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    theholyprepuce: The “Execution” of the Sacred Heart of Jesus by militiamen at Cerro de los Ángeles near Madrid, on 7 August 1936.   This was symbolic retaliation for the Church’s considerable political role in the Spanish Civil War and reaction to the Church’s systematic oppression of Spaniards. Since the time of the Spanish Inquisition, the Catholic Church had used questionable means to accumulate vast landholdings and a firm grip on Spanish politics.  Primarily because of abuses by the clergy and Church hierarchy, only 30% of Spaniards were practicing Catholics.  In order to break the control the Church had over Spanish affairs, the 1931 constitution removed any special Catholic rights and separated Church and State.  Priests were no longer paid by the state. Their salaries now came out of the Roman Catholic Church’s purse.  Jesuits – prone to meddle in state affairs - were expelled from Spain.  The constitution introduced female suffrage, civil marriage and divorce and religious education in schools was stopped, and free, obligatory, secular education for all was introduced.    A new right wing party, dedicated to protecting the authority of the Roman Catholic Church was soon formed and a crusade against the republic was proclaimed.  Between 1936 and 1939 Spain was plunged into a civil war that claimed the lives of half a million people. The Catholic heirachy played a major role in the rise of General Francisco Franco who seized power in a military coup in 1936.  He ruled Spain under a Catholic authoritarian dictatorship until his death in 1975.  During this grim period 114,266 people “disappeared” and Spain lost most of its intelligentsia. Immediately after seizing power, and to enforce “traditional family values”, Franco reversed the constitutional changes.  The Catholic Church was again upheld as the established church of the Spanish State, and regained many of the traditional privileges it had lost under the Republic.  Civil servants had to be Catholic, civil marriages which had taken place under Republican Spain were declared null and void and progressive laws passed by the Republic aimed at equality between the sexes were made void.  Women could not become judges, or testify in trial.  They could not become university professors. Their affairs and economy had to be managed by their father or by their husbands.  Even in the 1970s a woman fleeing from an abusive husband could be arrested and imprisoned for “abandoning the home” (abandono del hogar). Until the 1970s a woman could not have a bank account without a co-sign by her father or husband.

    theholyprepuce:

    The “Execution” of the Sacred Heart of Jesus by militiamen at Cerro de los Ángeles near Madrid, on 7 August 1936.   This was symbolic retaliation for the Church’s considerable political role in the Spanish Civil War and reaction to the Church’s systematic oppression of Spaniards.

    Since the time of the Spanish Inquisition, the Catholic Church had used questionable means to accumulate vast landholdings and a firm grip on Spanish politics.  Primarily because of abuses by the clergy and Church hierarchy, only 30% of Spaniards were practicing Catholics. 

    In order to break the control the Church had over Spanish affairs, the 1931 constitution removed any special Catholic rights and separated Church and State.  Priests were no longer paid by the state. Their salaries now came out of the Roman Catholic Church’s purse.  Jesuits – prone to meddle in state affairs - were expelled from Spain.  The constitution introduced female suffrage, civil marriage and divorce and religious education in schools was stopped, and free, obligatory, secular education for all was introduced.   

    A new right wing party, dedicated to protecting the authority of the Roman Catholic Church was soon formed and a crusade against the republic was proclaimed.  Between 1936 and 1939 Spain was plunged into a civil war that claimed the lives of half a million people.

    The Catholic heirachy played a major role in the rise of General Francisco Franco who seized power in a military coup in 1936.  He ruled Spain under a Catholic authoritarian dictatorship until his death in 1975.  During this grim period 114,266 people “disappeared” and Spain lost most of its intelligentsia.

    Immediately after seizing power, and to enforce “traditional family values”, Franco reversed the constitutional changes.  The Catholic Church was again upheld as the established church of the Spanish State, and regained many of the traditional privileges it had lost under the Republic.  Civil servants had to be Catholic, civil marriages which had taken place under Republican Spain were declared null and void and progressive laws passed by the Republic aimed at equality between the sexes were made void.  Women could not become judges, or testify in trial.  They could not become university professors. Their affairs and economy had to be managed by their father or by their husbands.  Even in the 1970s a woman fleeing from an abusive husband could be arrested and imprisoned for “abandoning the home” (abandono del hogar). Until the 1970s a woman could not have a bank account without a co-sign by her father or husband.

    (via wine-loving-vagabond)