SPAIN: Mischief Unto Mother Church

Spanish policemen beat twelve citizens insensible in Madrid’s octagonal Puerto, del Sol (Sun “Square”) one day last week. The twelve had shouted, “Down with the Church!”

Not far away Civil Guards grew tired of slapping thousands of citizens back from the National Assembly with the flats of their sabres, began brutally to slash, drew blood. Back & back the mob surged like a great wounded beast, but did not disperse, stayed to raise conflicting shouts of “Down with the Church!” and “Long live Christ the King!”

Inside the National Assembly excited Deputies wrestled for 15 hours with a national question breathtaking in its implications. Christianity has existed in Spain since the 2nd Century. Each of her Bourbon kings was “His Most Catholic Majesty.” Under Spain’s First Republic (1873-75) Mother Church was not molested. Last week’s great question: Should the Second Republic now disestablish the Holy Apostolic Catholic Church in Spain, expel her Jesuits and bar her priests from their cherished mission as educators of Catholic youth?

In the 15 hours of frantic debate, three Deputies had both eyes blacked shut. A blow from behind stunned Deputy Sigfrido Blasco, son of the late, great Spanish novelist Vicente Blasco Ibanez. Several Deputies stood off physical assaults with drawn revolvers, retained just enough sense not to fire. Along about the middle of the struggle, the National Assembly voted 227 to 41 to adopt as Article III of Spain’s new Constitution (full text): “No official State religion shall exist.”

Punching & Pulling. Thus the Second Republic disestablished Mother Church, but the fight to cripple her in Spain had only begun. Her devout son. Provisional President Alcala Zamora, bellowed from the Government Bench that he could stomach disestablishment but no more. Reminding the members that he resigned (for one hour) as President when a Deputy insulted his honor (TiME, Oct. 19), President Alcala Zamora threatened passionately to resign permanently if the

Assembly should vote to expel the Jesuits and do Mother Church more mischief.

With catcalls filling the National Assembly, with Deputies punching & pulling each other’s noses, Foreign Minister Alejandro Lerroux cancelled an appointment to go to Geneva. He was to have presided over the League Council while it wrestled with China & Japan (see p. 20). Instead Senor Lerroux leaped with President Alcala Zamora to the aid of Mother Church. Also for Mother Church battled at first War Minister Manuel Azana—but not for long.

Shrewd Senor Azana, when appointed War Minister (TIME, May 4) decided at once that 22,219 commissioned officers (149 of them Generals) were too many for Spain, slashed the number to 7,000. “Our Army today,” he has said with modest pride, “is compact!” Last week amid National Assembly bedlam about Mother Church, shrewd War Minister Azana suddenly deserted pious President Alcala Zamora, made a fiery anticlerical speech which delighted the Socialists (largest Spanish party). That speech a few hours later made War Minister Azana the Provisional President and Premier of Spain. But first

Three Things Happened: 1) The National Assembly rammed into the Constitution by a vote of 178 to 59 Article XXIV expelling the Jesuits and barring education under Catholic auspices;* 2) President Alcala Zamora resigned in protest and 50 pious Basque and Navarra Deputies marched out of the National Assembly shouting “Long live Christ the King!”; 3) Parliamentary leaders gathered jabbering in the lobby, decided that War Minister Azana ought to be President, told Speaker Julian (“Bell Smasher”) Besteiro of their decision.

Pealing his bell, which he pounds on his desk and smashes when annoyed, Speaker Besteiro called the exhausted Assembly to order. Had anyone any objection, he asked, to the party leader’s choice of War Minister Manuel Azana to be Provisional President and Premier? No one had the slightest objection. Dead tired Deputies rested their raw throats, their heaving lungs. Amid utter silence Spain’s new Chief Executive was chosen unanimously (the 50 pious clericals remaining absent). Up the steps of the Assembly Tribune at once climbed President Azana, brisk and stern. Jerking a paper from his waistcoat pocket he read out his new Cabinet:

Provisional President, Premier and Minister of War—Manuel Azana.

Foreign Affairs—Alejandro Lerroux.

Finance—Indalecio Prieto.

Marine—Jose Giral.

Interior—Casares Quiroga.

Justice—Fernando de los Rios.

This new Cabinet is almost the same as the old, except that Jose Giral succeeds, as Minister of Marine, Casares Quiroga who is advanced to Minister of Interior, the key post in any European cabinet since its.holder holds the elections. First Cabinet Minister to pipe up for publication was Fernando de los Rios. Piped he:

“We do not intend to persecute the church. We merely wish to place it in the same position as in America. That will make Spain a modern State.”

Vatican Reaction. With Italy in the hands of none-too-pious Benito Mussolini, Spain was until her Revolution (TIME, April 20 et seq.) the chief stronghold of the Catholic Church. In Vatican City last week Pope Pius XI chiefly sat and lay, being cautioned by his physicians against physical exercise in any form. The Vatican announced “the Holy Father was not surprised.” A reaction, noted by correspondents in most Vatican clerics with whom they talked, was news: unofficially and without permitting quotation, Vatican authorities expressed the opinion that the act of disestablishment will lead to the restoration of His Most Catholic Majesty Alfonso XIII who, as the Vatican recalled, never abdicated but only fled from Spain (TIME, April 27).

“The Spanish Government has taken a position of the greatest danger that could be taken by a new regime,” declared L’Osservatore Romano, Papal daily, “namely, that of offering the conscience, dividing the spirit and opening a religious conflict.”

Spanish Reaction. The peseta held steady on news of disestablishment, rising fractionally from 11.06 to 11.12 to the dollar in Madrid. Riots between Catholics and anti-Catholics occurred at Barcelona and Valladolid but Spain as a whole remained calm. “In my opinion,” declared President Azana immediately after taking office, “Spain has ceased to be a Roman Catholic country.”

Ex-President Zamora announced that he will campaign for peaceful revision of Article III and Article XXIV in harmony with “Catholic ideas of religious liberty.” Meanwhile the National Assembly, almost unnoticed by the World Press, wrote into Spain’s constitution a most staggering reform: Divorce by mutual consent.

Hitherto there has been no divorce in Catholic Spain, only annullments adjudicated by the Vatican on grounds difficult to prove. The divorce clause written by the National Assembly into the Constitution last week should make divorce almost as easy in Spain as in Russia. Text:

“Matrimony is founded upon an equality of right for both sexes and can be dissolved for just cause or by mutual con-sent.”

* Nearly all literate Spaniards (60% of the population), were taught by priests and nuns to read.