The Church and civil rights in Spain

HOW MANY CLERGY DID PROTEST?
'C.H: Reporter
THE bishops of Spain have been distressed by the action of a handful of Basque priests who, in June, issued a statement which protested at the lack of liberty enjoyed by Spaniards and which claimed that "Spain's Catholic Hierarchy lends its conclusive support" to a regime that, they allege, has no respect for the human person.
The statement was first said to have had the support of 340 Basque priests. It received wide publicity abroad: one American paper headlined it: " Spanish Church speaks out."
It lists the injustices said to be suffered by Spaniards, and it also deals with the Government's opposition to the demands of some Basques for home rule.
The four bishops of the region (San Sebastian, Bilbao, Vitoria, and Pamplona) at once denounced the statement, saying that it contained falsehoods and lacked authenticity. The Papal Nuncio to Spain followed with a vigorous address in which he called on Catholics to show respect for their bishops.
ASSUMED
It is now known that the statement in question was drawn up by priests closely associated with Vitoria Seminary, where a strong Basque separatist movement exists. It was too readily assumed by them that the statement would be endorsed by other priests in the region, but since then some of them have publicly announced that they were never associated with it. Their typewritten names, and not their personal signatures, had been appended.
The priests concerned had objected to their bishops' prohibition on all sermons being preached in Basque. The bishops pointed out that since the civil war, large numbers of non-Basque Spaniards have flocked into the area, which is highly industrialised, and that they did not understand Basque.
The signatories, on the other hand, were aware that General Franco, on his visit in June to the Catalan capital of Barcelona, had granted the Catalans certain minor concessions. There are separatists in Catalonia too.
HAMPERED
But the home rule movement is stronger among the Basques than it is in Catalonia where the Catalan-born clergy have no objections to preaching in Spanish to the numerous non-Catalan people who, as in Basqueland, have moved into that particular region since the war. Catalonia is highly industrialised as well.
During the civil war, many of the Basque clergy sided with the Reds against General Franco; the Catalan clergy, save for an individual of two, did not.
The bishops of Spain it is said, find their work for social reform hampered through the action of these Basque clergy. Knowing very well the extent of the social injustices of their country, they endeavour, though perhaps with no spectacular success, to encourage the wealthier and influential classes (privately, for the roost part) to treat citizens as human beings with God-given rights. Some of them, the Archbishops of Valencia and Saragossa among them, have made public protests at opportune moments.