Background
During the 19th and the 20th centuries, the role of the Catholic Church in the Spanish society and government was one of the issues polarizing Spanish society. It supported and was strongly supported by and associated with the Spanish monarchy and the system of privileges for a small aristocratic elite. However at the same time, even in military and conservative circles anti-clericism began to gain ground, partly as a reaction to the Carlist wars, and partly due to the feeling that anti-Enlightenment religious dogma was responsible for Spain's failure to develop and imperial decline.
The Second Spanish Republic saw an alternation of progressive and conservative coalition governments between 1931 and 1936. Amidst the disorder caused by the military coup of July 1936, many supporters of the legitimate (Republican) government pointed their weapons against individuals they considered local reactionaries, including priests and nuns.
A paradoxic case for foreign Catholics was that of the Basque Nationalist Party, at the time a Catholic party from the Basque areas, who after some hesitation, supported the Republican government in exchange for an autonomous government in the Basque Country. Although, virtually every other group on the Republican side was involved in the anticlerical persecution, the Basques did not play a part. The Vatican diplomacy tried to orient them to the National side, explicitly supported by Cardinal Isidro Goma y Tomas, but the BNP feared the centralism of the Nationals. Some Catalan nationalist also found themselves in the same situation, such as members of de Unió Democrà tica de Catalunya party whose most relevant leader, Manuel Carrasco i Formiguera was killed by the Nationalists in Burgos on 1938.
Read more about this topic: Martyrs Of The Spanish Civil War
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