Our war is not a civil war ... but a Crusade ... Yes, our war is a religious war. We who fight, whether Christians or Muslims, are soldiers of God and we are not fighting against men but against atheism and materialism.
-- Generalisimo Francisco Franco
However many Fascists there may be in Spain, there will not be a Fascist regime. Should force triumph against the Republic we will return to a military and ecclesiastical dictatorship of the type that is traditionally Spanish ... There will be sabres and chasubles, military parades and processions honouring the Virgen del Pilar. On that score the country is not capable of anything else.
-- Manuel Azana
WITH THE OUTBREAK OF THE CIVIL WAR, FATHER ESCRIVA REMOVED his cassock and did not wear one again in Spain under the Republic. He also let his tonsure grow out and took to wearing his mother's wedding ring. He told his disciples that even though he was prepared to become a martyr, he had been entrusted with a divine mission and therefore it was his duty to do everything possible to remain alive.
No place in Spain suffered more during the Civil War than Escriva's birthplace of Barbastro, known at the time as a town of soldiers and priests. It boasted a Benedictine monastery, missionary college, Piarist school, seminary and a strong Cathedral chapter, all of which became a butt of leftist anger, led by the Anarchist agitator Eugenio Sopena. The seminary was demolished, and next Sopena ordered all priests arrested. 'Death to the blackbirds' became the cry. But Sopena was heard to mutter: 'We can't allow any carnage around here.' Among those rounded up by Sopena's leftist vigilantes were the bishop, Don Florentino Asensio Barroso, and the Cathedral canon, Mariano Albas, Jose Maria Escriva's godfather.
From Barcelona the 6,000-strong 'Ascaso Column' divided into two pincers. The southern wing, commanded by Durruti, continued up the Ebro valley towards Saragossa. The northern section, under Domingo Ascaso, arrived in Barbastro on the afternoon of 25 July, having gutted the thirteenth-century Lerida cathedral the day before. The first men, dressed like Jacobins with bandannas tied around their heads, reached the town by train. They were accompanied by prostitutes from Barcelona in workmen's coveralls and the riffraff freed from prisons along the way. They were followed towards dusk by a convoy of trucks with machine guns and field pieces. That afternoon. the first executions began.
The commander of the local barracks, Colonel Jose Villalba Rubio, embraced the leaders of the Ascaso Column and paraded his troops through the streets with them. The next day he sent out a joint patrol towards Huesca, but this was ambushed by a rebel Civil Guard detachment and took heavy losses. That night Barbastro was overcome by an orgy of violence. Churches were emptied of their statuary and other religious objects, which were burned in the streets. In the Cathedral the rioters dismantled the main altarpiece, stole all the silver, and the baptismal font was thrown into the Rio Vero. The churches of San Bartolome and San Hipolito were reduced to rubble.
When Durruti learned that five hardened Anarchists who were conveying precious booty to Barcelona had been shot as looters, he came personally to Barbastro to exact vengeance. He had his twelve heavily armed bodyguards convene the Anti-Fascist Committee and in a violent harangue he accused its members of executing five true and loyal Anarchists while Barbastro's prison overflowed with blackbirds and Blue Shirts. Alarmed, the committee quickened the pace of executions.
That evening Mariano Abad, an Anarchist agitator whose sobriquet was 'the Undertaker', went to the prison and handed the guards a signed and stamped piece of paper marked, 'Good for 20'. His instructions were to collect any twenty from among the 400 or so prisoners and execute them. In the middle of the night they were taken to the cemetery, where they were joined by another group from the town hall. The staff at the hospital watched as they were lined up against the exterior wall of the cemetery and shot.
After being locked up for seventeen days, Bishop Asensio was brought before the committee, meeting that night in the town hall. The first thing the Bishop was told was, 'Don't be afraid. If you've prayed well you'll go to heaven.' The hearing lasted a few minutes. Satisfied he was a Nationalist collaborator, they tied his hands behind his back and returned him to the holding cell while other prisoners were heard. Once the night's quota was filled, bishop Asensio was brought back into the room. When he refused to answer further questions he was kicked in the groin, then castrated, after which he was taken to the cemetery. One of his torturers shouted: 'Hurry up, pigs.' The bishop replied: 'Do what you like ... I will pray for you in heaven.' Another guard said, 'Here, take Communion,' and hit him in the mouth with a brick.
But his agony was not over. At the cemetery he survived the firing squad's volley of shots and was heaped upon a pile of corpses where he lay for more than an hour before receiving the coup de grace. Next morning the head doctor at the hospital complained to the committee that the executions were disturbing his patients, making it impossible for them to sleep. In deference to the doctor the remaining priests, including Canon Albas, were shot at night-time at kilometre three on the road to Berbegal, a village to the south of Barbastro. [1] By the end of the month more than 800 Barbastrians had been executed -- including 200 priests -- some 10 per cent of the local population. In Madrid, three out of every ten priests were killed during the reign of terror. In Barbastro, nine out of every ten lost their lives.
Mariano Albas, though martyred while administering the last rites to a group of seminarians executed with him, has not been beatified, and no mention of his fate is found in the 'official' Escriva biographies. In stark contrast to the Calvary suffered by Barbastro's priests, Escriva found asylum in a psychiatric clinic on the outskirts of Madrid, where he learned to simulate the behaviour of the mentally ill. He spent five months doing his best to feign insanity. But one day the milicianos came to search the building. When the pseudo-madman was about to be questioned, one of the bona fide patients went up to the officer, pointed at his gun and asked, 'Is that a string instrument or a wind instrument?' The officer considered the question for a moment and then turned to Escriva and asked, 'Who are you?'
'I am Dr. Maranon,' he replied, pretending he was one of Spain's best-known personalities.
That was quite enough for the officer and abruptly he called off the search.
In early October 1936 the Nationalist forces resumed their advance and Madrid was about to fall when the first units of the Communist International Brigades arrived, followed by Durruti with 4,000 Anarchists. In the counter-attack the Anarchists came face to face with Hitler's elite Condor Legion and fled into the Parque del Oeste, pursued by a bandera of the Spanish Foreign Legion. Durruti was wounded, perhaps shot by one of his own men, and died five days later. In reprisal, the Popular Front executed Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera, who had been in a Republican jail since March 1936 on a charge of disturbing the peace. Their advance stopped, the Nationalists dug in on the western outskirts of Madrid for the remainder of the war. Afflicted by food shortages and frequent power cuts, the mood in the capital became sombre and street-corner executions were common. The staff at the asylum grew suspicious of 'Dr Maranon' and three months later Escriva was asked to leave.
He found refuge at the legation of the republic of Honduras, along with his brother Santiago, Juan Jimenez Vargas, Eduardo A1astrue and Jose Maria Albareda. Until then Albareda had been hiding in the Chilean embassy, but it had become unsafe. Alvaro del Portillo, who had been arrested inside the Finnish embassy and detained for three months, also joined them. The six shared a room that was two and a half metres by three, with a narrow window opening onto an interior courtyard. They called it the 'Honduran cage'. For the next five months it served as their home, office and chapel. They had little to eat; lunch and supper (no breakfast) usually consisted of stale carob beans, mixed with 'proteins', which meant the insects that came with the beans. To keep their sanity, the Father established a programme of prayers, work and meditation.
During those next five months, Albareda became very close to the Father. He told Escriva about Jose Ibanez Martin, a secondary school teacher whom he had met while hiding in the Chilean embassy. Like Escriva and Albareda, Ibanez was a son of Aragon. He was also one of Angel Herrera's Propagandistas and a former CEDA deputy. Jose Ibanez and Albareda were compatible souls and their talks during the long hours with nothing else to occupy them focused on the New Spain that would rise after the Civil War.
News that the Vatican had recognized the Burgos authorities as the official government of Spain stirred Escriva to attempt a crossing to the Blue Zone. By then Albareda had received word that his brother had successfully fled the Republic on an underground 'railroad' that smuggled people over the Pyrenees to Andorra. To arrange passage, travellers had to contact a conductor in Barcelona known as the 'Milkman'.
Escriva convinced the consul general to furnish him with a letter stating that he was the general manager of the Honduran legation. At the beginning of October 1937, he, Albareda, Tomas Alvira and Manuel Sainz de los Terreros, a road engineer in whose apartment he had found refuge the year before, obtained travel permits for Valencia. Juan Jimenez went ahead to make contact with Miguel Fisac and Francisco Botella. The others left by overnight coach. Isidoro Zorzano, Vicente Rodriguez, Jose Maria Gonzalez and Alvaro del Portillo were unable to obtain the necessary papers and remained in Madrid.
In Valencia, the travellers gathered at the home of 'Paco' Botella. He and Pedro Casciaro had been pressed into the Republican army but upon seeing the Father again they decided to leave with him that same evening by train for Barcelona, 350 kilometres north along the Mediterranean coast. According to Albareda, Escriva prayed during most of the journey, which took twelve hours. They spent the next six weeks waiting for additional papers, during which time they made contact with the 'Milkman'. He demanded payment in banknotes issued by the Bank of Spain before 18 July 1936. Between them they had just enough. They split into two groups, leaving behind Alvira and Sainz to wait for Portillo, who was still attempting to raise enough money to join them.
In mid-November 1937, Escriva, Albareda, Juan Jimenez, Botella, Casciaro and Fisac boarded a bus for Seo de Urgel, nine kilometres south of the frontier. The' police checkpoints became more frequent as they approached the mountains. Their instructions were to leave the bus at a crossroads near Peramola, a small village off the main road south of Seo de Urgel. Waiting there was the first of their guides. They slowly progressed towards the border, sleeping in a hayloft and even a large outdoor oven where, in the damp and cold, there was barely enough room to accommodate them. Escriva wanted to turn back. He felt guilty about leaving Portillo behind in Madrid. Over supper he had an argument with Juan Jimenez, who told him, 'We're going to get you to the other zone, even if I have to drag you there by your hair.' [2] The Father sobbed and throughout the rest of the night he cried and prayed to the Virgin for a sign confirming that he was following God's wishes. The sign he suggested was that, in the late autumn of the high Pyrenees, a rose might bloom.
At dawn, Escriva climbed out of the oven and went into the ruins of the nearby church to pray. The altarpiece had been destroyed but he found among the debris a carved wooden rose that apparently had broken off a statue of the Virgin. He took it as the sign he had requested and, showing it to his followers, called upon them to prepare for Mass.
During the next four nights they continued their journey, Alvira and Sainz having caught up with them, crossing four high mountain passes. Their new guide, Antonio, had a robust constitution and a concrete mixer for a digestive tract. He farted with great gusto, emitting foul odours that caused Fisac to turn and remark to the Father, 'If he keeps on like that he'll asphyxiate me.' [3]
On the last night a drizzle turned to snow. Several times they had to cross the Arabell River and Fisac carried Escriva on his back. They were soaked. The ground was freezing. Finally Escriva's strength gave out. He complained that his limbs were numb; his teeth chattered uncontrollably and he could hardly walk. During breaks, Juan massaged his legs. But Antonio was in a hurry. Border patrols had orders to shoot on sight and he said one was close by. They crossed another torrent, and saw the lights of a house. Dogs started barking. They descended into a valley and after entering the woods on the opposite slope Antonio told them they were in Andorra. He then disappeared.
A few days later they reached San Sebastian in Nationalist Spain. Escriva's 'sons' reported for military service. The Father, still in possession of the carved rose, which later became the symbol of the Women's Section, spent Christmas with the Bishop of Pamplona. On 8 January 1938 -- the day before his thirty-sixth birthday -- he arrived in the Nationalist capital of Burgos, and moved into a modest hotel with Albareda, Casciaro and Botella. Albareda had again met up with Jose Ibanez Martin. The Aragonese chemistry teacher was now deputy minister of education in the new Franco cabinet. He found Albereda a job with the National Secretariat of Culture. By pulling strings, Escriva was able to have Casciaro and Botella posted to desk jobs at the military headquarters in Burgos while Fisac and the others were sent to the Front.
Escriva's first concern in Burgos was to re-establish the Work. He immediately travelled south to Salamanca and tried to interest the principal benefactor of the Teresian Institute, Maria Josefa Segovia, to back him, as Father Poveda, the Teresian founder, had been shot during the first days of the Red terror in Madrid.
'I am again with Don Jose Maria,' Maria Josefa wrote in her diary. 'He fills me with such emotion. He looks like a ghost, and he cries ... He spoke of his last conversation with Father Poveda a few days before our Founder was martyred. With his words, we relived all the horror of the persecution. Apart from that, he comes full of projects.' [4]
In this encounter Escriva appears to have taken considerable liberty with the truth while playing upon the wealthy aristocrat's sentiments. We know from his biographers that once the Civil War broke out he never saw Father Poveda again and did not learn of the elder priest's martyrdom until some three months after the event. Poveda was killed by the milicianos on 27 July 1936. [5]
It is not known whether Maria Josefa Segovia contributed to the Work's empty coffers. But after returning from Salamanca, Escriva began anew his doctoral thesis, transforming it into a study of the Abbess of Las Huelgas. The seed for the change had been planted more than a year before, when he had remarked to Pedro Casciaro that the future juridical solution for the Work lay under two tombstones set in the floor of the Santa Isabel church in Madrid. Both were for Palatine Ordinaries, who under canon law held the status of Prelates nullius -- that is, an Ordinary without a diocese but with his own congregation and clergy. [6]
What interested Escriva about the medieval Abbey of Las Huelgas, just a twenty minute walk from his hotel, was its uniqueness in the annals of the Church, having been chartered as prelatura nullius. The abbey was founded in 1187 by Alfonso VIII at the behest of his wife Eleanor, daughter of England's Henry II. It was dedicated to promoting the monastic life of women, possessing its own lands and congregation, and therefore not attached to an episcopal see but coming under its own prelate, the Abbess of Las Huelgas. Her status was similar to a prelate nullius, making her the highest-ranking woman in the Church, and that intrigued Escriva. Las Huelgas remained a prelatura nullius until the mid-nineteenth century, when its status was finally changed.
While Escriva developed his thesis, the Work's very existence became threatened. A Nationalist finance ministry official, Don Jorge Bermudez, originally from Albacete, where the Casciaro family also lived, accused Pedro Casciaro's father, a Freemason and serving Republican officer, of being responsible for the deaths of many National Front supporters in Albacete. He also affirmed that the son shared the father's political convictions, having personally seen Pedro distributing Marxist tracts at Albacete before the February 1936 elections. Bermudez further claimed that Pedro was a Republican spy. He had no proof, but that did not bother him, even though the consequence of such an accusation would have been an investigation of Escriva's activities and, because suspected spies were offered little legal protection, Casciaro's likely execution before a firing squad.
Escriva and Albareda went to see Bermudez at the finance department and appealed to the man's Christian conscience. But Bermudez turned a deaf ear. Even if the son was innocent, which he doubted, Bermudez insisted that Pedro had to answer for his father's crimes. When finally they left Bermudez's office, Escriva was overcome by a premonition of death. Descending the stairs, he turned to Albareda and, eyes almost closed, predicted, 'Tomorrow, or the day after, there'll be a funeral in that family.' [7]
They returned to the hotel and Escriva explained to the others what had happened. Fisac was in Burgos on leave at the time. He now picks up the story: 'We went downstairs for lunch and afterwards everyone left on their own business, with the Father and me remaining alone in the room. We were leaning on the railing of the porch watching the river when he told me in a hushed voice, "Tomorrow, a burial in that house." I was afraid and we remained silent,' he recalled.
'A short while later, the Father proposed that we go to the Cathedral and visit the Holy Ghost. We passed under the Arch of Our Lady and entered the Cathedral, leaving it after long meditation by the side door. We descended the steps, but before arriving in the plaza we stopped at a public notice board. One of the notices, bordered in black, was very recent. The Father read it and became quite agitated. "What's happened?" I asked. He replied, "The gentleman I saw this morning is dead."
'I was deeply struck by this news. We walked on for a few more metres and entered a bistro where we ordered a fruit juice. It was then that the Father told me not to make any judgements on the departed soul. I remember that we probably said a prayer for him. Afterwards, the Father told me that it would be prudent if Pedro and I left Burgos for a few days, and he suggested we go the same evening to Vitoria with Jose Maria Albareda. We went directly from the bistro to the General Headquarters. I entered the building and asked Pedro and Paco to come out for a moment; in the street we explained what had happened. The Father said it would be better if Pedro left for two days until after the funeral. So Pedro requested a furlough for Vitoria, as that weekend it was the Festival of La Blanca.' [8]
When Fisac returned to Burgos three days later he was asked by the others to sign a statement describing what had happened in words dictated by the Father. He said he was convinced that when the Father said, 'Tomorrow, a burial,' he was referring to the Bermudez son who was at the Front. After hesitating, he finally signed the text and the matter was never discussed again.
'Pope Pius XI died on 10 February 1939 and was succeeded by Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, who took the name of Pius XII. Four weeks after Pacelli's election the Civil War ended. The new pope immediately despatched a telegram congratulating Franco on his 'Catholic' victory. [9] Escriva's return to Madrid with the first Nationalist columns on 28 March 1939 marked the close of Opus Dei's embryonic period.
One of Franco's first measures as the new master of Spain was to launch a campaign of repression against anyone suspected of Republican sympathies. To facilitate the arrest of state enemies, Franco's police issued special blue forms for denunciations, which citizens were invited to fill out if they suspected their neighbours or possessed information that might assist in uncovering Popular Front collaborators. [10] The 'cleansing' of Spanish society that followed the Nationalist victory added another 200,000 victims to the more than 500,000 who lost their lives during the Civil War. [11]
Escriva immediately began stitching the Work back together, making it the standard bearer of a concept known as 'authoritarian clericalism'. With his brother Santiago, Ricardo Fernandez Vallespin and Juan Jimenez Vargas he inspected the DYA Residence. The building had been shelled during the 1937 battle for Madrid and had to be written off. As the Fomento de Estudios Superiores had made no further payment, the owner repossessed the property. Escriva, however, was determined to open a new student residence before the beginning of the academic year that October.
As the rest of Europe prepared for world war, during April and May 1939 Spain was treated to a series of victory celebrations that culminated with Franco's entry into Madrid on Thursday, 18 May. The capital was ablaze with the red and gold colours of the new Spain. Some 200,000 troops had been brought into the city to take part in a grand victory parade. Parks were transformed into military cantonments and the streets jammed with tanks, armoured vehicles, artillery pieces and both mechanized and muledrawn transport. Madrid was said to be overawed by Franco's military hubris. The parade was 30 kilometre long and lasted five hours. It included elite Italian and German units, and line after line of regular Spanish troops sometimes twenty abreast, among them Falangist Blue Shirts, Carlist Requetes carrying huge crucifixes, the battle-scarred Army Corps of Navarra, Moorish regulars in baggy trousers and the dreaded Spanish Foreign Legion.
That Sunday Franco attended a solemn Te Deum Mass at the royal basilica of Santa Barbara. The approach to the basilica was lined with young Falangists waving palms of peace. The choir of the Monastery of Saint Dominic of Silos greeted him with a tenth-century Mozarabic chant written for the reception of princes. Surrounded by military relics of Spain's crusading past, including Don John of Austria's Lepanto battle standard, Franco presented his 'sword of victory' to the Primate of all Spain, Cardinal Isidro Goma, who laid it on the high altar before the great crucifix of the Christ of Lepanto from the Cathedral of Barcelona. Franco then requested divine help in leading the Spanish people 'to the full liberty of the empire of Your glory and that of Your Church'. [12]
At the end of September 1939, Father Escriva published The Way, a collection of 999 religious maxims offering spiritual advice which he promoted as a guide to salvation. 'If these maxims change your own life,' the introduction read, 'you will be a perfect imitator of Jesus Christ, and a knight without a spot. And with Christs such as you, Spain will return to the ancient grandeur of its saints, its sages and its heroes.' Escriva's followers described it as 'a classic of spiritual literature, an a Kempis for modern times.' [13]
Some critics, however, claimed the work was 'superficial', which may be so, but as a criticism it missed the point. The Way was more accurately a handbook of authoritarian clericalism. Professor Jose Marfa Castillo went even further. He claimed it lacked discernment, a serious charge, for in theological terms discernment is a loaded word. 'Discernment is the expression of the true cult of Christians; it puts into practice our living as "children of the light" rather than "children of darkness",' explained Castillo, a Jesuit professor of theology at the University of Granada.
'If a book which claims to be a programme of spiritual life says nothing about Christian discernment, one can say quite surely that it has only a superficial veneer of Evangelical spirit. One can, in fact, say that, deep down, the book is not Christian,' Castillo wrote in an article that engendered Opus Dei's wrath. Shortly after, Castillo's licence to teach theology was revoked.
But what exactly is discernment? It has to do with determining the authenticity of mystical experiences -- whether they result from God's influence on the soul or are humanly induced. Ignatius of Loyola's concern for discernment constitutes an essential aspect of his Spiritual Exercises. Ignatius was so absorbed by the problem that he conceived a set of rules for the discernment of spirits that he applied to his own spiritual life. Perhaps because of his concern for discernment, Ignatius never claimed that God created the Society of Jesus. The same concern for discernment, Castillo claimed, was not reflected in The Way. In fact, The Way tolerates neither doubt nor criticism. It affirmed that true Christians must be disciplined and obedient to a spiritual director. To this extent, maintained Father Castillo, the roots of Opus Dei's fanaticism are contained in the maxims of The Way.
Written in simple, rough language, Escriva's maxims engender a spirit of superiority in anyone who identifies with them. The reader is told that he cannot be 'one of the crowd. You were born to be a leader! There is no room among us for the lukewarm. Humble yourself and Christ will set you aflame again with the fire of Love' (Maxim 16). Maxim 387 states: 'The standard of holiness that God asks of us is determined by these three points: holy intransigence, holy coercion and holy shamelessness.' Convinced he possessed the undeniable truth, Escriva wrote in Maxim 394 that 'to compromise is a sure sign of not possessing the truth. When a man gives way in matters of ideals, of honour or of Faith, that man is a man without ... honour and without Faith'.
Discernment denied, Escriva's lay children would be unlikely to attain spiritual maturity. They are told that if they wish to achieve Christian perfection they must give up their inner self to a superior. Maxim 377 states this clearly: 'And how shall I acquire "our formation", how shall I keep "our spirit"? By being faithful to the specific norms your Director gave you and explained to you, and made you love: be faithful to them and you will be an apostle: The special formation is 'ours' and none other. 'Our spirit' consists of fulfilling the specific norms dictated by 'your Director'. In other words, there is no recourse to one's spiritual discernment, only to one's Spiritual Director.
What Escriva seemed to be saying is that obedience to the Father, through each member's spiritual director, offers the key to the gates of Heaven. Consider Maxim 941: 'Obedience, the sure way. Unreserved obedience to whoever is in charge, the way of sanctity. Obedience in your apostolate, the only way: for in a work of God, the spirit must be to obey or to leave: According to Maxim 623 one must obey in every 'little detail', even if it seems 'useless and difficult. Do it!' Maxim 59 tells us that everyone needs guidance. 'Here is a safe doctrine that I want you to know: one's own mind is a bad adviser, a poor pilot to steer the soul through the storms and tempests and among the reefs of interior life. That is why it is the will of God that [your soul] be entrusted to a Master who, with his light and his knowledge, can guide us to a safe harbour: But this guidance is not attributable to the Holy Spirit. It is attributable to a man, the Father, the only person who can insure that one's sanctity will be achieved. 'Follow my word, and I promise you heaven.'
With the elimination of discernment, the Gospel is empty, faith alienated and the individual demeaned. Paul told the people of Corinth, 'For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgement upon himself. [14] Once alienation has been achieved, the foundations of a cult have been established. Father Castillo concluded: 'The Way leads inevitably to the alienation of the individual, and to an ill-conceived complicity with "the world" which Jesus rejected, and 'by which He was rejected, unto death.' [15]
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Notes:
1. Gabriel Campo Villegas, Esta es Nuestra Sangre, Publicaciones Claretianas, Madrid 1992. Details of Bishop Florentino Asensio's martyrdom were taken from this book and the author's interview with Father Campo in Barbastro on 22 June 1994. Don Florentino's beatification is being considered by the Congregation for the Causes of Saints in Rome.
2. Miguel Fisac Notes, 8 June 1994.
3. Reflections by Miguel Fisac on Pedro Casciaro's book, Sonad y os quedareis cortos (Dream and you will not believe what happens), November 1994.
4. Diary of Maria Josefa Segovia for 21 January 1938, as cited by Flavia-Paz Velazquez in Vida de Maria Josefa Segovia, Publicaciones de la Institucion Teresiana, Madrid 1964, p. 205.
5. Father Poveda was beatified by John Paul II in October 1993.
6. The prelates were Antonio de Sentmanat, Patriarch of the Indies, Chaplain of King Charles IV of Spain, Vicar General of the Royal Armies on Land and at Sea (1743-1806), and Jacobo Cardona y Tur, Patriarch of the West Indies, Titular Archbishop of Zion, Major Chaplain of the Royal Household and Vicar General of the Army (1838-1923).
7. Pedro Casciaro, Sonad y os quedareis cortos, Ediciones Rialp, Madrid 1994, p. 162.
8. Miguel Fisac, Notes, 11 November 1994.
9. Paul Preston, Franco, HarperCollins, London 1993, p. 322.
10. The Times, London, 21 April 1939.
11. Brian Crozier, 'Spain under its little dictator,' The Times (London) 18 October 1993. Also Gabriel Campo Villegas, the Civil War historian of Barbasrro, in an interview with the author in June 1994, placed the number of victims during the war and subsequent years of repression at around 750,000.
12. Tom G. Burns, 'Fresh Thoughts on Franco', The Tablet, 21 November 1992.
13. Preface to the Four Courts edition of The Way, Scriptor 1985.
14. 1 Corinthians 11:29.
15. Jose Maria Castillo, La Anulacion del Discernimiento (The Elimination of Discernment). Father Castillo is also the author of El discernimiento cristiano segun San Pablo (Granada, 1975).
