. Carroll's excellent book on the subject, "The Last Crusade" is an eye-opener. I was never taught these figures and events in my history lessons at school. They are readily proveable to scholars, yet it is impossible to find an important TV or radio station that will discuss the Spanish War objectively, let alone find a film maker who will make an honest story about it.

Historical note to Demetrius.

True, but your comment seeks to settle an historical issue by ignoring the disintegration and radicalization within the parties that made up the Republican government, especially among the socialists who turned to communism.

While nothing justifies the use of the inhuman violence by either side in the Civil War, including that of the so-called "Republicans" against the unarmed 30,000 Catholic priests, religious and laity they killed, will we ever hear a mea culpa from the ideological descendants of the republicans? I doubt it. Rather, we have seen their mentality in the dispicable violation of the chapel of the Computense last spring and on the streets of Madrid against the peaceful youth who were there to celebrate their faith. We may yet see, and we should, such an apology, however, from the Spanish hierarchy.

My sentiments exactly. Thank you John for your work.

Unfortunately, the construction accident records for the Valley of the Fallen (Valle de los Caidos) would be difficult to find in order to correct the figures. The Fallen, in this context, only includes the dead from the Fascist side.

3000 dead sounds high to me - that might be the number of people working on it at any given time, though it could be true if you include diseases such as tuberculosis which the prisoners would catch in jail and from which they frequently died (for example, the poet Miguel Hernandez). On the other hand, it was one way in which the losing side could be made to pay (with their lives) and the state could still get some work done for free. I note that criminal prisoners (your garden variety muggers etc) also worked there for reductions in sentences. 14 sounds too low as well. Wikipedia is a good thing, but needs updating sometimes.

That said, it is a "bruise" in the soul of the body politic there. Tourists visit it as a beautiful monument, but many Spaniards see it as a constant signifying finger to their forbears who tried to bring democracy to Spain (for that was the ideal -- even though in practice there was much that could have been done much better).

--Andy Jo--

According to the book, Historia de la persecución religiosa en España, the count is 6825 murdered bishops, priests and religious. This work is cited by the Spanish-language wikipedia entry on the Spanish Civil War and by Warren Carroll in, The Last Crusade.

There are always shades of gray in any history of any conflict. Civil Wars are the greyest of all. Civil wars are the most horrible of all -- just recall our own Civil War, and the atrocities perpetrated therein. The aftermath can be worse.

Yes, there were attacks on churches, and firing squads which killed priests, nuns and seminarians (two nuns were shot in the town where I lived - I only read about it recently). One of the big issues right now with the "Historical Memory" movement is that some on the "other" side are calling not only for a remembrance Republican atrocities if the Fascist atrocities are continued to be brought to light. As in all civil wars, in Spain many atrocities were brought about not because the victim was a Communist or a Catholic or any other out-of-favor person, but because the person who turned him or her in had some kind of a beef with him or her and this was their revenge. We humans are our own worst enemies.

That said -- there WERE priests and other men and women religious who SUPPORTED the Republic. Most did NOT, but there were special prisons arranged for those religious who had supported the 'wrong' side in the war (it is even today quite common for a Communist to be a Catholic). Some of them were dispatched by firing squad (the "Paseo" as it was called -- they would just pick you up, lead you away, put you up against a wall and shoot you). Some were given a kangaroo court sentencing and spent decades in prison - or they got shot anyway.

The Church in Spain opted to go with Franco, but not only because of the atrocities. The Church in Spain had been firmly allied with the nobility, the rich, and the business class. The goal was to preserve the status-quo, which featured an enormous gap between rich and poor, a meager middle class, limited opportunities for education except for those who joined the Church or were wealthy... The typical feeding solution for the growth of revolution.

Not all Republicans agreed with the attitude taken against the Church, nor the activities/atrocities (the taking of Church property was something the Church did not take lightly). Some saw where this would lead (as it did) and tried to stop it, but were unable to do so. There really was a small subset of those involved in atrocities but, like all small groups with catastrophic behavior, they had a big overall impact on later events.

During the war there were priests who freely participated in atrocities against Republicans. After the war there were those who worked in the prison system, and in the repressive political system. Remember -- you could be imprisoned and perhaps shot for being a Mason. There was a whole tribunal that dealt with "Communism and Masonry". Think about it -- all those nice old men at your local Masonic Hall and the Shriners who build hospitals could be imprisoned and shot. The oral history collected from former prisoners is excruciating to read.

Today, there are a number of judicial investigations open concerning the theft of children from political prisoners (like happened in Argentina - mostly after the war but not exclusively), and from single or poor mothers in prisons, hospitals and maternity homes all over Spain until the 1970's. That is grist for another mill, but members of the Church (priests and persons religious) were directly involved in some of these and they seem to involve some very significant amounts of money. It is unclear to what extent the hierarchy was aware of these events, but I doubt they all of them were completely clueless. It was a moneymaker for those involved (secular and religious). Newspapers on both sides have reported the story, although the papers of Catholic orientation have downplayed the participation of those involved who were members of religious orders.

In overall numbers of people killed, Franco and his boys beat the Republicans hands down -- they were more efficient at it and they won the war. People are still digging up bodies, especially now as the descendants of the dead break the silence and speak out, and the old people in villages and towns stop looking away from 'that' bend in the road that they all knew so well but didn't talk about. People 'didn't talk about' a lot of things until after Franco died. I remember when he died there were a number of people who had spent 40 years in hiding being fed and supported by friends or relatives and kept from Franco's police. Still, as late as 1976 former political prisoners were rounded up routinely on May 1st to avoid "problems" (like marches). Imagine if we rounded up the leaders of all labor unions on Labor Day so they couldn't parade.

What the Vatican COULD have done then would have been to excommunicate (yup -- that word) any priest, bishop, or religious who participated in atrocities (for example, the one who is purported to have carried a weapon, killed Republicans and anyone else who happened to be around, and who supposedly said "let God sort them out"). Don't know if that would have helped, but maybe it could have served as an attention-getter to its own people that two wrongs don't make a right.

--Andy Jo--

Sigh!!! It already has reared up -- no need to tarnish the moment which was tarnished anyway by other factors -- like the economy. It just hasn't gotten any press in the U.S.

It was always there. The priest who said mass and heard confession at the religious school I went to used to molest the girls. It was a fact well known amongst the mothers of the girls, who would go to great lengths to keep their daughters away from them. I don't know if there are any investigations against him or if he is still alive.

No -- I'm not a survivor of his attentions. I was an artist at skipping out of Mass and Confession on a very regular basis. I was very lucky.

--Andy Jo--

It would be glorious if Spain became the first European country to abolish same-sex "marriage".