Anti-Clericalism poisons everything.

After watching "There be Dragons," which actually depicted Communists executing Catholic priests in the streets of Madrid, I wondered how many priests were killed by the Communists during the Spanish Civil War.

I thought the answer might be in the hundreds, but the actual number is 6, 832 according to painstaking research conducted by Antonio Montero during the 1950s. The priests murdered included 13 bishops, 4,172 diocesan priests and seminarists, 2,364 monks and friars and 283 nuns.

In contrast there were only approximately 2,000 executions during the 300 plus years of the Spanish Inquisition.

Yet, people remember the Inquisition, and forget that anti-clerical atheists and secularists killed three times the number of priests in 1% of the time during the Spanish Civil War.

This source on "Martyrs of the Spanish Civil War" documents the horrifying circumstances of the religious during the period 1931 - when persecution began - and 1939.

2. The swiftness with which they were slain. Arrest and then killing of priests and religious began contextually with the military insurrection, even in regions and localities where it had previously not existed or where the victims managed to express support for the rebels or escape. So, to mention only a few cases, on 20 July there was the attack - and consequent slaughter - at the Claretian Theology College in Barbastro; Passionist Fathers in Daimiel were forced to leave their house during the night of 21 July and some were shot dead in the early hours of the 22nd; five Franciscan communities in Castiglia were expelled from their Friaries on the 21 and 24 July, although none of the persons in the cases mentioned had been involved political events of any kind. Municipal notices were circulated offering rewards in money to anyone who revealed the whereabouts of priests, or handed them over to the authorities, and ‘exposures ’ were immediately celebrated in the press. (18) Expulsion from convents in the case of religious and the imprisonment of priests, religious and laity was usually ordered on behalf of the local authorities, and the executions were witnessed by mayors and municipal assessors.


3. Immediate shooting of ecclesiastics, without a real or even a simulated trial in front of the "peoples tribunal". The majority were shot without imputation, or killed actually during the assault on the convent, or when they were identified in a refuge or on the road, as in the case of the three Carmelite nuns from Guadalajara, already Beatified. (19)

4. Cases in which a reason for a death sentence or for an execution already carried out was given, in general the causes cited were not social or political, but simply priestly or religious state of the victims. There exists abundant testimony in this sense: "We kill not your brother in law but his cassock". "Soutane copped, soutane slain". "you're wearing a cassock and that's enough". A placard placed on the corpse of a priest: "For being a priest". "Our orders are to get rid of all this corn seed". "All the clergy, religious or non religious, are being persecuted simply because they are priests ". "The destruction of the Church is an act of justice.... to kill God, if He existed... would be something most natural” (20)

5. Extermination of whole religious communities, regardless of age, without asking for names or identification. The murdering of seminarians, men and women religious who on the basis of the categories of age (elderly, newly professed students such as the Passionaists at Daimiel, the Franciscan theology students at Consuegra and others), of culture and practical work in the congregation, type of life, (active or contemplative), of economic level (poor priests and religious), etc., did not influence political or social life, indeed they did good to the sick and the poor. (21)

6. Imprisonment or shooting of thousands of lay Catholics for being members of some religious association, or relatives of priests or religious, or were thought to be priests or religious, or because they defended the latter, or had been found assisting at a secret Mass or in possession of religious books, crucifixes, rosaries or medals, or other Christian symbols, or "simply because they were Catholics". (22)

7. Cruelty and types of martyrdom. Demanding that the victims commit blasphemy, trample a crucifix, pronounce apostasy or break the sacramental secret of the confessional, as well as attacks against the celibacy of consecrated persons. (23)

Contrary to the canard of many internet atheists that Communist atrocities were never carried out in the name of atheism, in fact, the atrocities carried out in Spain were explicitly done in the name of atheism.  From the same source:

There can be no mistake, the aim of the Government was to be rid of religion. This was the opinion of Communist Jesús Hernández Tomás, Minister of Public Education in the two governments led by Largo Caballero and the first government led by Juan Negrín, from 4 September 1936 to May 1938. In February 1937, Hernández Tomás sent the following telegramme to the Anti-God Congress in Moscow: "Your fight against religion is also ours. It is our duty to make Spain a land of militant atheists. The struggle will not be easy because all over our country there are large masses of reactionaries, opposed to the absorption of Soviet culture. Every school in Spain will made into a communist school". The Council of the Soviet League of Atheists replied expressing gratitude to Largo Caballero for fighting religion and making him an honorary member of the League of Atheists. (14) There should be no regret that before all this, before massacres of priests and religious, destruction and sacking of churches, those who fought on the side of the army insurrection realised that they were fighting not only for public order and social peace but to defend their faith, to defend the Christian religion. The army made no mention of religion in its preliminary plans or in the first proclamations at the beginning of the conflict, but the facts clearly showed very soon that, besides political and social goals, some were fighting against religion and others were fighting for religion.