Thanking God for Spain

Joseph Pearce,
I have always found that editorial rather disquieting–in the light of facts which you record in your excellent biography of Roy Campbell, “Unafraid of Virginia Woolf”. For example, there you quote with approval George Orwell’s condemnation of those during the Spanish Civil War who shouted to the rooftops about atrocities committed by the other side, while turning a blind eye to atrocities by their own side. Atrocities committed by the “Christian” Nationalists were testified to by the conservative Catholic and monarchist, Georges Bernanos. When the Nationalist insurrection broke out Bernanos was living in Majorca, and at first he welcomed it. But he changed his mind when he saw and heard around him the Nationalists’ systematic murder of civilians who had, or were suspected of having, Republican sympathies. Bernanos denounced what he found to be a reign of terror masquerading as a crusade. Of course Belloc wasn’t overly concerned about the murder of civilians, whether under Louis XIV, or the French Revolutionaries, or Napoleon, or Franco. But Catholic Christians certainly should be.

Then there is the fact that in your editorial you seem to hold out Roy Campbell as some kind of Catholic hero of the Spanish Civil War. Yet your biography shows that the image Campbell presented of himself as a soldier in the war–the image Tolkien accepts in his famous letter–was a complete lie. Campbell did not fight in the Spanish Civil War, or any other war, and all he saw of the battlefront was from a five day propaganda tour. Moreover, as you correctly record, Campbell’s major work on the civil war, the long poem “Flowering Rifle”, reads like a fascist propaganda pamphlet, complete with pervasive anti-Semitic invective. Campbell was able to give whole-hearted support to the Nationalists because, at least at the time, he agreed with the beliefs and practices of the significant fascist elements in the Nationalists; he didn’t mind the killing of civilians, as long as they were the right civilians. I can accept Campbell as a fellow Catholic and sinner, on the long road to truth–but as an exemplary hero?

The spiritual wealth of Spanish Catholicism should certainly be celebrated. But the political policies of many Spanish Catholics down the ages are a different matter. From the Inquisition and expulsion of the Jews, through the conquistadors then down to Franco’s regime, Spanish Catholics have used the machinery of the state to coerce religious orthodoxy. If one accepts Vatican II’s Declaration on Religious Freedom, which condemns such coercion, this history must be problematic. In your criticism of “Flowering Rifle” you say that Campbell should have shown more moderation and restraint: good advice generally in relation to the Spanish Civil War and Spanish Catholicism.