The complicated history of General Franco and the Spanish Church
At one point, Spanish Catholicism was almost synonymous with Franco’s regime.
Last month marked 50 years since the death of Francisco Franco, the military general and dictator who led Spain for more than three decades after the Spanish Civil War.
On the day of Franco’s death, November 20th, 1975, Cardinal Enrique y Tarancón, a towering figure of Spanish Catholicism at the time, offered words of consolation.
“At this hour, we are all deeply saddened by the passing of this truly historical figure. Above all, we are grieved by the death of someone we sincerely loved and admired,” said Tarancón, who was at the time Archbishop of Madrid and president of the Spanish Episcopal Conference.
Many of the bishops of Spain at that time followed the cardinal’s lead and offered words of praise and gratitude for Franco’s regime.
Franco was described by the bishops as “valiant,” “illustrious,” “a Christian, a believer, an enlightened man” and “a great man, a distinguished statesman, a soldier beyond reproach.”
Just a week later, however, at the coronation of King Juan Carlos I, Cardinal Tarancón gave a homily that suggested the Church was detaching itself from the Franco regime. He said that the Second Vatican Council had updated the “message of Christ” so that it “does not sponsor or impose any specific model of society.”
“Christian faith is not a political ideology, nor can it be identified with any of them, since no social or political system can exhaust the richness of the Gospel, nor does it belong to the Church’s mission to propose specific governmental options or solutions in the temporal fields of the social, economic, or political sciences,” the cardinal added.
What accounts for the shift in rhetoric, after Spanish Catholicism had been almost synonymous with Franco’s regime?
The answer requires an understanding of both Spanish politics and Catholic history throughout the 20th century.
An existential threat
How did the Catholic Church in Spain find itself united with a dictator like Franco in the first place?
Initially, it was a matter of “simple survival,” said Rafael Escobedo Romero, associate professor in contemporary history at the University of Navarra and deputy director of the “Yearbook of Church History” journal.
Romero told The Pillar that in the Spanish Civil War which broke out in 1936, one of the camps -- the Republicans -- was attempting to wipe out Catholicism.
In fact, he said, the Republicans at this time had “the undisguised aim of a systematic and definitive extermination of Spanish Catholicism.”
This naturally drove the Church into the arms of the opposite camp: the Nationalists, led by Franco.
Even before the outbreak of civil war, a persecution by the Republicans that started in 1931 killed more than a dozen bishops, 4,000 priests and seminarians, 2,000 religious, and 250 nuns. Approximately 4,000 laymen were also killed for helping or hiding nuns or priests.
When General Franco triumphed in the Spanish Civil War and established a new regime in 1939, “the Church knew that it owed its physical survival to Franco’s military victory” while the Francoist state knew it “owed its legitimacy and a large part of its social support to its militantly Catholic character,” Romero said.
A second reason for the Church’s closeness with Franco, Romero said, was that “the pre-Vatican II Church aspired to a Christian-state model – a Catholic state – which Francoism largely provided.”
“Catholics in Spain, and even beyond Spain, saw in Franco’s regime the political formula closest to the ideal of Catholic restoration longed for since the time of Pius IX and Gregory XVI,” he said.
For some supporters of Franco, “the war was conceived as a ‘crusade’” that would “culminate in the triumphant restoration of Catholic Spain,” the professor said. These Catholics believed the only real outcomes to be “either the extermination of religion or a quasi-theocratic regime.”
A detachment
But the alliance between Church and state was not to last.
The Spanish word desenganchó - unhitched or detached - is often used to describe what happened between the Spanish Church and General Franco’s regime following the ending of the Spanish Civil War.
Archbishop Luis Argüello of Valladolid, current president of the Spanish bishops’ conference, discussed the phenomenon in an address before a gathering of the nation’s bishops last month. He said that while this distancing began in 1958, the seeds of it were present much earlier, in “movements of criticism and opposition.”
Part of the tension that arose, Romero said, was because the Church was uncomfortable with the pro-Nazi sympathies among some in Franco’s regime, and the Church was censored at crucial periods.
For example, Pope Pius XI’s anti-Nazi encyclical Mit brennender Sorge was not allowed to be published in Spain, nor were Spaniards permitted to hear the end of the pope’s radio message sent at the end of the civil war. The message congratulated the victors but also advocated for kindness and goodwill towards the defeated.
“Similarly, the pastoral letter of the Primate Cardinal Gomá, asking the victors for a ‘generous and splendid forgiveness for the enemies of the Church and, in particular, for its persecutors,’ was censored for contradicting the general spirit of vengeance,” Romero said.
Nationalist Basque and Catalan Catholics, including members of the clergy, also experienced friction with Franco’s regime, wanting more room to express their regional identities.
At the same time, the work of lay apostalates led to the formation of groups such as Young Christian Workers, the Rural Catholic Youth, and the Workers’ Brotherhoods of Catholic Action (HOAC), which were initially established to promote evangelization in the workplace, but often acted as trade unions.
According to Archbishop Argüello, it was Pope Pius XII who suggested the creation of HOAC.
“The regime and the Church were concerned to see the working class – historically linked to anarchism and socialism – totally estranged from a Church accused of being the ‘victor’ of the civil war,” he said.
The influence of Vatican II
As the Church in Spain slowly distanced itself from the Franco regime, another powerful force stepped in to reinforce the divide between Church and state: the Second Vatican Council.
“No country felt the impact of Vatican II as strongly as Spain,” Romero said.
The documents of Vatican II undercut the theological and political foundation of Francoism within the Church. Gaudium et Spes reiterated the Church’s refusal to identify itself with any particular political system, while Dignitatis Humanae declared the right to religious freedom, a contrast with Franco’s regime, which only allowed private worship for non-Catholic religions.
A week after Franco’s death in 1975, Cardinal Tarancón echoed these principles, saying, “The Church does not sponsor any political form or ideology, and if anyone uses its name to cover their factions, they are manifestly usurping it.”
Romero said the Second Vatican Council led to “a transformation of principles” that shifted the Church’s perspective and rhetoric.
“At the same time, the Church came to recognize its share of responsibility for the unjust violence committed by those who, in the midst of a terrible war and postwar, were nevertheless defending it from extermination,” he said.
While it is difficult to pinpoint exact numbers, some historians believe up to 100,000 people were killed by Franco’s men and tens of thousands were executed, both during the civil war and his reign of power.
In 1971, the Spanish Assembly of Bishops and Priests released a statement apologizing for the Church’s role in the civil war.
“We must humbly acknowledge this and ask forgiveness for the fact that we did not act at the right moment as true ‘ministers of reconciliation’ among our people, divided by a war between brothers,” the statement concluded.
In 1973, the bishops’ plenary assembly released a document stressing the necessity of religious freedom, while emphasizing that both individuals and societies still have an obligation toward the Catholic faith.
“Faithful to the evangelical doctrine taught by the Council, the Spanish Episcopal Conference has publicly declared its resolute willingness to renounce any privilege granted by the State in favor of ecclesiastical persons or entities,” the document said.
Renouncing state privileges was a significant move by the bishops, as the Church had enjoyed a wide array of benefits under Franco.
Most notably, the renunciation of these privileges meant that Catholic clergy could be tried by civil courts instead of automatically being tried by ecclesiastical courts.
However, the bishops’ document also stressed that “no one can justly claim that the Church is asking for privileges when it demands that its rights be recognized.”
In the years that followed, the distance between the Church and regime grew.
Throughout the 1960s and ‘70s, protests multiplied, as did the arrests of rebellious priests, Romero said.
“A special prison for priests was even created. In the final years of Francoism, confrontations intensified, and on at least one occasion the threat of excommunication loomed over Franco himself,” Romero said.
The contemporary Spanish approach
Franco’s death in 1975, and the subsequent coronation of King Juan Carlo I, ushered in sweeping democratic reforms in Spain, including the creation of the modern Spanish parliament and constitution.
The Spanish Church in the last 50 years has worked towards democratic change and extolled Catholics to immerse themselves in civic life.
The Church has largely tried to keep out of controversies related to Franco’s regime, while at the same time offering no support to socialist governments’ memory laws, which have sought to acknowledge and give reparations to victims of Franco’s government.
Archbishop Argüello described the laws as “primarily an instrument of ideological polarization serving present political interests more than a channel for deepening the reconciliation”.
Meanwhile, Romero noted, the Church has quietly but consistently “continued the canonization processes of the martyrs killed in the anti-Catholic violence of the 1930s – processes that had largely stalled until the pontificate of John Paul II.”
When it comes to dealing with current political parties, the Church finds itself opposed by both extremes of the political spectrum, similar to the contemporary situation in many other Western countries.
Romero said the Church faces criticism from “the far left, where many hold the Church fully responsible for all the atrocities attributed to Francoism while ignoring or belittling atrocities committed against the Church; and on the far right, where some still repeat the accusation – common since the 1960s – that the Church was ‘ungrateful’ to the regime that had saved it from extermination.”
The changes in the Spanish Church’s approach to politics can be seen in its dealings with the ultra-conservative party Vox, which holds a number of policy positions that align with the Church’s social doctrine.
Despite these key areas of agreement, the Spanish hierarchy has not openly voiced support for the party, which differs from the Church in its stance on immigration. Nor does the party seek to present itself as a Catholic party, even if it does defend the faith as a vital part of Spanish identity.
“The Church strongly discouraged any initiative to form a confessional party, while still fulfilling its mission to clearly condemn any political actions incompatible with Christian faith and morals and to encourage Catholics to act accordingly in public life,” Romero said.
Instead, Catholics in Spain are encouraged by their shepherds not to look to the past but to help build Spain’s democratic future – a future in which the Church wishes to have a significant say.
Archbishop Argüello elaborated on this idea in his address last month.
“Catholics, in respecting conscience and fostering conscience, are called to be present in public life to contribute to the building of a just social order through the praise of reason, social friendship, and action illuminated by the Church’s social doctrine,” he said.