Posted on 07/24/2013 7:17:23 AM PDT by Pyro7480
On 24 July 1936, exactly a week after the Spanish Civil War broke out, three women, who had taken up the habit of their countrywoman, Saint Teresa of Avila, were brutally executed by the anti-Catholic Republican faction in the Castilian city of Guadalajara. Their names were Sister Maria Pilar of St. Francis Borgia, age 58; Sister Maria Angeles of St. Joseph, age 31; and Sister Teresa of the Child Jesus and St. John of the Cross, who was only 27 years old when she was martyred with her two friends.
The three had fled from their Discalced Carmelite monastery two days earlier, after the Mother Prioress decided that it was too dangerous for her community to remain inside their cloister. The eighteen sisters of the monastery took off the clothing of their religious vocation, put on the everyday dress of their previous lives, and left the Carmel as inconspicuously as they could, in order to find shelter with sympathizers in the city. Sisters Maria Pilar, Maria Angeles, and Teresa, along with two other sisters, ended up hiding in the basement of the Hibernia Hotel. However, this place proved to be no safe haven, and the five daughters of Saint Teresa ended up leaving to find a new shelter. While two made it safely to a boarding house, the remaining three were left walking through the streets. A woman member of the Republican militia noticed them, possibly due to the fact that the Carmelites kept their hair short inside the cloister, and shouted, "Look, nuns! Shoot them!"
Sister Maria Angeles, who had been labeled a "little angel" by the Mother Prioress due to her sanctity, was killed almost instantly by the resulting gunfire. She was shot through the heart. Sister Maria Pilar was also hit by Republican bullets, but lived long enough to shout "Viva Cristo Rey!" ("Long Live Christ the King!"), the same slogan adopted by the Cristeros nearly ten years earlier in Mexico. The militia members, many of whom were communists, took their vengeance upon her for this exclamation by shooting at her again and slashing her body with a knife. Before she died, Sister Maria Pilar, who loved to spend hours in front of her Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, echoed some of the final words of her Master on the Cross: "My God, pardon them. They don't know what they're doing."
The youngest of the three Carmelites, Sister Teresa, managed to escape the initial gunfire. But she got lost in the resulting confusion, and was ultimately taken captive by the militia members. They took her to a cemetery inside the city, with the possible intent of raping her. Along the way, the youthful Discalced Carmelite admonished her captors, who were insisting that she sing the praises of communism. But she took up Sister Maria Pilar's cry as her answer to their demands: "Viva Cristo Rey!" Just before they executed her by shooting her in the back, Sister Teresa raised her arms and mirrored her crucified Savior, just as Blessed Miguel Pro had nearly nine years earlier before a similar firing squad in Mexico City.
Sisters Maria Pilar, Maria Angeles, and Teresa were beatified by Pope John Paul II on 29 March 1987. Their feast day is 24 July, the anniversary of their birthday into Heaven. Blessed Martyrs of Guadalajara, pray for us!
The "Republicans" whom Franco routed were communists and misguided anarchists and nihilists and all purpose criminals, thieves, rapists and murderers.
To accuse Protestants of perpetrating the evils of the Spanish Stalinist "Republican" government and its criminals would be a grave disservice and injustice to decent Reformed Christians of all faiths anywhere and everywhere.
Neither the communists nor the misguided anarchists of the Spanish "Republicans" believed in God at all much less in Jesus Christ and the Holy Scriptures as all Protestants worthy of the name would do.
If every government leader in the 20th century had possessed the wisdom and resolve of Francisco Franco, we would be living in a far more ideal and humane world today.
God bless you and yours!
What you said!
So, since they weren't even there, how would Protestants factor into it ...?
Similar issue: just last year, Roger Ebert panned "For Greater Glory" (a movie about the Mexican Cristero War) on the grounds that it centered too much on the Catholic experience. (Might that have been because the Cristeros were about 99.5% Catholic, I wonder?)
Ebert said the movie should have included all religions under the banner of religious liberty. Scratching my head: did they need to shoehorn in Moonie, Methodist and Muslim cameo characters? Maybe a Unitarian-Baha'i-Lutheran love triangle, set in the exotic bullet-pocked streets of Jalisco?
Ay, Caramba.
I’m sure that Ebert would have preferred that there had been a few Rabbis mixed in :o)
Are you sure, Mrs. Don-o? I’m almost positive I read of several incidents in which the Nationalist troops identified Baptist girls in the street - by their long hair, denim skirts, and VBS t-shirts - and cried, “Look, Protestants! Shoot them!”
Ping!
Or, "look, nearly naked teenage girls with tramp stamps, Emerging Church girls, shoot em"
Wouldn’t they be more likely to offer them booze and drugs and, “Come along, have a good time!”
Not in front of General Franco, of course ...
I'm pretty sure.
From Mexico ... because Mexico and Spain are like, the same, right?
There was plenty of brutality to go around in that war. Something like 75% of the deaths on both sides were executions, “The Red Terror” and “The White Terror.”
And don't get me started on the Joooos! Catholics are the worst kind of Joooos!
The original Undead Thread was about the Juws. I had only 7 children then.
The black Hispanics I know are from Panama and the Dominican Republic, which shares that little island with Spain.
Ah, but that’s Haiti speech.
So, since they weren’t even there, how would Protestants factor into it ...?
I don,t believe every thing i read and that goes both directions.
You can read about the pros and cons on any side and then take your choice.
It seems odd that you’ve been reading about Catholic vs Protestant conflict in the context of the Spanish Civil War. If you’d care to give the name of the book or article (especially if it’s on the Internet) I’d like to check out your source.
Thank you for any leads.
http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100816021537AAKBlfv
A comment on the above site called best answer.
Also i have read other so called historical sites which stated that The Church hierarchy was a lot of cause for the division in the first place.
It is well known that Hitler supported the nationalists which was headed by Franco with arms and troops, although there were Catholics on both sides, i get the idea that the majority were on the side of the nationalists.
The republicans at that time were called leftists and were supported by the communists.
Like i stated we can find any side that makes us feel comfortable but things such as this is why i will not tack a name onto my self such as republican, democrat or most anything else including any Church denomination, because it means nothing.
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