Hello and welcome once again to our continuing story. This week we will
explore the difficult and ultimately irreconcilable relationship between
the government of the Second Republic and the Spanish Church. Like the
reforms we have already discussed, those instituted at the religious
level penetrated into taboo territory where no Spanish government had
dared to tread before. Unlike the other reforms, whose effects were
limited to specific sectors of the population, those made in the realm
of religion touched a raw nerve that ran through the whole of society.
By
the beginning of the 20th century, public opinion in Spain
had become sharply polarized on the question of ‘religion’, by which we
mean Roman Catholicism, the sole avenue of spiritual expression
remaining after the ravages of the Inquisition. Many Spaniards, whether
rich or poor, educated or illiterate, held religion to be the moral
staff of life; while many others, in the same variety of conditions,
held it to be the straightjacket of ignorance. The cutting edge of
contemporary thought, as personified by José Ortega y Gasset*
(1883-1955), prolific social commentator and a member of the republican
parliament, tended toward the use of what this great thinker termed
‘vital reason’ and away from the ideological constraints of religion.
However, quite apart from the philosophical implications of faith, the
objectives of the Republic’s religious reforms were strictly
bureaucratic. No attempt was made, as it was in Communist Russia, to
outlaw religion as it was practiced by the common man. The aim, rather,
was to limit the economic and temporal power of the Church - which was
great - and to reduce its overspill into non-religious aspects of
society, due, in large measure, to the Church’s uncontested role as the
dispenser of education in Spain.
As
opposed to the Republic’s relationship to the Army, which started off on
reasonably good footing but later degenerated, relations between Church
and Republic were hostile from the start. To begin with, the effective
separation of Church and State was seen by most ecclesiastic officials
as a threat to the very existence of the Church. The passage of time, of
course, has proven this not to be the case, but apparently the Church
felt that its spiritual domain (which is its true domain) would diminish
in proportion to the loss of its worldly domain - not exactly a
faith-inspired approach to its purported mission: the saving of souls.
As Barbara Tuchman eloquently puts it in her historical opus, A
Distant Mirror:
“The claim of the Church to spiritual leadership could never be made
wholly credible to all its communicants when it was founded in material
wealth. The more riches the Church amassed, the more visible and
disturbing became the flaw; nor could it ever be resolved and continued
to renew doubt and dissent in every century.”
That
the Church was “grounded in the things of Caesar” was no less true in 20th
century Spain than it was in any other time or place. Hence, it comes as
no great shock that the first surreptitious move on the part of Cardinal
Segura (Archbishop of Toledo and maximum prelate in Spain) was to
initiate the liquidation of all of the Church’s assets in order to
smuggle its wealth outside national territory. These transactions, of
course, were carried out behind the scenes with utmost stealth. The
Cardinal’s first visible action was the publication of a pastoral
extolling the virtues of the recently exiled monarchy and decrying the
dangers of anarchy and communism. His impassioned words thundered out in
response to a decree published the previous day (6th May
1931) by the Republic’s provisional government, stating that religious
education was no longer compulsory in public schools.
Violence Flares
Joining forces with the Cardinal, two of Madrid’s most conservative
newspapers, the monarchical ABC and the Catholic El Debate,
spoke out vehemently against the new ruling, and announced the opening
of a ‘monarchical club’ the following Sunday, 10th May. On
the appointed day, a group of left-wing activists congregated outside
the building where the club was holding its first meeting while
listening to the Royal March on the gramophone. Emotions ran high on
either side of the religious divide, and before long a ruckus broke out
between the two factions. This incident, while not serious in itself,
set off a chain reaction of nation-wide violence; for later that Sunday,
another group of protesters tried to assault the offices of the ABC,
which were under protection by the guardia civil. Two persons
were killed in the incident, one of them a 13-year-old youth. On Monday,
six convents in Madrid were burnt down by unidentified renegade groups,
and on Tuesday several more religious buildings met the same fate in
other cities.
On
Wednesday, 13th May, Cardinal Segura embarked on his second
openly anti-republican venture, which was to travel to Rome to report
the unchristian goings-on in Spain, with the result that the Vatican
refused to recognize the new Spanish ambassador. His mission
accomplished, Segura did not return to Spain but rather set up a base of
operations in a French town near the Spanish border. His plan was to
subject himself to self-imposed exile while remaining near enough to
Spain to be able to direct the clandestine withdrawal of ecclesiastic
funds from the country.
On
11th June, the Cardinal tried to sneak back into Spain, but
was discovered by the authorities and sent back to France, the rationale
being that if he had chosen exile over active participation in the
affairs of his homeland, he must stand by that decision for better or
for worse. The Republic then initiated negotiations with other members
of the ecclesiastic hierarchy in an attempt to smooth out the
difficulties inherent in the so-far inimical relationship between the
two entities. Not long into the negotiations, however, Segura’s scheme
was discovered. Now it was the Republic’s turn to protest to the Vatican
about the unethical behaviour of one as high as the Archbishop of
Toledo. The following September, Segura was forced to renounce his post
due to pressures from pontifical sources.
Sparks Fly in Parliament
In
October, talks began in parliament to establish the constitutional
articles which would define the Republic’s stance on religious matters.
Article 3, guaranteeing Spaniards the right to practice any religion or
none at all, passed with little difficulty. Article 26, however,
produced heated dissention leading to the resignation of 42 members of
parliament including Alcalá Zamora (president of the Republic and one of
the key participants in the Pact of San Sebastián) and Miguel Maura
(Minister of the Home Office). Because it cut to the core of the
Church’s traditional and very privileged position within the Spanish
state, the article was seen as heretical by many who otherwise supported
the Republic.
It
stipulated that priests would no long be considered civil servants, and
would therefore no longer be paid by the State, following a two-year
phase-out period. The bill also called for the dissolution of those
religious orders which, like the Jesuits, “statutorily imposes, in
addition to the three canonical vows, another special vow of
obedience to an authority distinct from that of the legitimate State.
Their assets will be nationalized and put to charitable and educational
ends.” All other religious orders would be allowed to carry on
with their activities under the proviso that they not “engage in
industry, commerce or education”. Finally, religious orders would no
longer enjoy exemption from taxes, but would be obliged to contribute to
the upkeep of State, like any other legal enterprise.
Laws Go into Effect
In
January of 1932, the above-mentioned laws went into effect, and at the
same time it also became legal for Spaniards to celebrate civil
marriages, get divorced, and be buried in secular cemeteries. The Jesuit
order was officially disbanded, with its handsome assets - including
large block of real estate and an extensive stock market portfolio -
theoretically remaining at the disposal of the government. The trouble
was that most of these possessions were not registered in the name of
The Society of Jesus but in the names of those who managed the order’s
financial affairs. Consequently, very few of the Jesuit’s great riches
passed into the public domain.
Strides in Education
Education was one of the great aims and achievements of the Second
Republic. During the Reformist Biennium alone, 6,750 schools were built,
equipped and put into operation. To compensate for the diminished role
of the priesthood in education, the government set up docent courses for
student teachers, raised the salaries of those who practiced the
profession, and elaborated a system of primary school inspections, among
other measures. The budget for ‘Public Instruction’ was one of the
largest government expenditures and rose steadily with each passing
year. In 1931, 201 million pesetas was allocated for education, in 1932,
255 million and in 1933, 295 million.
One
of the most interesting educational tools devised by the Republic was
its famous Foundation of Pedagogical Missions. In the book, Historia
de España, R. Tamames describes the activities of this innovative
group of ad hoc educators:
“… it was, without a doubt, in the area of its pedagogical missions that
the young Republic showed its best intentions of transforming, as
quickly as possible, the pall of ignorance and obscurantism that, until
then, had covered Spain. It began to operate in the summer of 1933 under
the direction of Manuel Bartolomé Cossío. The missions, which reached
the most hidden places in Spain, were made up of teachers and students
armed with film projectors, gramophones, reproductions of famous
paintings, books, etc. They would put on plays, and among the
participants in this department, the most noteworthy were Alejandro
Casona and Federico García Lorca (courtesy of the celebrated travelling
theatre group, La Barraca). Many Spaniards from rural areas saw film and
theatre and listened to classical music, talks and poetry for the first
time.”
Closing
Although there is much more that could be said, this instalment will
finalize our study of Azaña’s Reformist Biennium. As a quick checklist,
the most important reforms instituted during these two years were the
Agrarian Reform, the reorganization of Church and Army and the Statute
of Catalan Autonomy. Next week we will begin our passage through the
Black Biennium, a dark time, indeed, during which Franco and a group of
other generals began to machinate their conspiracy against the Republic.
Join us then. |