By THE REV. F. A. SCHAEFFER, Switzerland.
THERE are two Spains—the Spain of Travel Posters and the Spain one sees when he observes more closely. The Spain of the Posters is there—old castles, “color,” historic buildings, the fabulous boulevards of Madrid; but there is something else—poverty, totalitarianism of State and Church, and persecution.
For the Protestants of Spain persecution is the daily atmosphere in which they live. They are a minority, and the Spanish concept of national unity considers religious unity as necessary for the good of the State. Thus the hand of both State and Church is set to minimize, isolate, and if possible, remove the Protestant minority which challenges this ideal of national unity. This concept of “unity” is not a peripheral or passing feature. It is founded, first, in Roman Catholic theology. Rome considers this the ideal condition for every country, if it could be achieved. Second, this concept of unity rests in the totalitarianism of the State. Franco’s Spain is as Fascist as Hitler’s Germany, or Mussolini’s Italy, it is as totalitarian as Soviet Russia. Coming into Barcelona we flew over the ancient fort near the sea which dominates the heights above the city. No one outside the government can know how many political prisoners are locked away in this jail and others like it throughout Spain. The end of the persecutions of the Protestants is not just to annoy them. It is to make it impossible for the number to increase, and, if possible, to systematically reduce that number.
One is not allowed to forget the Police State aspect of Spain. There are soldiers everywhere, and police everywhere. There are a multitude of different uniforms, and secret police who wear no uniform. At one of our meetings, two police came in, stood at the back and listened to our whole service. This often happens. On the train from Madrid to Valdepenas an officer in civilian clothes entered our compartment and each person had to show his papers. The inspection was thorough, and when he departed there was a sigh of relief among the Spaniards.
Every main road is patrolled by police carrying rifles. They walk one on one side of the road and one on the other, both day and night. One night I was in an auto being driven along a country road, about one hour’s drive, from one town to the next. A policeman stepped out from the shadows with his gun “on the ready.” Our car came to a stop and our papers were demanded. I have travelled through every country in Western Europe except Yugoslavia, in most of them numerous times, beginning in the upset days of 1947, and I have never had such experiences in any country—except where I have come up against the Russians. The parallel between my experiences with the Russians and in Spain is no accident. They are both totalitarian.
What are the practical forms which persecution takes against the Protestants? Probably the most serious is the recent marriage law. The law is that a person who has been baptised a Roman Catholic cannot have a civil wedding—they must be married by the Roman Catholic Church. As many Protestants come from Roman Catholic families this catches a majority of the young people of marriageable age. To be married by the Roman Catholic Church would mean taking part in the Mass and a practical denial of their Christian faith. If they are married by their own Protestant churches their children are called illegitimate. Further, the workers in Spain earn the equivalent of less than a dollar a day. Food, etc., is not proportionately this cheap, and to live a married worker must have the supplements given by the State to married men, and for each child. If the marriage is not recognised by the State the worker does not get these supplements, which for most means hungry wives and children. Thus, this marriage law is most serious for the Protestants.
The young men have persecution in military service. In Spain there is universal military service, and so all the Protestant young men are involved. In the army each man must salute the Spanish flag, and then each man must adore the “Host” of the Mass. The two things are demanded. This is an expression of the “national unity” idea of which I wrote above. Legally it is as necessary for the soldier to adore the “Host” as to salute his flag. When they do not, some have been severely punished. Outside of Barcelona there is a young man who probably will never walk again because of the beating he received when he refused. I preached in a church which has a young man as a member who has been in prison for a considerable time only because he refused to obey when commanded by his officer to adore the “Host.” Numerous churches are closed. I visited one which has been sealed by the State. Usually older church buildings are not disturbed, but new buildings tend to be forbidden. Each new building causes a struggle. Legally, Protestants may only worship and witness inside of the four walls of their church buildings. And these buildings are not allowed to bear any mark of a church—no sign, no church appearance, etc. Most of the church buildings look like apartments or private homes on the outside. Inside of the four walls there is usually freedom, but this differs in some degree in different parts of Spain. Tracts, invitations to the meetings, etc., are forbidden.
I visited the church in Seville which was recently burned. The facts are these: the pastor was alone in the church building. Seven young men entered the building. Discerning their purpose the pastor tried to withstand them, they beat him, knocked him to the floor and stood on him. They then collected the hymn books and Bibles, piled them at the front of the church, put gasoline on them, and set fire to them. The men ran off and Roman Catholic neighbours came in and extinguished the fire before the building was destroyed. As I write this I have before me a picture of the building immediately after the fire. The wall at the front is burned badly, furniture is thrown around, and Bibles and hymn books are scattered about. The police were notified; but for some strange reason, though Seville is a small city and police and soldiers are everywhere, yet not one of the young men was caught. This incident was inspired by the recent sword rattling of the Cardinal of Seville.
In Barcelona the Protestants have a hospital. In other parts of Spain, the Protestants when ill often face a serious problem. The hospitals are kept up by the State, run by the Roman Catholic Church. Mass is given each morning to the patients. If the patient refuses Mass, the hospital facilities may be shut to him.
Children get their introduction to persecution early. In the schools, children must not only take Roman Catholic religious instruction, but at the proper time also take their first communion. The Communists officially shut the Protestant schools in 1936, but they were allowed to go on in a small way in some places until the present regime closed them completely in 1940. When a Protestant dies, the problem is not always over for often with the burial problems are raised which are serious and doubly cruel to the bereaved family.
As these things are so, how are the Protestants able to live? The answer lies in the arbitrariness of all totalitarian rule. The laws are such that they can be enforced with great severity, and often are; but the enforcement is not always so rigid. Some civil magistrates in some cities still will marry, some priests look the other way—often with hands outstretched for a “gift.” Some military officers are ruthless, but there are cases where officers have shown admiration for young men who have courageously refused to adore the “Host.” The police in one place will zealously close church buildings, in another place they do not see the new church buildings. Many Protestant children are sent at great sacrifice on the part of their parents to private schools, often at such schools the headmaster does not notice the child not taking the Mass.
But, and this is the important thing, not only are there many cases where the laws are administered ruthlessly and without compassion, but all Protestants constantly live under the realisation that they only escape the worst treatment by the arbitrary choice of some official, and that this might change overnight. The worst is always immediately above their heads and if it falls, as it does in no small percentage of cases, the laws of State and Church are all against them. In the face of this, life goes on, and with great courage and at great cost many of the Christians give their testimony to those about them.
Tourists in Spain are sealed off from these things. As a very small example—a group of students whom we know were in Madrid this past “Easter Sunday.” They asked where they could attend a Protestant service, and their hotel told them solemnly that there were no Protestant churches in Madrid. This could not have been anything but a deliberate fabrication. Tourists in general are also sealed off from the realisation of another fact—not only is Spain a gigantic prison, much of it is a gigantic slum. 40,000 to 60,000 people around Barcelona alone are living in caves or shacks made of crude mud walls, most of them without windows and almost without furniture. We visited some of these, the poverty is excruciating. Around Madrid and in other parts of Spain thousands more so live. I would guess that the poverty in Spain is the worst in Western Europe.
Spain is poor because one third of the people must support two thirds in the Church and State—and no economy could survive properly under that. There are soldiers, police, a deluge of officials and the showy buildings and projects which foreigners are shown, and a host of priests, monks, nuns and churches. New Roman Catholic churches are going up everywhere. The State supports the “Church” lavishly. Listen well, Franco gave the Roman Catholic Church 72,700,874 pesetas for the recent Eucharistic Congress in Barcelona. This is an equivalent of $1,817,521.00!
Some Spaniards think that Franco is turning this money over to the Roman Catholic Church from funds he has received from the United States Government. This is only a portion of the money the State gives to the Roman Catholic Church each year. New churches, old churches are being enlarged, new gold heaped into the “treasuries” of the various Cathedrals, material glory piled on material grandeur is everywhere evident in the Roman Catholic Church. In Toledo, Seat of the Primate of Spain, the gold in the Cathedral treasury dazzles (you have to buy a ticket to look at it!)-including a ten foot high Custodia of pure gold. At Mont Serrat the Black Madonna is covered by gold and surrounded by gold. Wealth is everywhere apparent in the Roman Catholic Church in Spain-while the people are poverty ridden.
As if all this is not enough for the Christians to bear, the World Council of Churches has entered Spain to complicate the picture further. It must be clear from all the above that some sort of unity among the Christians would seem desirable. The Ecumenical Movement has entered obviously hoping to capitalize on this needed unity; but their entering has swept away any possibility of unity, for the best, and largest, groups in Spain will not join with them. Hence the Ecumenical Movement, in the name of unity, has destroyed unity. The Methodist, Presbyterian and Lutheran Churches have recently united to form one Church-the Spanish Evangelical Church, and this Church is in the world Council. Some of their men don’t like it, I met some who seemed confused by it, but they are now in it.
One would think that being persecuted for so long that the Ecumenical Movement group in Spain would refrain from using pressure; but it has not been so. There is a Methodist lay-preacher who was given the facts on the World Council by the Action Biblique man in Barcelona. Therefore, he spoke against church union and the entrance into the World Council. He had been a lay-preacher for 25 years in the Methodist Church. The Methodist Superintendent came in December, 1951, read I Cor., 13, and put him out of his place without even giving him a chance to answer. The Ecumenical Movement in Spain represents only a small part of the Spanish Churches, but they would like to be considered as representing all of them. They have written to groups which do not belong suggesting closer co-operation, and the leader of their Sabbath School Committee told me that eventually this Committee hopes to represent all in Spain.
When Mackay† comes to Spain he speaks against Modernism, and from this and also from the latest worker they have sent to live in Madrid, an American, it would seem that Barthianism is to be their tool in attempting to break down resistance. On the other hand, they must reveal themselves at times-as when Mrs. Schaeffer was observing a meeting at the Madrid Y.W.C.A. and a young Spanish lady read a paper on peace as the world’s great need, and said that the Pope is working for the same end as we are. From talking to some of the Spanish men in the World Council it is clear that they themselves are deeply disturbed over the World Council’s attitude towards Rome. And without question, the largest and most active groups in Spain do not want anything to do with the World Council.
† We think Dr. Schaeffer refers here to Dr. John A. Mackay, Princeton.-Editor.
Concerning freedom in Spain, the Western Nations, and especially the United States, have a great opportunity at this moment. Franco needs American dollars, and both the government and the Roman Catholic Church are sensitive concerning the exhibition in Spain of what the Roman Catholic Church is where she has control—where she can do what she will. There are signs of strain between Franco and the Spanish hierarchy, and even in the Roman Catholic Church itself. The Spanish hierarchy, led especially by Cardinal Segura of Seville is insisting that the official Roman Catholic position: of liberty to the Roman Catholic Church only, in a land where it is in the majority, be maintained in practise regardless of what it means to Spain or in world opinion. Others, including some Roman Catholics in the United States, differ—not that the Roman Catholic position is to be changed, but an open and honest statement of this position does not sound so well in the Western World right now. Both France and Cardinal Segura have appealed to the Pope. All this makes interesting reading—the official Roman Catholic position versus the public-relations necessity of the Roman Catholic Church at this moment. But let us not be deluded—Spain is what all countries would be if the Roman Catholic Church had the power in them that she has in Spain. Rome goes as far as she can in each situation, but her official position is unchanged. The situation in Spain, where she has unlimited power, the laws in Montreal forcibly closing all businesses on Roman Catholic Holidays, our own experiences in Roman Catholic Switzerland, the business boycott in New York of stores which do not close or contribute financially when the Roman Catholic Church thinks they should, all these are the official Roman Catholic position in action, but tempered to the amount of power Rome has in each given situation.
As an American I pray that the United States will show statesmanship in this moment of opportunity. The Western countries have so often failed in their diplomacy in their opportunities before God—millions of men, women, and children turned over to the Reds in Eastern Europe and the Orient, the Italians pressed by our allowing Mussolini’s treaty with the Pope to stand, etc., I hope this will not be another bad chapter. As I write this the United States Senate has approved 25 million dollars for Spain and I wonder if the opportunity is not already past. Humanly looking at it, if increased liberty is to come to the Protestants of Spain there must be help from the outside, for the totalitarian State and the totalitarian Church of Spain have no more natural inclination to grant freedom than has Russia.
As one leaves Spain, he would be without sensibilities not to be touched by the plight of its people—poverty, a high rate of illiteracy, a police state, but most of all—paganism. Thousands of “Marys” take the place with but a change of name of the older pagan goddesses of spring and mountain. The great majority of Spaniards know nothing of the gospel, and, as in the case of other Roman Catholic countries, most of the intelligentsia are cynical and materialistic, most of the ignorant have a religion of superstition. We visited the shrine of the Black Madonna at Mont Serrat; she is surrounded by gold, up the stairs go the multitude to kiss the hand which extends through the glass which covers this ugly black idol. She is called the patroness of Catolina (the region about Barcelona), and so she is—a local goddess with surely no relationship to Mary, the virgin mother of Jesus Christ. To me the impact of Romanism is greater in Spain and in Portugal than it is even in Rome. At Fatima, in Portugal, we saw thousands of pilgrims walking—some 50 to 60 miles, barefooted and bloodyfooted, to pay a vow, the roads black with them, babies in arms, baskets and bundles on their heads, but it is the bleeding feet I’ll not forget. At Fatima the frolicing, the commercialism is sickening. But that is not the worst . . . the worst thing is to see the serious ones—seeking, trying, one coming on her knees across the great paved space in front of the church, at least a half a mile, on her knees across the small stones, knees blue with the bruises from the little stones, “telling her beads” as she comes, trying to suffer enough to earn her way to heaven—these serious ones, these are the worst. What are they trying to do? They are trying to grasp the promise Mary is supposed to have made at this place. “She promised that those who received Holy Communion, said the rosary and meditated for 15 minutes on the mysteries of the Rosary on the first Saturday of the following months, would go to Heaven.” Then the idol is lifted out, and as they carry “her,” the thousands wave their handkerchiefs to her—to what—to the idol, painted, with a crown on her head.
For a long time I have called Romanism a false church, but even that did not seem sufficient after my visits to Rome. But after Spain and Portugal I know what to say—Rome is not a false church, she is worse, she is a heathen religion which uses some Christian terminology. After seeing them in Spain and Portugal, there can be no question—those bound by Rome are a mission field—whether in Spain, South America or our own countries—whether in a place where Rome shows itself clearly—crass, totalitarian and openly heathen, or in some country where of necessity it presents itself, for the time, with half talk of liberty and a smiling face.