The Economic Power of the Church in Spain

Although I was not personally acquainted with Ferrer, I lived for a considerable time at Barcelona while I was studying the growth of the anarchist movement in Spain, and I was able to follow closely the results of his work there.

Continuing Spanish Civil War Prelude.
Today we begin the second part of the series with our selection from Trial of Ferrer by Perceval Gibbon. The selection is presented in 3 easy 5 minute installments. For works benefiting from the latest research see the “More information” section at the bottom of these pages.

Perceval Gibbon (1879-1926) was a history professor who taught at universities on both sides of the Atlantic.

Previously in Spanish Civil War Prelude.

Time: 1909
Place: Barcelona

The trial of Francisco Ferrer in the Model Prison at Barcelona was a State function of the highest importance; besides the reporters, only privileged spectators were present to witness an end being made of the Government’s enemy. There was a good deal of competition for a place in court; Ferrer was not known by sight to many people in Spain, and there was curiosity as to the personality and appearance of this powerful Revolutionary, the leader of a school of political thought. A colonel and six captains were appointed to try him, and a captain of engineers was deputed to conduct his defense, with a prospect of arrest and imprisonment if he went too far on the prisoner’s behalf. The whole thing was stage- managed like a drama, and its end was not less certain and foreseen.

They brought Ferrer in and placed him at the bar of the court, with a sentry beside him; and the spectators rustled and fidgeted to see him close at hand. Under their curious eyes, the doomed man shrank and was uneasy. People saw him with astonishment. He had the manner and all the outward look of an elderly clerk or a country schoolmaster, of anything subordinate and plodding and uninspired. He was middle-aged and of the middle stature, with a round, dull face, and a short, pointed gray beard. There was nothing to distinguish him from thousands of men in Spain today, in whom the national character of reserve and incuriousness are exaggerated to a sort of atrophy of the faculties. He showed no trace of that fervency and power that had made him the enemy of the Government, and sustained him through years of war against bureaucracy and clericalism in Catalonia. It was only when, at some turn in the proceedings, he looked up quickly, that people were able to see that the eyes in the patient face were steady and of a peculiar brightness.

A military court does not pronounce sentence at the end of the case, and when Ferrer was taken out from court no word of death had been spoken. But he knew, and the others knew, that he went forth doomed. In London and in Paris it was known. There were attempts to influence the Governments of Great Britain and France to intervene to save him; and the advocates at the Palace of Justice in Paris signed a protest against the manner in which he had been denied justice and an opportunity to clear himself. In Rome also it was known. The pope addressed an inquiry to the papal Nuncio in Spain as to whether his intervention would be taken well, and the date of Ferrer’s execution was actually advanced in order that the young king might not have to refuse a request from the Vatican. Those who advise the pope were not blind to the fact that clericalism in Spain can ill afford to make martyrs; the proof of their wisdom is in the uproar that arose from every capital between St. Petersburg and Montevideo in answer to the volley at Montjuich on October 13th.

There is not lacking a mass of proof that from the moment he was arrested Ferrer was as good as dead. He was charged with inciting and taking part in the recent riots at Barcelona. His guilt or his innocence no longer concerns any one. The time to prove him guilty was in his lifetime, when he could answer for himself.

Six months ago, if one had sought in Spain for an outstanding man, for a leader whose disappearance would change the destinies of the struggle between the forces of liberalism and their opponents, it would have been hard to fix upon one. In Catalonia, Ferrer’s native province, as in the rest of Spain, anticlericalism is more an instinct of the people than a matter of politics. A man may be a Republican, a Nationalist, a Separatist, a Lerrouxista, but he is an anticlerical as well. It is not that he is necessarily hostile to religion, or even to the Church; it is simply that the religious orders have become a heavy burden to the community, and their increase in the face of the law restricting them is making life a difficult matter for thousands of people.

Although I was not personally acquainted with Ferrer, I lived for a considerable time at Barcelona while I was studying the growth of the anarchist movement in Spain, and I was able to follow closely the results of his work there. To gain a clue to Ferrer’s share in Spanish politics, it is necessary to understand the position of the anticlericals. The diocese of Barcelona, to select one instance, has a total population of about a million souls. Within this diocese there are not fewer than five hundred religious houses — monasteries and convents — and some six thousand minor institutions, forming centers of clerical propaganda and influence. It is not even known how many monks, nuns, and priests these figures represent; Spanish statistics are incomplete and inaccurate: but they stand, at any rate, for a very large body of people — individually poor but collectively controlling enormous wealth — who have no share in the life of the community and the duties of the citizen.

If this were all, it would yet be a serious burden to Spain’s most enterprising and prosperous province; but the matter goes further. The orders engage in business. They have special advantages in the way of securing labor and custom, and they are exempt from all taxes. They manufacture liqueurs, chocolates, candy, and linen; they work farms; they undertake printing and laundry work: and they are able to do all this on terms with which the layman cannot compete. And thus it is that in Barcelona all disorders begin with the burning of a convent.

It was to this warfare between the people and the orders that Francisco Ferrer belonged. He was a man of the lower classes, without grace of manner, geniality, or wit, and his appearance almost constituted a claim to be overlooked. But, none the less, this awkward, silent Spaniard had something within him that attracted to him the confidence and devotion of women. The record of his life has several instances of women inspired to be his followers and helpers. While he lay in prison, one, Senora Villafranca, the most faithful of his followers, was exhausting every resource to secure his reprieve in Madrid. In Paris, there had been another, named Mile. Meunier. Little is known of her, save that she was a very old woman who believed in Ferrer, and when she died she left him half a million dollars with which to forward his cause in Spain. It made him, for Spain, a very rich man; it put into his hands power such as no other leader had commanded. From that time Ferrer began to be recognized as a formidable figure in Spanish affairs.

William Archer began here.

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