Protestant Persecution

With Roman Catholics and Protestants the world over working together in a more friendly spirit than ever before, Spain has reversed the worldwide trend and resumed its ancient place as the world's most devout persecutor of heretics. Facts about Spain's 25,000 Protestants (Baptist, Methodist, Congregational, Episcopal) vouched for by Dr. Henry Smith Leiper, American secretary of the World Council of Churches:

> Practically all Protestant church services have been forbidden and nearly every Protestant school in the country has been closed, including the interdenominational seminary in Madrid and El Porvenir ("The Future"), the Protestant college.

> Some 30 Protestant pastors had to flee into exile at the end of the Civil War and would probably face a firing squad if they returned. Catholic prelates in Spain have backed Franco's policy of executing his political opponents.

> The British and Foreign Bible Society's Madrid depository has been raided by the police, who trucked off 110,000 Spanish-language Bibles stored there and have refused to return them.

"More than two-thirds of our Spanish workers have either been executed, exiled, or imprisoned," Missionary Percy J. Luffard reported to Britain's Spanish Gospel Mission. "Four-fifths of the Evangelical places of worship have been closed or confiscated. . . . There is a great deal of persecution almost everywhere, and in some cases whole churches have been dispersed.

In the majority of instances, however, a few members remain and, in spite of all the difficulties, most of our believers are keeping true and are giving a good testimony. In quite a number of instances there has even been remarkable progress." U.S. Catholics say there has been no such persecution of Roman Catholics under Franco. Catholicism is once more an established church, with clerical salaries paid by the Government, and religious orders including the Jesuits have had their expropriated property restored. But the relationship is not wholly happy, for Franco and the Vatican are deadlocked over his demand for the same veto power on the investiture of bishops that the monarchy exercised under the 1851 Concordat. As a result, nearly half the sees are vacant, and Spain has had no primate since Isidore Goma y Tomas, Archbishop of Toledo, died last year.

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