Spain: Medieval v. Modern

When a high-ranking Roman Catholic prelate takes a scornful swipe at religious tolerance and storms at "benevolence towards Protestantism," as Spain's Cardinal Segura did last week (TIME, March 17), many U.S. temperatures go sailing. For whom or what does Cardinal Segura speak?

The answer is that Cardinal Segura speaks for the oldest tradition of the Spanish church--one that has come down the years with stubborn strength since the power of the Moors was broken in the 13th century. But today many a Spaniard believes that Cardinal Segura is obsolete. Segura insists 1) that the people are incapable of self-guidance, and 2) that they need to be saved from themselves by a church-directed state which applies the rules of religion with an iron glove. In the past, Cardinal Segura clashed with King Alfonso XIII because he thought him far too mild and liberal a monarch. Nowadays, he belabors Dictator Franco for Art. 6 of the new Spanish charter, which offers the paper assurance, at least, that non-Catholics may not be "molested" because of their religion.

As Archbishop of Seville, the 71-year-old cardinal bears down hard on heresy and what he regards as licentious customs. He has managed to suppress Seville's traditional church dancing at Christmas, ban movies accepted in the rest of Spain, and separate men & women at all religious gatherings. Says one critic of Segura: "A saint, had he been born in the 15th century, a bore in the 20th."

Newspaperman to Bishop. The U.S. hears less of a more potent group of Spanish churchmen, whose chief spokesman is a more modern man, Don Angel Herrera, 65, Bishop of Malaga. Bishop Herrera, onetime Madrid newspaperman who was ordained at 53, consecrated bishop at 60, believes, like Cardinal Segura, that Spain should be submissive to the church. But he insists that the proper role of the church is to guide, not goad, the Spanish people. Spain's pressing problems, Bishop Herrera holds, are the poverty of her people and the general backwardness of a clergy which, in the main, knows little and cares less about modern social and political problems. Three years ago, Herrera, with the blessing of the Vatican, started a social school for priests in Malaga. One of the studies: a course on Communism. To critics, Herrera answered: "We must know our enemies if we want to conquer them."

Among Herrera's opponents is Francisco Franco, whose regime he peppers with charges of social injustice and corruption. Herrera would like to see Franco succeeded by a constitutional monarch. Last year, when Herrera transferred his school to Madrid, Franco's friend, the Archbishop of Madrid, asked the Pope to have the bishop's activities confined to Malaga. The Vatican backed Herrera.

Bishop to Power? Today, 80 priests are enrolled at Herrera's school, and many more, particularly of the post-revolution clergy, are gripped by his grand aim to swamp evil "with a flood of good." Few of them can match the bishop's activity. A year ago, he was in Mexico contacting Spanish refugees. Later, in Portugal, he conferred with the pretender to the Spanish throne. Don Juan, and the exiled onetime leader of Spain's Catholic party, Gil Robles. Last month he was off to Rome, where the Pope received him twice. This week he was back in Madrid, busy as ever, holding conferences, discussing labor problems and teaching at his school. Church opinion holds that at the next Vatican consistory he is almost certain to receive the red hat of a cardinal. Beyond that, should the monarchy be restored and the Catholic party play a role similar to that of the Demo-Christians in Italy, Herrera might well wind up the most influential man in Spain.

If Bishop Herrera and those who think like him should inherit the Spain of tomorrow. Protestants could hardly expect much more elbow room than they have now. But there would be room for one modern idea, which to medieval minds is always heresy: change.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.