RELIGION IN SPAIN [To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.]
Sra,—In your issue of February 19th you quote from the report of six Anglicans and six Free Church divines on the position of religion in Red Spain. We are assured by these dignitaries that " there is a strong anti-clerical movement but not an anti-God movement in Spain." These clergymen have accepted with simple faith the usual Red lies to the effect that the churches were used as arsenals. This, of course, explains why four hundred churches were burned in Spain before the war began and while Spain was still governed by the Govern- ment which some sanguine people have described as " democratic."
Protestants, we are told, are unmolested. If fifteen hundred Protestant clergy were murdered in the Irish Free State, and all their churches burned, it is easy to anticipate the comments these churchmen would make on a deputation of English Catholics who assured their fellow Catholics that this regrettable outburst was provoked not by hatred of God but by hatred of Protestant clericalism, and that it was reassuring to discover that Catholics were free to practise their religion unmolested.
There is, today, a world-wide war against religion directed from Moscow, and it is painful to find those who claim, as some of these signatories do claim, the Catholic name, presenting a brief on behalf of men who have been responsible for the murder and torture of thousands of Christians.
England was even more Protestant during the time of the French Revolution than it is today, but attacks upon the French clergy provoked widespread horror in England. No deputation of Anglican dignitaries visited France to convey their sympathy with the revolutionaries. It is unnecessary for a Catholic to refute this report, for the most effective refutation comes from the Communists themselves. I quote a translation of passages which appeared in the Catholic Herald of February 19th, 1937 :
" The following passages regarding the position of God in Com- munist Spain are taken from Solidaridad Obrera (January 28th, 1937), organ of the Regional Confederation of Labour in Catalonia and mouthpiece of the Spanish National Confederation of Labour :
" It appears that Alvarez del Vayo found himself obliged, in the League of Nations, to define the limits of our revolution. " Spain will have," he said, " a social democracy and therefore have freedom of religion." Admirable.
" ' We know the value of words used by diplomats-and especially if spoken in the Geneva meetings. . . .
" Lenin said that religion was opium. He did not say enough. Opium stupefies, enervates. Little by little it robs man of his organic energies, but it does not go beyond animal physiology. . . ' We do not know up to what point we can speak of the " freedom of religion." . . . The freedom for evil " is an excessively liberal principle. " If we do not allow the freedom of drunkenness, prostitution, suicide, must we allow fanaticism ?
" It is enough to judge religion by the simple fact of its burnt churches. Not one remains standing, not an effigy remains intact on the altars. Hardly a shred remains With all this they still have pretensions of returning to the faith. . . .
" This speech of Alvarez del Vayo, with his kind of promise, or compromise, that Spain will re-establish the Catholic religion, may have sounded very well in the League of Nations. It appears to have given tone to the discussion ; but here in Spain it makes us smile. . . "
Palace Hotel Des Alpes, Marren.
[The statement that " there is a strong anti-clerical movement, but not an anti-God movement " in Spain was not made by the Anglican and Free Churchmen who visited Spain, but (as stated in The Spectator of February 19th) quoted by them from " an acute English observer (living in Spain) who is himself a practising Roman Catholic."—En. The Spectator.]
Previous page
