Evangelizing History: the Reopening of the Beatification Processes of the Spanish Civil War Martyrs

Abstract

The Catholic Church provided moral and ideological support to the Franco regime from the outset. One of the elements with which the ecclesial institution counted to achieve this were the processes of beatification and canonization of the “martyrs of the Crusade”. The development of these processes accounts for the development of the ecclesial institution itself during the 20th century in Spain: from the vindication of the “martyrs of the crusade”, in the first postwar period, to the claim of their “martyrs of faith” already in democracy, the Church has adapted its account of the Civil War to the conditions of each historical moment. Keywords: martyrs of the crusade, martyrs of faith, processes of beatification, Spanish transition, historical memory.