Ebb Tide of Religious Liberty in Spain

Abstract

Dr. Rushbrooke, secretary of the Baptist World Alliance, asked in a letter to the London Times what General Franco meant by and enumerated the essential elements of religious freedom as stated by the Oxford Conference. Among these were freedom of public and private worship, freedom of instruction, freedom of church organization and practice, and freedom of Christian service and missionary activity at home and abroad.3 An authorized person wrote in reply: I have full authority for saying that the complete toleration guaranteed by General Franco connotes the 'religious freedom' which Dr. Rushbrooke so precisely defines.4 Experience was to prove that it did not. Religious liberty is at ebb tide in Spain. Many of the early measures of the Franco government brought special privileges to the Catholic church, with a corresponding limitation of the rights of religious minorities. There was, for example, an order requiring members of the armed services to pay military honor to the Holy Sacrament and to members of the hierarchy,5 and it was made clear that non-Catholic soldiers and sailors, though excused from personal religious acts such as confession and communion, would have to participate in corporate acts of honor to the Catholic religion.6 Protestant schools, which since the Revolution of 1868 had enjoyed full freedom, were closed,7 and the Catholic religion became a required course of study in all schools.8 Municipal authorities were ordered to return to the Catholic church the cemeteries that had been expropriated by the Republic and to rebuild the walls between civil and Catholic cemeteries; and orders were given that all inscriptions and symbols which might be offensive to the Catholic religion should be removed * John David Hughey, Jr., is professor of practical theology and director of summer conferences at the Baptist Theological Seminary in Ruschlikon-Zurich, Switzerland. Formerly a Baptist pastor in South Carolina, he did relief work among refugees in the Middle East under the auspices of the UNRRA and was a representative of Southern Baptists in Spain. He was educated at Furman University (A.B.), Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (Th.M.), and Columbia University (M.A. and Ph.D.). He has contributed articles to the Christian Century, the Review of Religion, and denominational journals in the United States. His book, Religious Freedom in Spain: Its Ebb and Flow, on which this article is based, was published in England in July and will be published in America and in a Spanish translation.