Posted on 06/05/2013 9:59:54 AM PDT by Petrosius
The Vatican has proclaimed 95 more martyrs of the Spanish Civil War. On June 3, with the approval of Pope Francis, the Congregation for the Causes of Saints issued four separate decrees, recognizing the martyrdom of:
In other decrees, the Congregation acknowledged the “heroic virtue” of the following, who will now be qualified for beatification if a miracle is attributed to their influence:
The historical context is that the Spanish Civil War and the Catholic martyrs here listed should be seen as a whistle stop along the journey from the atrocities against religion of the French Revolution and the murderous repression of religion by the Soviets in their revolution.
It is sobering to contemplate the instinct toward bloody repression of religion contained deep within the left's DNA.
Good. I used to be neutral on the SCW, thinking both sides villains. After doing some in-depth reading, I understand much more why the right rebelled in Spain. The “Republicans”... Communists, really... were hunting down and killing priests and nuns.
While reading your comment, Chile flashed in my mind. The Catholic Church in South America is a real aberration and its ties to communists defy all common sense. Pinochet saw his country be “communized” but the Church refused to support him. It is extremely difficult to find anything objective about events in Chile but if Allende got his way, it is likely Catholicism would have been stamped out by now. The left hates Pinochet as much as they hate Franco. They just wouldn’t stand aside and let the communists take over.
Repression of some religions, that should be. Well, all of them, except for Islam. For some reason, perhaps because it is the perfect theocratic “religion” for a communist state, the left adores Islam.
Same here. On close examination it turns out that the Nationalists were actually defending their country. I hesitate to call them the “good guys” but they were morally superior to the “Republican” Soviet handpuppets. The prevaling belief that the Nationalists were bloodthirsty killers little better than Nazis is the result of 75 years of leftist propaganda.
Unfortunately, we have been fed a bill of goods re: the SCW.
Our culture has been inundated with Hemingway, The Lincoln Brigade, Hollywood’s interpretation, etc, ad nauseum.
Communism if nothing else is a collectivist mentality and its temporal salvation comes from acceptance by the group and immersion into it. Communism claims that Christianity is an opiate which enslaves which, of course, is contrary to the reality. Communism offers the siren of equality but delivers enslavement.
Islam is cultist and utterly subordinates the individual to the cult. Small wonder Communism is so comfortable in its presence.
That’s an excellent analysis and it really makes clear how the two differ (in a way that I think most people don’t understand).
The communists in Spain did what the communists did in the Russian Empire - kill clerics.
You wrote:
“Pinochet saw his country be “communized” but the Church refused to support him.”
No, actually the Catholic Church supported the coup. The Church over time came to believe Pinochet was too brutal (which was true), was corrupt (which was true), and could have left power sooner (which also was true).
Read here starting at page 36: http://wesscholar.wesleyan.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1256&context=etd_hon_theses (yes, I know it’s just a BA thesis, but the kid got his facts right on that point).
It would be a good deal more accurate to say the hunting down and killing of priests and nuns was primarily a consequence of the rightist coup, not its cause.
<50 priests were killed before the war started, over a several year period. During the war, and especially in the first few months, something over 5000 clergy were murdered.
To be fair, the other side was doing pretty much the same thing, killing members of groups it saw as opponents, such as union members and leaders, schoolteachers, etc.
To be even more fair, both sides were "right" to do so in a sense. Most of the members of the clergy were opponents of the government, and most schoolteachers were opposed to the rightists.
The Red Terror death toll has been estimated at 40k to 110k. The White Terror killed somewhere between 200k and 400k, but then they won, and they had a lot longer to do their killing in.
Of course, not all of those killed by either side were innocent victims.
A film that you or others may be interested in. I highly recommend it.
The church- and convent-burnings were started before the war (they convinced the generals they had to fight); the leftist government outlawed the Jesuits as well. Read “The Last Crusade” and you’ll understand how it happened; understanding the Spanish Civil War is key to understanding many Europeans’ tolerance/support of fascism (as opposed to Stalinism, which they witnessed in Spain and of which they were terrified). The arrest of the Falange leader months before the war was important as well; imagine Obama’s first executive order was to arrest Mitt Romney.
There is no comparison between the wrongs committed by the generals and the communists in Spain between 1936 and 1939; in 1937 the communists had murdered many of their own allies (the anarchists) in their own civil war. Once they were exposed for what they were, the “Republic” could never garner enough public support to win. In fact, they steadily lost ground from the first days of the war, and murdered as many people as possible until the army (assisted by Hitler & Mussolini) stopped them.
“The Red Terror death toll has been estimated at 40k to 110k.”
40K is an absurd figure when you realize they have the names of 7K priests alone that were murdered.
>> in 1937 the communists had murdered many of their own allies (the anarchists) in their own civil war.
George Orwell was nearly killed by the Communists as he had fought with the Anarchists. He had to leave the country incognito and barely escaped with his life. Homage to Catalonia, his book about this time, is a short and highly worthwhile read. Those events certainly helped color 1984.
Rummel puts the mid-level estimate of Democides for both sides at about 100k each during the war years. Then he has another 275K for Franco 1939-1975, most of which I would guess would be in post-war purges.
I’ve always though Rummel reasonably unbiased by politics.
20th Century Democide page
http://hawaii.edu/powerkills/20TH.HTM
Big ugly chart from which the above numbers originate
http://hawaii.edu/powerkills/SOD.TAB16A.1.GIF
Detail for the above
http://hawaii.edu/powerkills/SOD.TAB14.1D.GIF
True, the generals killed some multiple of those killed by the commies.
This was mostly because they won and had the leisure to slaughter their opponents without the drudgery of having to fight them. And I'm sure the numbers would have been reversed had the commies won.
in 1937 the communists had murdered many of their own allies (the anarchists) in their own civil war.
Also true. However, it should be pointed out that the anarchists were not themselves nice people. Had they won, which for anarchists is pretty nearly inconceivable by definition, there is no reason to think they would have been any less murderous than the commies or the Francoists.
I was reporting the estimates, not making my own.
Rummel is a great resource.
Not always politically unbiased, though. He fairly recently raised his democide number for European colonization to 50M.
I emailed him and pointed out that this number was misleading, since it was based on the assumption that the previous and alternative native rulers would have committed no democide. Which given the history of pre-British India, for example, is not a reasonable assumption.
He emailed back and agreed I was right, but did not change his numbers.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
