Editing Persecution of Christians (section)

=== Spain ===
{{Main|Red Terror (Spain)|White Terror (Spain)|Cristero War}}

The [[Second Spanish Republic]], established in 1931, attempted to establish a regime with separation between State and Church, as had been established in France in 1905. When it was established, the Republic passed legislation which prevented the Church from conducting educational activities.  The Spanish Second Republic was characterized by a process of political polarisation, as party divisions became increasingly embittered and questions of religious identity came to assume major political significance. The existence of different Church institutions was an illustration of the situation which resulted from the proclamation which denounced the 2nd Republic as an anti-Catholic, Masonic, Jewish, and Communist internationalist conspiracy which heralded a clash between God and atheism, chaos and harmony, Good and Evil.<ref name="Dronds 2013">{{cite book |last=Dronda |first=Javier |date=2013 |title=Con Cristo o contra Cristo: Religión y movilización antirrepublicana en Navarra (1931–1936)|location=Tafalla |publisher=Txalaparta |pages=201–202, 220 |isbn=978-84-15313-31-1 | language= es}}</ref>{{rp|201–202}} The Church's high-ranking officials like Isidro Goma, bishop of [[Tudela, Navarre|Tudela]], reminded their Christian subjects of their obligation to vote "for the righteous", and they also reminded their priests of their obligation to "educate the consciences."<ref name="Dronds 2013" />{{rp|220}} In the [[Asturian miners' strike of 1934]], during the [[Revolution of 1934]], 34 Catholic priests were massacred and churches were systematically burned.<ref name=":13">{{Cite journal|last=de la Cueva|first=Julio|year=1998|title=Religious Persecution, Anticlerical Tradition and Revolution: On Atrocities against the Clergy during the Spanish Civil War|journal=Journal of Contemporary History |volume=33 |issue=3 |pages=355–369|jstor=261121|issn=0022-0094}}</ref> Anticlerical opinion accused the Catholic priesthood and religious orders of hypocrisy: clerics were guilty of taking up arms against the people, of exploiting others for the sake of wealth, and of sexual immorality all while claiming the moral authority of peacefulness, poverty, and chastity.<ref name=":13" />

Since the early years of the Second Spanish Republic, [[History of the far-right in Spain|far-right]] forces, which were imbued with an ultra-Catholic spirit, attempted to overthrow the Republic. [[Carlists]], Africanistas, and Catholic theologians fostered an atmosphere of social and racial hatred in their speeches and writings.<ref name="Preston 2013">{{cite book | author=Paul Preston | title=The Spanish Holocaust: Inquisition and Extermination in Twentieth-Century Spain. | publisher= HarperCollins | location= London, UK | isbn=978-0-00-638695-7 | year=2013 | pages=4, 44–45}}</ref>{{rp|44–45}} The Catholic Church endorsed the rebellion which was led by the fascist [[Francisco Franco]], and [[Pope Pius XI]] expressed sympathy for the Nationalist side during the [[Spanish Civil War]].<ref name=":13" /> The Catholic authorities described Franco's war as a "crusade" against the Second Republic, and later the [[Collective Letter of the Spanish Bishops, 1937]] appeared, justifying Franco's attack on the Republic.<ref name=":13" /> A similar approach is attested in 1912, when the bishop of [[Almería]] {{Interlanguage link|José Ignacio de Urbina|lt=|es||WD=}} (founder of the {{Interlanguage link|Liga Nacional Antimasónica y Antisemita|lt=National Anti-Masonic and Anti-Semitic League|es||WD=}}) announced "a decisive battle that must be unleashed" between the "light" and "darkness".<ref name="Preston 2013" />{{rp|4}} Though the official declaration of the "crusade" followed the Republican persecution of Catholic clerics, the Catholic Church was already predisposed towards Franco's position, because it was seen as the "perfect ally of fascism" while it opposed the anticlerical policies of the Second Republic.<ref name=":13" /> The 1936 anticlerical persecution has been seen as "final phase of a long war between clericalism and anticlericalism"<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Ranzato|first=Gabriele|year=1988|title=Dies irae. La persecuzione religiosa nella zona repubblicana durante la guerra civile spagnola (1936–1939)|journal=Movimento Operaio e Socialista|volume=11|pages=195–220 | language= es}}</ref> and "fully consistent with a Spanish history of popular anticlericalism and anticlerical populism".<ref name=":13" />

Stanley Payne suggested that the persecution of right-wingers and of people who were associated with the [[Catholic Church in Spain|Catholic church]] both before and at the beginning of the [[Spanish Civil War]] involved the murder of priests and other clergy, as well as the murder of thousands of lay people, by members of nearly all leftist groups, while a killing spree was also unleashed across the Nationalist zone.<ref>{{Cite book
| via = The Library of Iberian Resources Online
| first= Stanley G. | last= Payne
|chapter=Chapter 26: The Spanish Civil War of 1936–1939
|title= A History of Spain and Portugal vol. 2|chapter-url=https://libro.uca.edu/payne2/payne26.htm|access-date=2023-01-02}}</ref> During the Spanish Civil War of 1936–1939, and especially during the early months of the conflict, individual clergymen and entire religious communities were executed by leftists, some of whom were [[Communism|communists]] and [[Anarchism|anarchists]]. The death toll of the clergy alone included 13 bishops, 4,172 diocesan priests and seminarians, 2,364 monks and friars and 283 nuns, reaching a total of 6,832 clerical victims.<ref name=":13" /> The main perpetrators of the Red Terror were members of the anarchist [[Federación Anarquista Ibérica]], the [[Confederación Nacional del Trabajo]], and the [[Trotskyist]] [[Workers' Party of Marxist Unification]].<ref name=":13" /> These organizations distanced themselves from the violence, condemned those who were responsible for it or characterized the killings as mob reprisals for acts of violence which had been perpetrated by the clerics themselves, an explanation which was readily accepted by the public.<ref name=":13" />

In addition to the murder of both the clergy and the faithful, the destruction of churches and the desecration of sacred sites and objects was also widespread. On the night of 19 July 1936 alone, some fifty churches were burned.<ref name="Mitchell 1983">{{ cite book | first= David | last= Mitchell | title= The Spanish Civil War | place= New York| publisher= Franklin Watts| date= 1983| pages= 45–46}}</ref>{{rp|45}} In [[Barcelona]], out of the 58 churches, only the cathedral was spared, and similar desecrations occurred almost everywhere in Republican Spain.<ref name="Mitchell 1983" />{{rp|46}}

Two exceptions were [[Biscay]] and [[Gipuzkoa]], where the [[Christian Democratic]] [[Basque Nationalist Party]], after some hesitation, supported the Republic and halted the persecution of Catholics in areas which were held by the [[Basque Government]]. All other Catholic churches which were located in the Republican zone were closed. The desecration was not limited to Catholic churches, because synagogues and Protestant churches were also pillaged and closed, but some small Protestant churches were spared. After [[Francisco Franco]]'s [[Francoist Spain|regime]] rose to power, it would keep Protestant churches and synagogues closed, because it only legalized the Catholic Church.<ref name="google2">{{Cite book| last=Payne |first=Stanley G.| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KPgPFqXub14C| title=Franco and Hitler: Spain, Germany, and World War II| date=2008 |publisher=Yale University Press |isbn=978-0-300-12282-4| pages=13, 215}}</ref>{{rp|215}}

Payne called the terror the "most extensive and violent persecution of Catholicism in Western History, in some way even more intense than that of the [[Dechristianisation of France during the French Revolution|French Revolution]]."<ref name="google2"/>{{rp|13}}
The persecution drove Catholics to the side of the Nationalists, even more of them sided with the Nationalists than would have been expected, because they defended their religious interests and survival.<ref name="google2" />{{rp|13}}

The Roman Catholic priests who were killed during the Red Terror are considered "[[Martyrs of the Spanish Civil War]]", but the priests who were executed by the fascists are not counted among them. A group known as the "[[498 Spanish Martyrs]]" was [[beatified]] by the Roman Catholic Church's [[Pope Benedict XVI]] in 2007. The history of the Red Terror has been obscured by the inattention of scholars and the "embarrassing partiality" of ecclesiastical historians.<ref name=":13" />
Some of the numerous non-fascists who were persecuted during Franco's [[White Terror (Spain)|White Terror]] were [[Protestantism in Spain|Protestants]], because the fascists accused them of being associated with [[Freemasonry]], and the persecution which they were subjected to during Franco's White Terror was much more intense than the persecution which they were subjected to during the [[Red Terror (Spain)|Red Terror]].<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Vincent|first=Mary|date=18 December 2014|title=Ungodly Subjects: Protestants in National-Catholic Spain, 1939–53| publisher= Sage |journal=European History Quarterly| volume=45|issue=1 |pages=108–131|doi=10.1177/0265691414552782|s2cid=145265537|issn=0265-6914|url=http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/80827/3/Ungodly%20subjects%20EHQ%20revised.pdf }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last=Beevor|first=Antony|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Q-mayoYS6eIC|title=The Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War 1936-1939|publisher=Penguin|year=2006|isbn=978-1-101-20120-6|pages=88–89}}</ref>