Azaña on Religious Matters During the Second Spanish Republic
Azaña and Religious Issues During the Second Republic
Classification
The text is circumstantial and is a speech with political content, made by Manuel Azaña, so it is subjective to the Constituent Cortes of 1931 Spain. The recipients are Members of Parliament. The intention is to defend a secular state and that regime change must address the deep problems of the country.
Manuel Azaña was framed by the bourgeois left. On reaching the Republic, he became Minister of Defense and the Prime Minister. Intended as the agrarian reforms and the granting of autonomy to Catalonia or the Church and the Army. After the victory of the Popular Front, he became president.
Analysis
The main idea of the text, part of Azaña’s speech of October 13, 1931, is the fact that, as stated at the beginning, Spain has ceased to be Catholic. Faced with the problem of the relation between Church and State, he defended the choice of secularism with the complete separation of the two bodies.
For a better understanding of the text, the following concepts are defined:
- Republic: Form of government where the people have sovereignty or authority for the exercise of power. It is based on the Constitution and equality before the law.
- Religious Orders: Organizations or religious institutions recognized by the Catholic Church, whose members wish to dedicate their life to God. They live together under a rule established by the founder of the order or the Church.
Historical Context
After the fall of Primo de Rivera, Alfonso XIII appointed Berenguer as head of government. Its objective was the return to constitutional rule in 1876. Conservative and liberal politicians refused to participate in government. The slowness with which the Liberals re-established constitutional rights was looking at the low prestige of the new government, which the press called “soft dictatorship.” Right-wing Republican politicians joined from the “turn” as Alcalá Zamora and Miguel Maura. The left-liberal Republican Azaña grouped with the main leader. They also joined the nationalists.
In August 1930, representatives of the main opposition parties reached an agreement: the Pact of San Sebastián. They prepared a military coup on December 15, but three days before, Fermín Galán García Hernández came forward and spoke in Jaca for the Republic. They were arrested, tried, and executed. Berenguer announced his decision to hold elections and attempted to promote a monarchist party to be won, but few were willing to cooperate. Berenguer resigned. The new head of government, Aznar, called municipal elections and their results triggered the abdication of the king and the proclamation of the Second Republic.
The election results were a shock. In rural areas, the council were monarchists and in cities, republicans. On April 14, the Republic was proclaimed in various cities and Alfonso XIII left the country by heading to Marseille from Cartagena.
Minister Caballero took the first steps of reform and labor. The Provisional Government sponsored educational legislation and created new positions for teachers, built schools, and founded the Pedagogical Missions Trust. Also launched was the Provisional Statute of Autonomy.
Anarchists and Socialists were divided. The most serious conflict occurred because of the confrontation between the Church and the new regime. The action resulted in the burning of convents. He woke up the old anti-clericalism. On June 28, elections were held for the Constituent Cortes. 70% of the census voted, which gave victory to the Republican-Socialists.
Review of Ideas
The most serious conflict in this initial stage of the Republic was caused by the confrontation between the Church and the new regime. The situation led to the burning of convents and the hostile attitude of the Church in the Republic raised the old anti-clericalism. The Constitution established the dissolution of religious congregations. The budget of worship and clergy disappeared, and religious congregations were prohibited from the practice of education, industry, and trade. The Constitution proclaimed freedom of conscience and worship and established jurisdiction over cemeteries.
This is undoubtedly the main issue raised by the text. It says Spain has ceased to be Catholic and therefore, the State must act radically different, although the majority of Spanish Catholics remain. The starting point of debate is the privileged position of the Church ratified in the last Constitution (1876), which stated that the state budget was a Catholic and worship and the clergy. One of the great debates of the 1931 Constitution was the religious one. It stated that the Spanish government was secular, it passed the law of religious and civil marriage, education was forbidden to exercise the church and suppressed the Society of Jesus. The approval of these items led to the resignation of Catholic sectors of government (Alcalá Zamora and Miguel Maura). Alcalá Zamora was replaced in the premiership, while he became president. The religious question became one of the pillars of the policy of the Republic. Most of the church hierarchy, led by Segura, spoke against the republican regime. Religious reform focused primarily on:
- The decree of dissolution of the Society of Jesus (1932). Members of the company could continue their ministry, but not linked to an Order which was regarded as highly detrimental to national interests.
- The decree of secularization of cemeteries, which established the municipal ownership of cemeteries and unified civil and religious burials. Catholic burials would be regulated by local authorities. Crucifixes were removed from classrooms.
- The Divorce Act, which was an underutilized resource.
- The Law of Confessions and Religious Congregations. Especially affected the interests of the Catholic Church: regulation orders and congregations and regulation of public worship, removal of government subsidies, and nationalization of the ecclesiastical heritage, temples, seminaries, monasteries, etc. Also, order the closure of schools of the Church. In High School, the replacement went smoothly, but the same happened with the primary. About 10,000 teachers were improvised. When approaching the end of the legal deadline for the closure and religious centers, there was the electoral defeat of the left and suspended Congregations Act, which allowed the Church to keep open its educational institutions.
Conclusion and Scope
The Catholic media response to this cluster of measures was increasingly intolerant. The strongest opposition came before the law of Congregations, which reinforced the opposition of the more militant sector of the clergy. The episcopal letter, headed by Cardinal Vidal i Barraquer, called the political mobilization of Catholics. Pope Pius XI himself devoted Dilectissima Nobis to condemn the anti-Christian spirit of the Spanish regime and encourage the union of the Catholics against the republic. These statements, among others, stressed in a reflection of Catholic persecution.
Approval of Articles 26 and 27 of the Constitution opened en route to a series of laws and decrees with which the ruling left sought to impose guidelines for legal secularization of the state. Produced the separation of church and state, the state assumed administrative and social functions that the Church had adopted because of its identification with the monarchical state. The secular state establishment failed and was not understood religious freedom as a weapon that drove the enemies of the Republic and the conservatives.
Bibliography
- CARR, Raymond. History of Spain. Barcelona, Península, 2001.
- PEREZ, Joseph. History of Spain. Barcelona, Crítica, 2003.