"If God existed, only in one way could he serve human liberty – by ceasing to exist." – Mikhail Bakunin, God and the State
Claimed
as “the greatest clerical bloodletting Europe has ever seen,”1
the early days of the Spanish Civil War saw nearly 7,000 members of the
Catholic clergy systematically executed
as hundreds of churches,
convents and monasteries were burnt to the ground. Religious icons
were profaned, the tombs of saints
desecrated, and "public acts of unspeakable blasphemy” were
performed to the approval of jubilant crowds.While much of the outside world was shocked by the anti-religious “red terror” that swept over the country, in reality these iconoclastic acts were the culmination of nearly five hundred years of popular resent. The Catholic Church was seen by many as a fundamentally corrupt institution, which served the interests of the rich and powerful while keeping the poor in moral servitude. Militant anticlericalism became widespread,2 and with the revolutionary floodgates opened by civil war there was no holding back the popular fervor to “reclaim the soul of Spain" from this centuries-old theocratic grip.
