 |
October 4, 1937
New York Times |
The text of the open letter issued by 150 Protestant
clergymen and educators and laymen on the recent pastoral letter of the Spanish
hierarchy follows:
The pastoral letter issued by the prelates of the Catholic
Church in Spain stirs our anxieties. The Spanish hierarchy’s attempt to justify
a military rebellion against a legally elected government is alarming, as is
its display of open hostility toward popular government, freedom of worship and
separation of church and State—principles that we, as Americans, deeply
cherish.
Its apparent unwillingness to recognize the social and
economic evils that have sickened Spain for generations is disquieting to those
who feel that there can be no stability in the peninsula until these evils are
eliminated; that resort again to force, repression and dictatorship can only be
futile. IN this respect the Spanish hierarchy will not admit what leading
Catholics here and abroad have long discussed and deplored.
It is noteworthy that this pastoral letter was issued to
answer criticism abroad of the Spanish hierarchy’s position, criticism voiced
not by the secular but by the Catholic press.
We are amazed to find the pastoral letter 1) approving of
resort to violence and military insurrection as a means of settling political
controversies; 20 rejecting not merely the present Popular Front Government of
Spain but the republic itself and the Constitution of 1931 on which it was
founded; 3) stigmatizing any form of parliamentary government, presumably even
if under a constitutional monarchy, as “irresponsible autocracy”; and 4)
condemning in principle the democratic institutions, the freedom of worship and
the separation of church and State established by the Constitution of 1931. It
is hard to believe that this pastoral letter was written in the twentieth
century . . .
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