On Sunday, 522 Catholics killed for the Faith during the Spanish Civil War were beatified in Spain.  So far, some 1500 Catholic martyrs killed during the Spanish Civil War have been beatified.  The left is not pleased.  An article in the Guardian says that the killing of Catholics during the Civil War is “highly controversial,” “controversial” being the standard way of describing something not pleasing to the left.  The article also notes that, “In perhaps the most controversial moment, Pope Francis made a televised address to the congregation, but failed to address the church’s support for Franco,” and concludes by stating that “Critics of the Catholic church argue that while it is happy to honour those killed by republicans, it has failed to address the far higher number of republicans who were murdered by Franco’s forces.”

Unmentioned in the article is the salient fact that, if it were not for Franco, the Catholic Church in Spain would have been destroyed.  Indeed, the most probable outcome of Franco’s defeat would have been a Communist dictatorship in Spain.   Those beatified were not combatants, or even political figures, but ordinary Catholics who were killed simply because they were Catholic.  But the Guardian doesn’t want these people to be remembered, and those who dare to remember are criticized in a way that the killers never are.