The clergy in the Spanish Army during the Second Republic

Abstract

As an institution traditionally linked to the Catholic Church, the Spanish army customarily incorporated a number of priests, called military chaplains, responsible for providing religious services to service personnel. This changed, however, after the Republican regime became established and initiated a policy of secularization at all levels of Spanish society, including the army. This article takes the proclamation of the Second Spanish Republic as its starting point to analyse –in the context of religious history– the changes with respect to the role of the clergy that occurred in the army as a consequence of the secularizing policies of the first two years of the Republic. At the same time, it analyses the changes that affected the members of the Church who were obliged to serve in the military like every other young Spanish male. This subject has received only cursory attention from the different academic disciplines, and few references to it exist, whether in the areas of law or military studies. Within the field of religious history itself, while the figure of the military chaplain is featured in some studies, the chronological bookends are different. Official journals from both the government and army provide the information necessary to identify and track the different measures implemented and evaluate their consequences. Additionally, diocese bulletins, congressional records and press reports were critical sources of information for the preparation of this study. In the short term, the proclamation of the Second Republic signified the dissolution of the Spanish army’s ecclesiastic corps, with priests becoming responsible for providing services to the various regiments who appeared in their parishes. Moreover, most military chaplains were assigned non-active status or required to retire voluntarily. However, a third way presented itself, that of continuing to serve as active members of the army while relocating the archives of the military vicariate. At the same time, the members of the clergy who were required to enlist and who had hitherto enjoyed a variety of associated privileges saw them disappear, and they found themselves on the same level as the other young men. These phenomena were related, and were coherent with the secularizing measures and laws passed during the first two years of the Spanish Second Republic.