Recently one of our Eponymous Flower correspondents traveled to Avila, Spain, birthplace of Queen Isabel the Catholic, St. Theresa of Jesus, St. John of the Cross, and St. Peter of Alcantara. Since the evil socialist government of Jose Luis Zapatero came to power in 2004, little by little monuments which commemorate General Francisco Franco, the victory of Spain over communism, and the martyrs of the Red Terror have been removed. In 2007, the Spanish government mandated the removal of these monuments by law under "La ley de memoria histórica." In many places street names having to do with the Catholic side during the war have been changed to generic names. Nevertheless, if you really search you can still find many monuments to Franco and Catholic Spain. The execution of the removal of the plaques and monuments is left up to the municipalities. Some areas of Spain with a conservative majority have rebelled and quietly left the monuments and plaques as they are. Here is one such plaque that can still be found in Avila. We will leave the exact location of this plaque a secret so that Zapatero's henchmen do not disturb it.
Here is the English translation of the plaque:
"Franco 1936-1938
In this city, birthplace of Saint Theresa of Jesus and capital of the Province which saw the birth of the great Queen Isabel the Catholic, no offense against the morals of Christ will be tolerated under any pretext.
Avila is loyal and will not betray those who gave their lives for God and for Spain during this glorious crusade.
Avila- May 1941 Up with Spain! Long live Christ the King!"
St Teresa of Jesus was not born in Avila, the city. She was born in Avila the Provence. The same with Queen Isabella and St. John of the Cross. This is like saying someone is from Washington D.C. because they were born in Mobile, Alabama. The Civil War in Spain was not about communism. Franco rose up against a democraticly elected government and proclaimed himself not only fascist, tyrannical dictator of the people but also of their religion. He ignored the Vatican and named bishops. and murdered people to aquire their property.
ReplyDeleteYeah, those anarchists running around murdering us had nothing to do with it.
ReplyDeleteI'm really glad we have some educated, professional "Catholics" to show us the letter of the law.
ReplyDeleteSounds like Anon's been reading too much Wikipedia.
ReplyDeleteAnon is right about the birthplaces stuff, but he gets it totally wrong about the rest. For start, to this day it remains to be proved whether the communist government was elected at all (there was so much rigging in those elections and the final vote counting is unknown to this day);second Franco did not rise up to anything, in fact he was pulled into the uprising towards which he was not very favourable; third, please give us the quote where he proclaims himself "fascist" and "tyrannical dictator"; fourth some evidence about ignoring the Vatican would also be welcome (probably one of his main problems is that he complied too much with the Vatican); and fifth the thing about murdering people to acquire their property is really hilarious.
ReplyDeleteLook, I am all in for the 18th of July uprising, but not particularly in favour of Franco. I can give you 5 or 10 reasons to legitimately criticise Franco, unfortunately none of the above are valid.Please get your facts right.