Books > Franco’s Church
Franco’s Church
The Spanish Catholic Church,
having greeted the arrival of the Republic as an authentic tragedy, rushed to
support the military uprising of June 1936. It never hesitated. It was doing
what was necessary, confronting anarchy, socialism and the secular Republic.
All the Church's representatives, except those few who didn't share that
fighting spirit, offered their support and their blessings to the extermination
policies that were initiated by the military rebels.
After almost three years of
war, the "armed plebiscite", described as such by the bishops, ended on April
1, 1939 with the unconditional victory of Franco's army. The Church, and "God's
messenger who He made ‘Caudillo'" travelled hand in hand for almost four
decades.
The causes and consequences of
that complicity is what is narrated and analyzed in this rigorous book that is
faithful to newly acquired sources, submerging the reader in one of the
fundamental themes of Spain in the 20th Century.
Translated by Peter J. Hearn
Book Details
Julián Casanova
Professor of Contemporary History at the University of Zaragoza. His publications include La historia social y los historiadores (Crítica, Barcelona, 1991); De la calle al frente. El anarcosindicalismo en España, 1931-1939 (Crítica, Barcelona, 1997, English edition: Anarchism, the Republic and Civil War in Spain: 1931-1939, Routledge, London and New York, 2005): La Iglesia de Franco (Temas de Hoy, Madrid, 2001; Crítica, Barcelona, 2005); República y guerra civil (Crítica, Barcelona, 2007; English edition: The Spanish Republic and Civil War, in Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2010); with Carlos Gil, Historia de España en el siglo XX (Ariel, Barcelona, 2009, forthcoming from Cambridge University Press); and Europa contra Europa, 1914-1945 (Crítica, Barcelona, 2011). He is now writing A Short History of the Spanish Civil War for I.B. Tauris. Professor Casanova also edited Morir, matar, sobrevivir. La violencia en la dictadura de Franco (Critica, Barcelona, 2002); Tierra y Libertad. Cien años de anarquismo en España (Crítica, Barcelona, 2010) and co-wrote El pasado oculto. Fascismo y violencia en Aragón, 1936-1939 (Siglo XXI, Madrid, 1992), and Victimas de la guerra civil (Temas de Hoy, Madrid, 1999). Professor Casanova has held visiting professorships at several prestigious universities in England, the United States and South America. He is on the Editorial Committee of the journal Historia Social and the Advisory Board of The International Journal of Iberian Studies (Bradford, England) and Cuadernos de Historia de España (Buenos Aires, Argentina).
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