Historiographical exercise: Spain: civil war and violence, 1936-39 - Essay Example

This is what failed the government from achieving the democratic majority and this was the beginning of the split of the politics in the country. She believes that the Catholic Church plays a bigger role in the spread of conservatism in politics (Alexander, 1999, p.59). During the elections of 1931, the prime minister of Spain explained that the backwardness of the politics in Spain was because of the involvement of the church in the government. He insisted that churches should never be given special positions in politics since they tend to slow processes.

The leaders banned the Catholic Church from participating in the government sessions and it required the church to start paying rent for using the government properties. The government in the same year introduced a better constitution that allowed divorce, female suffrage and civil marriage. Additionally, the government banned public meetings that promoted Catholicism. It also expelled the gathering of Jesuits, which were the male religious congregation. The government allowed the catholic schools to continue but it had to be outside the state.

Towards 1933, the constitution prohibited the teachers who were either monks or nuns from teaching at any school. Immediately after the elections of 1933, violence broke out for the purpose of overthrowing the government. This violence brought energy on the political body and it started a civil war. It first attacked the church such that, the republicans started with the church as their first target since they were viewed as an ideologist enemy. They killed several bishops and very many monks, clergy and nuns (Alexander, 1999).

Additionally, they destroyed so many churches, religious schools and convents. The catholic churches Franco, which was the force that went against the government. The catholic believers that felt the pain when the priests were killed spurred violence that saw many other people dead. They enhanced violence since they wanted no peace (Lennon, 2002, p.45). The church was on the front line in the spread of the since they felt pain after the assassinations of the priests. This led to the extreme civil war that took place in the 1936 (Alexander, 1999, p.87). The burning of the converts The burning of the churches and convents was the peak of the relation between the Catholic Church and the republican.

Most government official referred to the burning of the church and the convent as the right decision but this did not go well with the people who believed in the ideologies of the Catholic Church. They continued to say that the fire had a meaning, which was to destroy the tight relationship that existed between the church and the state. CEDA formation CEDA stands for confederation Espanola de Derechas Autonomous which is a Spanish organization that dismissed the party of rigid fiction and helped in the creation of a stable party that was supposed to lead the people or the Spanish right into the mass politics.

CEDA fought for the need to have a united and peaceful country but unfortunately, the elections came out as a representative of ideas and not personalities (Buchanan, 2004). In 1935, a representative of the CEDA and proposed the need to reform and enhance agricultural sector for in order to help the people in the countryside who are going through starvation but this idea was rejected with very harsh comments. The catholic people never wanted any reforms and as a result, the group CEDA started to break up since the catholic right went against any