The Faith José Antonio Professed

By José María Rodero de la Obra.

Balmes wrote in "The Criterion" that when observing a debate between opposing sides, one should listen carefully until a certain moment when, to unravel the confusion, one simply needs to ask each disputant to define the words they're using. As an illustration, he presents the discussion about equality. What does equality mean to you? Through Socratic dialogue, he demonstrated how through mere definition, different orders and concepts became mixed until reaching absurdity. I recommend reading it—especially for those who go around demanding democracy and freedom like street vendors selling fake coins.

Language has reached a point where people understand words from their sociological expression rather than their semantic meaning. Antonio Gramsci and Noam Chomsky are two examples of linguistic revolution. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, in "Letter to General X," lamenting this revolution, went so far as to say that in his era (1940) the words of his generation no longer meant the same thing to new generations. Ramiro Ledesma said something substantially identical: "the words of one generation no longer serve the next." In all this disorder, there always prevailed an order of Authority, of putting things in their place, a "katechon" against the libertarian antichrist, and that order was none other than Faith. Faith, with a capital F, is the set of truths that God has revealed and the Church teaches. It is an objective deposit, and naturally, as is logical, that deposit must always mean the same thing for all generations. And so it was for 2000 years of Church History.

Faith, with a lowercase f, is the theological virtue—the first of the three theological virtues, for without it there can be neither hope nor charity—by which our will and reason assume with absolute certainty the Faith. It is a virtue that God places in our soul, not through our merits or demerits, but through His infinite Goodness. That virtue of faith is sown by the Creator through the sacrament of Baptism, by which we are incorporated into the Mystical Body of Christ, become children of God, and the doors of our salvation are opened.

When we look at past phenomena like National Socialism, we must do so with historical perspective. And that perspective is that while the greatest barbarities and abuses against Religion were being committed in Spain, the only nation that internationally defended Spain's right to subsistence and the only one that denounced this situation before the world was Adolf Hitler's Germany. For proof, the words of Joseph Goebbels at the Nazi party congress in Nuremberg in 1937. If Spain, besides the audacity of its Bishops led by Gomá, had not counted on that international help from racist and Nazi Germany, the Vatican would have only known the sugar-coated version that the Church in the Basque Country presented under the patronage of the very clerical Basque Nationalist Party.

Let us focus on our Homeland. Neither Italy, with or without Fascism, nor Germany, with or without Nazism, ever had the immense treasure that Spain did have: Catholic unity. The Faith that José Antonio professed was the thesis, following the argument of Pius IX, of the Catholic unity of Spain. It was the Faith of Santiago, Saint Ignatius and Saint Teresa, of Saint John of the Cross.

And what is this Catholic unity? Nothing better to define it than Article Six of the Charter of Spaniards of 1945:

"The profession and practice of the Catholic Religion, which is that of the Spanish State, shall enjoy official protection."

"No one shall be disturbed for their religious beliefs or the private exercise of their worship. No ceremonies or external manifestations other than those of the Catholic Religion shall be permitted."

That Charter, together with the Labor Charter of 1938, was the hallmark of a Regime based on Fundamental Laws, in the style of the old Spanish Tradition, in which the thought of José Antonio's Falange and the professed Faith coincided fully.

Later, in 1958, the Law of Principles of the National Movement stated in its first two articles:

1. Spain is a unity of destiny in the universal. Service to the unity, greatness and freedom of the Homeland is a sacred duty and collective task of all Spaniards.

2. The Spanish Nation considers as a badge of honor the submission to the Law of God, according to the doctrine of the Holy Catholic, Apostolic and Roman Church, the only true faith inseparable from the national conscience, which shall inspire its legislation.

That was the Faith of our elders. The Faith of Mortalium Animos, of the Syllabus and Quanta Cura, and of Quas Primas of Pius XI where the social kingship of Christ was magisterially defined as King of nations and society. That was José Antonio's Faith.

Spain was not something discussed and debatable—Spain was, is, a unity of destiny founded on its Catholic unity.

There was a man named Francisco who opposed the dismantling of that Catholic unity. José Antonio did not live to see that. This man risked excommunication as an old man. And where did this disarticulation of Spain and its Catholic unity come from? From an Ecumenical Council! In 1967, in a Regime where Christian democracy, the right wing, and the new Church renewal movements had become entrenched under the name of technocracy, Article Six of the Charter of Spaniards came to state the following:

"Article 6. The profession and practice of the Catholic Religion, which is that of the Spanish State, shall enjoy official protection."

"The State shall assume the protection of religious freedom, which shall be guaranteed by effective legal protection that, at the same time, safeguards morality and public order."

From there, in 1978, we moved to non-denominationalism, blessed by Church men, and to the current situation. The Church renounced its role as Authority of the moral order. An irrevocable role, because it exists to say what is right and what is wrong and that souls may be saved. That was not the Faith that José Antonio professed.

Since in the theological plane we can do little before becoming emissaries of something insubstantial, let us meditate whether it is worth entering that quagmire or restricting ourselves to the rational and political plane. Then let us refute from there, but if we go higher, let us know that our political doctrine is subordinated to a Faith that has changed. Let us always contextualize to that era and not to this one, unless we want to see the devastation of the vineyard.