CHURCH IN SPAIN

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21580, 6 December 1944, Page 4

CHURCH IN SPAIN

FRANCO’S REGIME PROTESTANTS SUFFER PERSECUTION ALLEGED (9 a.m.) LONDON, Dec. 5. The World’s Evangelical Alliance alleges that the Franco regime is persecuting and even executing Protestants in Spain, says the London Daily Telegraph. The Alliance has laid these details before the Foreign Office and circulated them among members of the House of Commons. (1) Nearly all Spanish Protestant places of worship have been closed. (2) A number of pastors and evangelists, and a far larger number of church members have been executed.

cl) Protestant religious meetings are not allowed in ilic* greater part of Spain. i.-l) Except for the Roman Catholic version, with notes, ihc Bible is not allowed to be printed or circulated. (5) The British and Foreign Bible Society’s stock at Madrid, consisting of lit),000 copies ol Bibles and Testaments. has been confiscated. Hit Foreign missionaries have had to leave Spain.

The Alliance further declared that two-thirds of Spanish pastors and evangelists and colporteurs have been exiled, imprisoned or executed. A number have died in prison. 'the children of Protestant parents are compelled to learn the Roman Catholic catechism, and worship images of the Virgin Mary. Attendances at mass in many places is compulsory to procure employment. A young Protestant recently was sent to a concentration camp for refusal to attend mass. Mr. Isaac Foot, chairman of the executive council of the Worlds Evangelical Alliance, and also the Alliance’s honorary and general secretaries, have sent a letter to the House of Lords setting out the above allegations.