The Truth About Spain

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19313, 1 May 1937, Page 6

The Truth About Spain

(To tho Editor of tho Herald.)

Sir, Your correspondent, J. McMahon, makes some remarkable statements about the Roman Catholic church in Spain in relation to its. civil disabilities "prion to the Republic, and also to its financial standing. A number of these are strictly correct but unqualified; as they stand they give a false idea of the facts. For example, it is true that Spain in the 19th century confiscated the property of the religions orders—on paper. The law, however, was not carried out. It is true that the religious orders were suppressed four times during that century—hut they always came back". When the monarchy fell in 1931 the constitution separated church and State a.nd the. following year dissolved tile Jesuit order, confiscating its property. But the Government agreed to continue the church subsidy until the end of 1933. In 1931 it paid 65.000,000 pesetas (about 36 to the pound), ancl Smaller amounts in 1932 and L 933, and it did not drive out the Jesuits, It may well be asked why a, country overwhelmingly Catholic .should so often suppress, even if ineffectually, its religious orders and pass restrictive legislation against the national church. A chapter in “.Spain in Revolt,” hv two newspaper men, Harry Cannes and Theodore Repard, supplies a clue. They say : “There was one institution in Spain stronger than any man, mightier than any grandee of all of them, more powerful than the monarchy and more persuasive than the army; That institution was the Catholic Church with its religious orders. There are only 35,000 non-Catholics in Spain. The Catholic Church was Spain’s greatest landlord. It was also tho most important industrialist, banker, schoolmaster and money-lender. Its wealth las been estimated at one--third of the national wealth .... All told, there are 106,734 persons either i>the clergy or in the religious orders, 25.474 of‘them priests and 81,260 monks and nuns .... The religious orders, especially the Jesuits, showed great business enterprise in multiplying the profits from the land. They ‘invested very profitably in industry, shipping and banking.' The Jesuit order, for example, owned the Banco Urqnijo in Madrid, with a ca) lilal of 126,000,000 pesetas. It controlled four smaller provincial banks with a total capital of 85,000,000 pesetas. The northern railway, orange groves in Andalusia, mines'in the Basque provinces and the B.iff, factories in Barcelona were reported in the avowed or concealed control. In rural districts the church organised credit co-operatives, so that in the small peasant villages the local clergy assumed tho additional role of moneylender.”

Tlie above disposes of the idea that the church in Spain was a poverty-stricken, down-trodden institution—it exercised tremendous economic, social, and political power and was naturally the foremost enemy of agrarian reform. One word regarding education in Spain. Considering the power and wealth of the church, the fact that its priests were supported by (.lie State, which left educational matters in the hands of tlie church, its record in this direction as set out by your correspondent in his quotation from Professor Peers, is pitifully meagre. By restricting education and leaving £3 per cent of the people in gross illiteracy it held the Spanish people in subjection. The fate of those who challenged: its monopoly in education by introducing! modern methods is exemplified in the martyrdom of Francesco Ferrar in 1909. Tlie .Roman Catholics of Spain who are fighting against the power of llio church as embodied in the revolt of General Franco are fighting for social iustico' and freedom. —Yours, etc., HISTORICUS.