“We have rounded up all the priests and parasites… we have lit our torches and applied the purifying fire to all the churches… and we have covered the countryside and purified it of the plague of religion.” – Solidaridad Obrera (anarchist newspaper), August 20, 1936
On this day the Catholic Church honours a number of men and women martyred during the Spanish Civil War. One of the issues that divided the Loyalist or Republican side from the Nationalist rebels was their attitude toward the Catholic Church. The Nationalists were pro-Catholic while the Republic was supported by many fierce anticlericals and atheists who were happy to murder priests, disinter dead nuns and use the corpses for shooting practice, and desecrate churches.
Ceferino Jimenez-Malla, an 85-year-old gypsy, was shot in 1936 for hiding priests; he was the first Roma to be beatified. Sister Gabriela of Saint John of the Cross, Teresa Subira Sanjaume, Maria Roqueta Serra, and Vicenta Achurra Gogenola were all Carmelite nuns denounced to the left-wing junta of Barcelona in 1936. They were taken away in a van and shot beside the highway.
Chilling.