Thursday, October 9, 2025

It is the 9^th of October 2025. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org. I'm your guest host, Sam Leanza Ortiz.

 

Yesterday’s show had us in a dark chapter of Christian history in Spain, and today we’ll be going to a different dark chapter in Christian history in Spain – one much closer to modern day. The 1920s and 1930s of Spanish history feel easy to forget with the long, dark shadows cast by the world wars sandwiching these decades, and Spain is a noticeably absent character from those familiar stories.

This is because Spain was undergoing intense internal turmoil that ultimately led to the Spanish Civil War, and today we look to a prelude event to this civil war, and the martyrs of Turón, who were executed on this day in 1934.

Like so many other European monarchies, the nineteenth century of revolutions created instability in Spain that dethroned monarchs and created new republics, only to fall apart and reenter a vicious cycle. By 1931, Spain was on its Second Republic, emerging from a coup that left its economy in shambles and its king on the run. The government that emerged was a coalition including republican Catholics, Socialists, and Left Republicans.

This unlikely band was bound to have problems, and the Socialists and Left Republicans added fuel to the fire by inserting a clause in the new constitution attacking religious education and religious orders. Like the Jacobins and socialists of the previous century, many of these republicans saw organized religion as part of the antiquated establishment that needed to be removed. In response, Catholics formed a party whose sole reason for existing was to directly oppose anti-Catholic sentiment.

This tenuous coalition held together with a Socialist majority and a Catholic opposition. By the elections of 1933, the majority parties were falling apart, while the party to the right, known as the CEDA, was able to put up more of a united front in the November election. The Socialists threatened an uprising should members of CEDA be given seats in the government, which they were indeed given the following October, kicking off the October Revolution of 1934.

The geographic center of the anti-Catholic sentiment on the left was the town of Turón in the region of Asturias to the northwest. Turón was a mining town, and the uprising kicked off with a miners’ strike on October 4. By the 5^th, the situation was already growing violent, with miners arming themselves and occupying towns throughout Asturias. In Turón, one of the rebels’ main targets was the Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools, or the De La Salle Brothers.

This religious order of laymen dates back to 1680, and John Baptist of de La Salle, who formed a community of brothers who would establish schools and teach poor children.

The brothers of Turón had already been struggling against the anti-Catholic sentiment of the day, continuing to teach the faith in their schools despite the constitutional clause explicitly against it and even escorting their students to Sunday mass.

On top of their continued religious activities, the school itself was financially supported by the same company that owned the mines against which the rebels were striking.  On October 5^th, rebels made their way into the school, capturing eight of the Brothers and a priest from the Passionist order. The nine men were taken captive and held in a building called the “People’s House,” where they stayed for three days as they were tried by a tribunal.

Refusing until the end to reject their works and join the rebels, they were taken on the 9^th of October to a local cemetery where they were executed and left in a common grave.

This revolutionary movement ended just 10 days later as the government called in Major General Francisco Franco, who directed the Spanish Army and Navy to crack down on the uprising. At least 1,000 rebels were killed, and this prelude to the Spanish Civil War would come to an end. Franco would begin the war in earnest two years later with his own rebellion that would launch the bloody three-year conflict.

For the martyrs of Turón, they too, unfortunately, were only the beginning of Catholic lives lost in the chaos of 1930s Spain. Though their martyrdom preceded the formal beginning of the war, the Catholic Church includes them as Martyrs of the Spanish Civil War. The anti-Catholic sentiment of the republican factions we discussed at the beginning did not fade away as Franco launched his rebellion. Over the course of the war, from 1936 to 1939, over 6,000 Catholic clerics perished.

Many of those martyrs from the war still await beatification, but the martyrs of Turón were the first martyrs of the war to be canonized as saints, and their memorial day rests on this, the 9^th of October, on the anniversary of their martyrdom in 1934.

 

The last word for today comes from the daily lectionary from Psalm 111:

Praise the Lord.^[b]

I will extol the Lord with all my heart
    in the council of the upright and in the assembly.

² Great are the works of the Lord;
    they are pondered by all who delight in them.
³ Glorious and majestic are his deeds,
    and his righteousness endures forever.
⁴ He has caused his wonders to be remembered;
    the Lord is gracious and compassionate.
⁵ He provides food for those who fear him;
    he remembers his covenant forever.

⁶ He has shown his people the power of his works,
    giving them the lands of other nations.
⁷ The works of his hands are faithful and just;
    all his precepts are trustworthy.
⁸ They are established for ever and ever,
    enacted in faithfulness and uprightness.
⁹ He provided redemption for his people;
    he ordained his covenant forever—
    holy and awesome is his name.

¹⁰ The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom;
    all who follow his precepts have good understanding.
    To him belongs eternal praise.

 

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 9^th of October 2025, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

This show has been produced by Christopher Gillespie.

This episode has been written and read by Sam Leanza Ortiz, who will be rooting for the Rams this week, so Dan van Voorhis, who normally hosts this show, will hopefully have some happier stories for you next week.

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be ok.