When General Francisco Franco and his Nationalists rose in revolution against the Spanish Republic in 1936, many Roman Catholics in Spain welcomed the general as a liberator. The Catholic Church had been badly battered from the left in the turmoil that led up to the civil war: property had been confiscated, parochial schools outlawed, churches and convents burned. After Franco consolidated his power, he put clergy in the pay of the state a status they had lost under the Republic. The church readily agreed to restore to Franco an old privilege of Spanish monarchsa virtual veto over the appointment of Spanish...
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