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‘Must God Go Fascist?’: English Catholic Opinion and the Spanish Civil War

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

James Flint
James Flint
Affiliation:
Mr. Flint is a monk of Saint Procopius Abbey, Lisle, Illinois.
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Those individuals who seek to apply moral principles to their consideration of the affairs of nations of which they lack direct knowledge may expect to encounter certain difficulties. They may have no means of obtaining indisputable answers to questions even of a factual nature, and they may find it impossible adequately to weigh the contradictory claims of various factions. Moreover, if a religious or other close bond exists with one of the parties to a conflict, it might be tempting to subscribe to the justice of that group's struggle.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 56 , Issue 3 , September 1987 , pp. 364 - 374
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1987

References

1. A recent study of Republican Spain's relations with Great Britain and the United States has suggested that the “malevolent neutrality” of the two great powers during the Civil War was the result not of any wish to appease Italy and Germany, but simply of disillusionment with the Spanish Republic itself. By mid–1936, the political instability and unfriendly economic policies of Spain had so exasperated the Foreign Office and State Department that both were willing to countenance an alternative to the Republic, which seemed otherwise likely to fall into Communist hands. Little, Douglas, Malevolent Neutrality: The United States, Great Britain and the Origins of the Spanish Civil War (Ithaca, N.Y., 1985).Google Scholar

2. See Sánchez, José M., “The Second Spanish Republic and the Holy See: 1931–1936,” Catholic Historical Review 49 (1963): 47–68;Google Scholar and Greene, Thomas R., “The English Catholic Press and the Second Spanish Republic, 1931–1936,” Church History 45 (1976): 70–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3. Pius XI, “Siempre Nos fué” (3 June 1933), in The Papal Encyclicals, ed. Carlen, Claudia, 5 vols. (Wilmington, N.C., 1981), 3: 491–492.Google Scholar The Spanish original can be found in Acta Apostolicae Sedis 25 (1933): 276.Google Scholar

4. Bedoyere, Michae de la, “Rome and Reaction,” Dublin Review 200 (1937): 251Google Scholar De la Bedoyere was editor of the weekly Catholic Herald from 1934 until 1962.

5. Attwater, Donald, “Passing the Buck,” Commonweal 24 (1936): 517.Google Scholar

6. The best account of this matter in English is Zatko, James J., Descent into Darkness: The Destruction of the Roman Catholic Church in Russia, 1917–1923 (Notre Dame, 1965).Google Scholar

7. Dublin Review 175 (1924): 130–131.Google Scholar

8. Lewy, Guenter, Religion and Rebellion (New York, 1974), pp. 401–402.Google Scholar

9. Since April 1936 the Tablet had been managed by Douglas Woodruff, who attracted to the journal the contributions of a number of conservative Catholic intellectuals, including Christopher Dawson, Arnold Lunn, and Christopher Hollis.

10. Tablet 168 (25 07 1936): 101–102.Google Scholar

11. See Thomas, Hugh, The Spanish Civil War (New York, 1961), pp. 171–175,Google Scholar for a description of these events. The number of deaths resulting from Republican atrocities is given there as 12 bishops, 5,255 priests, 2,492 monks, 283 nuns, and 249 novices (p. 173).

12. Tablet 168 (1 08. 1936): 133.Google Scholar

13. Tablet 168 (5 12. 1936): 765.Google Scholar

14. Month 168 (08. 1936): 106.Google Scholar

15. Moloney, Thomas, Westminster, Whitehall and the Vatican: The Role of Cardinal Hinsley, 1935–7943 (Tunbridge Wells, 1985), p. 70.Google Scholar

16. Sheed, Frank, The Church and I (Garden City, N.Y., 1974), p. 199.Google Scholar

17. “Al di sopra di ogni considerazione politica e mondana, la Nostra benedizione si volge in modo speciale a quanti si sono assunto il difficile e pericoloso compito di difendere e restaurare i diritti e l'onore di Dio e della Religione”; Acta Apostolicae Sedis 28 (1936): 380.Google Scholar

18. Papal Encyclicals, 3: 541. original, Latin: Acta Apostolicae Sedis 29 (1937): 114–115.Google Scholar

19. Pius, XI, “Nos Es Muy Conocida” (28 03 1937),Google Scholar in Papal Encyclicals, 3: 560. Spanish original: Acta Apostolicae Sedis 29 (1937): 208.Google Scholar It has been suggested that, considering the relatively peaceful conditions in Mexico at this time, the pope had intended from the first that his words apply to Spain. Lewy, , Religion and Rebellion, pp. 411, 438–439.Google Scholar

20. Month 169 (05 1937): 387.Google Scholar For a more circumspect contemporary analysis of the Pope's statements, see Sturzo, Luigi, “The Right to Rebel,” Dublin Review 201 (10. 1937): 24–39.Google Scholar

21. Tablet 170 (14 08. 1937): 221.Google Scholar The complete pastoral, in English translation, may be found in ibid., pp. 219–222.

22. Moloney, , Westminster, Whitehall and the Vatican, p. 64.Google Scholar See also a letter of Bedoyere, Michael de la in Blackfriars 18 (04 1937): 304.Google Scholar

23. Hinsley, to Gill, , 29 08 in Speaight, Rober, The Life of Eric Gill (New York,1966), p. 274.Google Scholar

24. Blackfriars 17 (09. 1936): 704–705.Google Scholar

25. Blackfriars 17 (10. 1936): 726–727.Google Scholar Writing in the American Catholic journal Commonweal, Donald Attwater criticized the Spanish right for seeking “to save ‘our unhappy country’ by means of machine-guns, bombs and terrorism. No country, nothing, can be ‘saved’ in that way; Christianity converted the Roman Empire by martyrdom, not by murder.” Attwater, , “Passing the Buck,” p. 518.Google Scholar

26. Blackfriars 19 (08. 1938): 611–612.Google Scholar

27. Jerrold, Douglas, Georgian Adventure (New York, 1938), p. 397.Google Scholar

28. Month 171 (06 1938): 483Google Scholar. See Tablet 170 (20 11. 1937): 678, for similar remarks.Google Scholar

29. For example, in February 1937 the Tablet stated, “There is no doubt that the Fascist and Nazi movements ought basically to be recognized as defensive.” Knowing from experience what Red terror would mean, Germany and Italy had (reasoned the Tablet) opted instead for strong national governments. Furthermore, “Neither regime is a regime of privilege, and each is led by a man of the people”; Tablet 169 (6 02. 1937): 181Google Scholar. Later that year, in a leader entitled “The Church and Fascism,” it was argued that just as nineteenth-century liberal democracy had often proved unfriendly to the church but tolerable, so would it be with fascism, which was quite possibly the wave of the future; Tablet 170 (20 11. 1937): 680–681.Google Scholar These sentiments arose from the conviction, hardly uncommon in the 1930s, that the liberal capitalist state was passing away and English people might as well get used to the fact that the effects of democracy were, quite rightly, not universally admired. The Tablet, along with most of the English Catholic press, faithfully backed the efforts of Chamberlain to improve relations with Germany and Italy.

30. Blackfriars 17 (09. 1936): 706–708.Google Scholar

31. Sowert 125 (10. 1937): 190–191.Google Scholar

32. Sower 126 (01. 1938): 5–6.Google Scholar

33. Blackfriars 18 (07 1937): 529.Google Scholar

34. Blackfriars 19 (08. 1938): 612.Google Scholar

35. Tablet 171 (22 01. 1938): 100.Google Scholar

36. Dingle, Reginald J., “French Catholics and Politics,” Month 171 (02. 1938): 134–141.Google Scholar

37. Month 171 (06 1938): 486.Google Scholar

38. Month 172 (08.. 1938): 104.Google Scholar

39. Month 173 (03 1939): 195.Google Scholar

40. Belloc, Hilaire, “The Salvation of Spain,” Tablet 173 (25 02. 1939): 245–246Google Scholar.

41. Moloney, , Westminster, Whitehall and the Vatican, p. 71.Google Scholar

42. Mews, Stuart, “The Sword of the Spirit: A Catholic Cultural Crusade,” in The Church and War, ed. Sheils, W.J. (Oxford, 1983), pp. 415–416.Google Scholar

43. Month 168 (09. and 12. 1936): 193, 482–483.Google Scholar

44. Blackfriars 17 (10. 1936): 781–782.Google Scholar

45. Blackfriars 19 (06 1938): 440–442.Google Scholar