Religion: Toleration in Seville

The U.S. has been urging Franco Spain to show greater religious tolerance to its 20,000 Protestants. Pedro Cardinal Segura y Saenz, Archbishop of Seville, a man of monolithic opinions who dislikes Franco, the U.S. and Protestantism, told his countrymen this week that toleration would never do. Wrote Cardinal Segura in a pastoral letter:

“Ever since 1945, when the Spanish government authorized the opening of certain Protestant churches in this country, Protestant propaganda has considerably increased, and it has been tolerated to a far greater extent than is permissible in keeping with the . . . spirit of the charter of the Spanish people.”

Cardinal Segura complained that a campaign of “benevolence” toward Protestantism had begun with expressions of sympathy for Protestant Britain when King George VI died, and that lately the campaign has increased “in an extraordinarily grave manner.” Some people in Spain, he feared, have come to believe “that all religions are equally acceptable in the presence of God.”

The cardinal took a swing at Baptist Harry Truman for his recent press conference remark that he is not very fond of the present government of Spain. It showed, said Cardinal Segura, a “dislike of the Spanish people.” But he seemed even more concerned about Spain’s own regime: “The spirit of Catholics is worried over fear that, under the pretext of politics, concessions gravely prejudicial to religion may be made.”

In Cardinal Segura’s own Seville last week, a group of young Roman Catholics anticipated the cardinal’s remarks with a more direct protest against toleration. A gang of well-dressed young men burst into the tiny, secluded Protestant chapel of St. Basil, struck Pastor Santos Martin Molin in the face, poured gasoline over the altar and tried to set the church afire. Said a Spanish government spokesman: “A negligible, isolated incident.” In Madrid, a Protestant pastor brandished a pamphlet published by a Catholic organization, in which Protestants were denounced as “libertines, women of easy virtue and traitors to their country.” “This sort of propaganda,” he said, “is bound to fire hotheads.”