CHAPTER III FRANCO, THE VATICAN’S INSTRUMENT OF WAR

THE Spanish Civil War, dress rehearsal of the Second World War. — Religion versus the Republic. — Italy and Germany assist the Spanish reaction. — Franco, Moorish troops and Italian and German reinforcements. — Mgr. Gomara:”Blessed be the guns if they make way for the flourishing of the Gospel”. The Vatican to the rescue: the anticipated recognition of Franco’s rebel government. — The Caudillo, standard-bearer of religion. The Eucharistic Congress of El Ferrol. — Fraternity of the three dictators. —”Hitler, son of the Catholic Church, died defending Christianity”. — The Caudillo’s office adorned by a strange trio: Hitler, Pius XII and Mussolini. — Clericalism in the schools: the “pernicious”freedoms. — A Church avid of riches. The Opus Dei. — Religion at the point of the bayonet.

WE begin here a chapter which—contrarily to what might at first appear—is closely connected with our subject, since it deals with that aspect of the Spanish Civil War which made it a ‘dress rehearsal’ of the great tragedy that was on its way.

There are some people who readily believe that this was an essentially Iberian affair, a settling of differences between the various parties fighting for power in the peninsula. This is a serious mistake. In fact, Spain, as well as Germany and Italy, was to fall into the vast net that the Vatican was—and still is—fashioning to spread over the world.

Conquered by its devoted followers, these countries were to serve as its tools in bringing to heel those nations which hoped to escape the Papal yoke. It was not in vain, as was soon to become apparent, that France found herself thus hemmed in along her three main frontiers by the dictator states which depended on the Papacy for their inspiration.

We have no hesitation in saying that on the world’s chessboard, where this gigantic game went on uninterruptedly, Mussolini, Hitler and Franco, in spite of appearances, were mere pawns in the Vatican’s war game.

A priest’s testimony

Canon Caries Cardo writes the following:

“We know Charlemagne’s ambition to build a Christian Empire which would inherit the Roman Empire, and to share with the Papacy the government of Christendom.

“That Spain is one of the most Catholic peoples of the world, is an obvious truth from many points of view. . . . Spain was called upon to defend and propagate Catholicism—even by the use of arms… .

“Its kings thus condemned the Church … to play before the people the role of defender both of absolutism and of injustice towards the poor. . . . Another thorn in the political side of militant Spanish Catholicism was Radicalism. All or nothing. . . .

“The right-wing parties thought that the whole problem consisted in building political and military walls around the Church and in setting up—by violence if necessary—an entirely Catholic government. All political and even religious perfection lay in possessing that government. … It was therefore not a necessity of moral perfection, which must precede any real social improvement; nor was it a problem of asceticism, culture or apostolate; it was above all a politico-military problem . . . every move of the Catholics had to be aimed at installing at all costs a political regime of force. . . .

“To treat the people as if they were wild animals which must be tamed by using the Crucifix as whip is the surest way to awaken hatred of the Crucifix. To try to conceal immoralities with the banner of religion is to bring on religion the greatest possible discredit. . . .

“The author of these lines knows something about these things. Civil war against the Republic was wanted at all costs as a prerequisite of religion’s victory. . . .

“Alleged appearances of the Virgin, weeping Crucifixes and providentially discovered writings, in which a nun of a century and a half ago had prophesied all that was happening as well as, for the very near future, the inevitable miracle of redemption. .. .

“The insistence upon the setting up of an apocryphal kingdom of God, which was in fact the reign of gold and the sword, has ended in catastrophe… .

“On 31 March 1934, a fantastic event occurred in Rome. . . . General EmiUo Barrera, as military representative, Mr. Rafael Olozabal and Mr. Lizarza, for the Carlist Party, and Mr. Antonio Goicoechea, as Chief of the ‘Renovacion Espanola’ Party, had an interview with Mussolini and Marshal Italo Balbo, during which the Fascist Government agreed to help the Spaniards with their plan for an insurrection aimed at the overthrow of the Republic and its replacement by a regency. . . . During the winter of 1935. still under the government of right-centre, negotiations of a similar kind seem to have been started with Germany. …”

Premeditation

“From 1934,” writes Albert P. Prieur, “Himinler and Heyderich had a delegate in Spain—Hansjiirgen Koehler, a German secret police agent… . The Gestapo had sent a General Staff to the Iberian peninsula to organize there a Spanish Gestapo network, which had already been well outlined. The chief of all the ‘port services’ was Kurt Wermke, collaborator of Himmler and Heyderich. . . .

“In his book, ‘Inside the Gestapo’, published by ‘Pallas Publishing’, Hansjiirgen Koehler writes in particular:

. . . Every German association, club or league, official or otherwise, was feverishly working to supply all the information that was thought necessary. At the same time, the fiercest propaganda was directed against any movement of communistic, socialistic, liberal or masonic tendency, while favouring the right-wing parties and the monarchists. Anybody who was not a friend of the Spanish Fascist parties was accused of being a Jew, afree-mason or a communist. . . . It was necessary to find a Spanish politician or soldier prepared— under German control—to oppose the liberal government and to proclaim the dictatorship. He would also sign a military alliance with the Third Reich.. . . The new man chosen was General Franco.

‘In a few months, Franco’s friends and associates were occupying the principal military posts. . . .’

“Having started on 17 July 1936 with 35,000 Moorish soldiers, Franco was soon to receive reinforcements from Italy and Germany. On 1 October 1936, after two months of Germano-Italian intervention. Franco installed his government at Burgos. . . .”

The Vatican to the rescue

If Mussolini and Hitler were thus supporting their Spanish counterpart as best they could, the Vatican was not inactive either. The interest it was taking in the triumph of the “good cause” in the Iberian peninsula soon found expression in the de jure recognition of the Fascist government of Franco, the rebel chief. This striking measure was taken on 3 August 1937, in the middle of the civil war, which was to finish only twenty months later (31 March 1939). By this means, the Pope was applying pressure on the other states, in order to bring them to make the same anticipatory recognition, but above all he was trying to provoke the desertion of the Catholics serving in the Republican armies by indicating to them which was the “legitimate” government.

What was becoming, in this business, of the respect owed by the faithful to the established order, a principle which the Papacy has always flattered itself on preaching?

Spain, the Papacy’s preserves

“I never risked talking to Plus XI of the Spanish question”, says Francois Charles-Roux,3″he would probably have given me to understand that the Church’s interests in the great historic country of Spain were exclusively the business of the Papacy. …”

This may be judged from the following extracts taken from Father Duclos:

The Victorious Sword

“When the Caudillo left Morocco to come to Spain’s rescue, he was the standard-bearer of religion. . . . Franco had conducted the entire civil war as champion of the Church, while at the same time having the benefit of German support . . . . On 23 May 1939, the ‘Osservatore Romano’ announced that Franco was solemnly offering his victorious sword to God; on 12 June, the ‘Osservatore Romano’ stressed the warm welcome given by Plus XII to 3,000 soldiers and officers from Catholic Spain; on 17 August came the news of the reinstalment of crucifixes in every Spanish school… .

“The Osservatore Romano of 19 July 1940 described the magnificent display of the Eucharistic Congress at El Ferrol; .. .on 15 August, there was the description of the impressive celebrations of Saint James’s Day at Santiago, in the presence of the Archbishop and the Minister of National Education. On 8 August, the German Ambassador at Madrid informed Berlin that Franco was still in favour of collaboration. . . .

“On 24 January 1941, the Osservatore Romano hastened to quote at length: ‘The unique and true doctrine of the two perfect societies, with harmony between State and Church, was recently set out in our present Pcmtiff’s first encyclical Summi Pontificatus. The Franco State accepts the Church’s principles, which are those of God. – . .’ The Nuncio Cicognani and Serrano Suner, Minister of Foreign Affairs, signed the convention of 7 June 1941, granting to the Chief of the Spanish State the right to make to the Pope nominations for the office of bishop; it is specified that this privilege is granted in virtue of’the merit acquired by new Spain in the eyes of the Church’.”

Then again, Francois Mirandet writes:

“The Catholic Church . . . has resolutely taken its stand behind Franco. The Franco regime, for its part, shows the most profound veneration for the Church: ‘Our movement, says the programme of the Falange, will instil the Catholic spirit into national reconstruction’. This found expression in the restitution to the Catholic Church of its status of the established religion. . . . The Church enjoyed a privileged position, and its activity goes far beyond the strictly religious domain. . . . The State undertakes to execute sentences passed by the prelates. . . . The authorities’ excessive solicitude for the Church gives rise to some anxiety. . . . The Falange has undertaken to have painted or engraved on church walls the names of those who, in the sacred formula, have died for God and Spain. . . .’

In face of the persistence and energy with which the”triplet” regimes of Italy, Germany and Spain asserted at every turn and in almost identical terms their perfect unity with the Vatican, how can anyone doubt that this is where they originated? To quote Camille Cianfarra:

“The Papacy has been accused of upholding Fascism, the argument being that the Spanish clergy sided with Franco and that the Vatican gave its moral support to the insurgents during the civil war. The Vatican has never hidden its liking for the Spanish dictator . . . For the Holy See, Franco represented the defender of the Church in Spain. . . .”

Similarly, the”brotherly”character of these regimes was loudly proclaimed, whenever an opportunity offered.

In 1938, de Lequerica wrote:

“Fifteen years ago this fraternity in life and in death which now binds us to Italy did not exist. We are united in a common hatred of the enemy, whether this enemy be Communism or Democracy”.

And later, in a letter (3 June 1940) to his beloved Hitler, Franco wrote:

“At this time when, under your leadership, the German armies are bringing to a victorious close the greatest battle of history, I wish to convey to you my enthusiasm and my admiration, as well as that of my people who have followed with emotion the development of a glorious fight that they feel to be their own. . . .”

There are innumerable quotations of this kind.

Berlin — Madrid

“The fall of France”, writes F. Mirandet, “the capitulation of the government of Bordeaux and the signing of the armistice were greeted with an enthusiastic clamour by the Franco press and radio . . . overflowing with admiration for the German army, ‘herald of the New Order’. . . .

“If Europe’s fate is already decided, declared Franco, it should not be forgotten that it was on our soil that the first battle of the ‘New Order’ took place. At the same time, he issued a warning to America: ‘It is criminal folly to suppose that the fate of the war can be changed by the entry into the fight of a new power’.” Yet his great friend was defeated. On 3 May 1945, the day Hitler died. Franco8 had his papers publish the following:

“Adolf Hitler, son of the Catholic Church, has died defending Christianity. It is understandable that our pen cannot find words with which to deplore his death, when it was able to find so many to extol his life. Above his mortal remains rises his victorious moral figure. With the crown of martyrdom, God gives to Hitler the laurels of Victory.”

And the Caudillo’s office was akeady adorned by a strange trio: Hitler, Plus XII and Mussolini. …

Children of Spain, beware of the thirteen deadly sins!

“Such is the command contained in the ‘Franco Catechism of 1946’ which condemns as pernicious the freedom of the press, modernism and other types of Socialism”, writes Maurice Felut.9 “If it is true that the Holy Apostolic and Roman Church is one and indivisible in its faith and doctrine, the French faithful who might have been moved by the Episcopate’s recent proclamation that the freedom of education would be defended by ‘every means’ will be alarmed when they read Father Ripalda’s catechism, which is being taught in Spanish schools under the high patronage of the Bishops of Almeria, Seville, Cadiz and Cordoba. . . . Thirteen modern errors are branded as infamous in this charitable work. Here they are: materialism, Darwinism, atheism, pantheism, deism, rationalism, Protestantism, socialism, communism, trade-unionism, liberalism, modernism and Freemasonry.

“And this is how the author commits them to juvenile indignation. Protestantism first: the founder of this heresy was a conceited and corrupt apostate priest called Luther! Socialism: an absurd system and, furthermore, unjust. If Communism is rejected as being equally absurd, what is to be said of this definition of trade-unionism: the union of the working classes for the destruction of society, the dispersion of private property and the defence of their alleged rights!

The”pernicious freedoms”

“After the assertions of principle, come the temporal rules:

Q.—Must the State be laic (secular)?

A.—On no account. It must profess the Catholic religion, which is the only true religion. It must subject itself to the Church, as the body to the soul and the temporal to the eternal.

Q.—Must this State tolerate the freedom of the press?

A.—No, for the freedom of the press implies the ability to print and to publish, without preventive censorship, all manner of opinions, no matter how absurd and corrupt.

Q.—Must the Government repress this freedom by means of preventive censorship?

A.—Yes, undoubtedly.

Q.—Why?

A.—Because false beliefs, calumny, and the corruption of its subjects are directly opposed to the common good and must be prevented.

Q.—Are there other harmful freedoms?

A.—Yes, the freedom of education, the freedom of propaganda and of assembly.”

A Church avid (greedy) of riches

“Ever since the Emperor Constantine recognized the Catholic Church’s right to acquire wealth”, writes Emmanual Robles, “the clergy of the peninsula, in order to increase, or to keep its riches, have always interfered with the political and economic life of the country. They have always embraced the cause of those who guaranteed them wealth already acquired, and have always attacked the others. Moreover, the entire Spanish legislature, from the Fuero Juzgo to the last Republican Constitution, has tried to moderate this avidity of the clergy, and one might say, with the historian Ramon Portela, that ‘almost the whole of Spanish history is based upon the struggle of the State against the insatiable ambition of the Church’. . . .

“The whole of Spanish popular literature is full of allusions to this avidity of a covetous and cynical clergy. In the dark ages, this propaganda was cautious, for the servants of the God of Love were not too kind of heart and would well and truly flay or burn to death any creature who showed even the slightest ill intention. Church-folk abound among the characters of these popular tales— both oral and written—but in general they do not portray virtue. . . . Popular tales may caricature reality but they are based on it. In English popular literature also, for instance, parsons are ridiculed. But they are always virtuous and it is only their puritanism, their imperturbable serenity or their gossiping nature that is made fun of.

“During the ‘civil’ war, the great majority of the clergy were on the side of the rebels. . . .

“Even today, people are tortured and shot in the prisons of Spain. Not one of the high dignitaries of the Church h^s stood up to the executioners of a generous people who thought, as Camus wrote, ‘that to conquer, it was sufficient to be right’. Not one of these prelates . . . covered in gold and brocade has ever protested against the massacres. New convents have been opened. New chasubles have been embroidered, more sumptuous and richer in precious stones. And, unscrupulously, the adoration of Him who brought immense hope has continued, of Him who was the first to preach, with overwhelming power and conviction, respect for human dignity”.

As in the days of Isabella

“There is the usual ostentatious display in the procession at Seville”, writes Michel Sahnon. “Austere Spaniards, in black suits and stiff collars, and perspiring profusely, carry at arm’s length heavy and sumptuous virgins—covered in diamonds and brocade—and saintly relics in their solid gold shrines. Hooded peniteats follow holding long candles. . . . Sinister reminder of medieval Spain, of”la Espana negra”of Torquemada and of the autos-da-fe, the heavy yoke which has been weighing upon the shoulders of this country for more than five centuries.. . .

“On this mere strip of land, the Church has remained as powerful as in the days of Isabella, as narrow and as mercilessly fanatic. . . . By giving its support to the country’s most reactionary forces, the Church neutralized all attempts to democratize Spain. . . . Today, under the regime that she appears to favour most—military dictatorship—the Church represents by far the most considerable political power of Spain. Her hold over the illiterate masses of countrymen, and especially the women, is complete. Her riches are inestimable.. .. The ecclesiastics are exempted from all taxes and enjoy innumerable privileges. The most flourishing ventures on the black market are in the hands of priests or of clerks belonging to the Church. Whole cargoes of coffee, sugar, cloths—supposedly gifts from American churches—are delivered to them, tax-free, whereas the ordinary Spaniard has to pay customs duties that rank among the highest in Europe.

“The Church, apart from the special organizations and its orders— including the famous omnipotent Company of Jesus—comprises a sort of clerical freemasonry, the ‘Opus Dei’. How is it possible to start useful discussions with a church that sits mesmerized in nostalgic contemplation of the Middle Ages and lives by the oppression often million men whom she helps to exploit? What answer can be expected of those prelates whose divine order is that of Franco? Of those crusades that were Isabella’s ‘Reconquistd in reverse, with legions of mercenary Arabs?

“A picture that people in Madrid remembered has for long haunted my mind. It was on that funeral day of March 1939, when the first Franco troops set foot on the soil of Madrid. Preceding a Moorish detachment, there walked a bearded Franciscan, in soutane and hood; he was holding his crucifix in one hand and with the other was waving an imposing Mauser at the houses and their blind windows. ‘For Dios, par Espana y la Santa Fe catolica’. . . .

From Guernica to Buchenwald

“The facts are there: they unfold in logical sequence from Guernica to Buchenwald. . . . The powers of evil have been ruling over Spain ever since July 1936.. . .

“And let me speak in a firm voice about the thing which above all forces itself upon Christian attention, reading and meditating upon the charge made by Dr. Ruys. . . . There was an overwhelming majority of priests and bishops who, like Judas, betrayed their Master; there was above all a Church which patronized and subsidized the seditious movement and induced naive or deliberately unseeing Christians the world over to believe the legend of the ‘Holy Crusade’ for the defence of the Apostolic and Roman Catholic religion. This Church has spread its cloak over the shameful assassinations, blessed the arms of those who were about to shoot their brothers, and participated in the autos-da-fe ofPamplona. … I heard with my own ears people who—in all good faith—extolled the ‘Cadets of Toledo’ and the ‘Spanish Crusades’ as defenders of the faith and heralds of Christ. Poor Christ of Spain, hanging from the arm of the Swastika, as Don Diego put it. Alas, his efSgy is taken for a standard by the very people who crucify him daily. There is the unpardonable sin against the Holy Ghost.”

Hitler and Mussolini are dead. Dead also are the regimes of absolutism and terror they instituted. None the less, by a strange paradox, the forces of evil denounced by Dr. Ruys are still in the saddle in Spain. Thanks to the weakness—or the deliberate intent— of the Allies, obscurantism of the worst kind still obfuscates the minds of the Spaniards.

Religion at the point of the bayonet

“‘The Paredon’, which lies between the outer angle of the cemetery and a break in a rusty-coloured hillock, is the place”, says Roger Klein,””where the big massacres took place after the fall of Madrid on 29 March 1939. The men on the right, the women on the left. Torn to pieces by the salvos, the murdered victims were left as they lay. . . . The Church refused them Christian burial. . . . The crows and the dogs fought over their flesh. . . . Month after month, every day at daybreak, lorry after lorry—twenty or thirty of them— packed with prisoners, their hands tied behind their backs.

“The Church had enough authority over the murderers, after their victory of 1939, to put a stop to this never-ending feast of Saint-Bartholomew. She did nothing; she did not even banish those of her servants who participated in the crime themselves by drawing up the lists of their parishioners to be killed. . . .”

What can we add to this testimony? We are obliged to acknowledge that this crime committed by the Roman Catholic Church against the very spirit of Christianity has been repeated time and time again in every country, however far back in history one may go. To take only recent years, whether in Italy, Germany, Spain, Mgr. Tiso’s Slovakia, Ante Pavelitch’s Croatia, martyred Poland or enslaved France, the Church—because of its essential character has always been on the side of the executioner.

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