The Catholic Historical Review

In the long history of relations between the Francisco Franco regime and the Holy See, no period was more conflictive than the decade preceding the general's death in 1975. The comfortable ties between the official church of the state and the dictatorship embodied in the Concordat of 1953 began to deteriorate during the 1960s. The Vatican Council's decrees on political and social questions undermined the foundations of the "National Catholicism" that had come into being as a result of the Civil War (1936–39). The resurgence of Basque and Catalan nationalism and growing social and economic unrest in which some members of the clergy participated created ongoing tensions between the Vatican and the regime as well as within the Spanish Church itself. [End Page 164]

During this time of unprecedented turmoil, prominent figures in the hierarchy and the government recognized that the concordat had outlived its usefulness and that circumstances demanded a reworking of civil-ecclesiastical relations, although, as this study shows so well, the building of a new consensus between the regime and the Holy See proved difficult and in the end impossible. It fell to the Spanish ambassador to the Holy See between 1964 and 1972, Antonio Garrigues (1904–2004), a distinguished lawyer and former ambassador to the United States (1962–64) to navigate the sometimes turbulent shoals and eddies swirling around attempts to renegotiate new arrangements between Madrid and the Vatican. A perceptive observer of Spanish political realities, Garrigues believed that the regime required reform if it were to survive the dictator's death, although his views fell far short of endorsing liberal democracy. At the same time, he fully accepted the principles of the Vatican Council and the necessity of adapting them to civil-ecclesiastical relations.

This excellent study is based on extensive archival sources including the reports and letters of Garrigues to successive ministers of foreign affairs, other important functionaries, and even Franco himself. The author uses this material effectively, although he recognizes that the full story of Spanish relations with the Holy See cannot be written until the records of the papal Secretariat of State are opened. Although the study focuses on the search for a new agreement between Spain and the Vatican, it covers other topics touching upon the history of the regime during the period, such as the attempt to introduce limited political reform in the 1967 Organic Law, an effort that, in the ambassador's view, did not go far enough.

The author describes in abundant detail the roller-coaster negotiations over several years for a new agreement to replace the 1953 concordat. Should there be partial agreements on specific points, as the Vatican and the Spanish bishops favored? Or should there be a revision of the old concordat as the regime desired? The question of the state's patronage rights over episcopal appointments proved a major obstacle in spite of Pope Paul VI's 1968 letter to Franco urging him to abandon this privilege. The general proved recalcitrant, although in the end the regime was willing to accept the idea of "prenotification" that would allow the regime to object to a papal nominee for grave cause. The impasse between Rome and Madrid left twenty dioceses without bishops at one point, although later an ad hoc scheme was devised with the nuncio to fill many of these positions.

By the time Garrigues left office in 1972, no substantial progress had been made in the protracted negotiations between Madrid and the Vatican. Although the ambassador constantly urged his superiors to follow a conciliatory course with respect to resolving the impasse over revision of the concordat, he did not make policy. He believed, indeed, that the government failed to give the issue the priority it deserved and that differences between the ministries of Foreign Affairs and Justice prevented the elaboration of a [End Page 165] consistent policy capable of resolving the diplomatic standoff. This study provides an intelligent and well-documented analysis of relations between the Franco regime and the Holy See as well as valuable insights into the inner workings of official policy making during the dictatorship's last years.