Reuters reported on Tuesday a protest in Madrid by women who had survived Franco’s rehabilitation centres, who disrupted an event held by the Catholic church to apologise for its role in supporting the centres. Protesters – many in their 60s and 70s – held up banners marked “No” and forced the organisers to suspend the meeting.
Target of the state-run Catholic rehabilitation centres were girls and young women with perceived moral failings, which included many things from falling pregnant outside marriage to left-wing activism.
The Catholic body, which includes many of the communities of nuns that ran some of the centres, held the event earlier this week at the Pablo VI Foundation auditorium in Madrid, to ask the women for forgiveness. According to Reuters, this was the first event of its kind in Spain.
The protest came when the President of the Spanish Confederation of Religious Entities read an apology and then invited survivors to come onto the stage, and showed a film describing their experiences. As the film drew to a close, people in the crowd called for “truth, justice and reparation,” and “neither forget nor forgive”.
According to Reuters, protesters were demanding a response from the state, similar to Ireland’s apology for its Magdalene Laundries, which brought with it reparations for those affected.
The once powerful and significant Spanish Catholic church tarnished its image by aligning itself with the Franco regime. Why it has not previously come forward until now with events such this remains unclear. Similarly, only time will tell the extent to which it is able to rebuild its standing among the people of this country through a proper recognition of its role in the events that so marred Spain in the mid-20th century.
Read the full Reuters article here.
Interested to know more? Have you seen the film, ‘The Silence of Others’, about the struggle for justice by victims of torture under Franco’s regime? Read about the film here.
Have you seen the monument to victims of torture? It is in Extremadura, between Plasencia and Jerte. Photos to the right. Learn more here.
