CLERGY RESPONSIBILITY

Of course, the Catholic Church was behind this persecution and the clergy rejoiced in the ill-treatment of the Witnesses. For instance, on September 18, 1962, the Bishop of Mallorca said in a radio broadcast: “We give thanks to God for helping us to see who in reality do good. We give thanks to God for helping us to see who in reality are falsifying the Word of the good God. Look at them! In prisons, prosecuted and punished. . . . Now let us take a look at the Catholic religion. Once again we give thanks to God that it still continues to be the true religion.” Rather than giving thanks to God, gratitude should have been expressed to the Civil Governor and the Guardia Civil for trying to preserve the Catholic monopoly.

A fanatical fighter against Jehovah’s Witnesses was the priest of the Cristo Rey parish in the town of Inca. He also was responsible for radio broadcasts against the Witnesses, and published defamatory articles against God’s people. Moreover, he went from house to house to collect literature left by Jehovah’s Witnesses so that he could burn it.

Throughout Spain, by means of his visible organization, Jehovah helped his people in the especially difficult years of 1958 to 1967. During that period there was persecution of some kind in most of the major cities. This account includes only a few representative examples of the ill-treatment suffered by the pioneers and Jehovah’s Witnesses in general.

Among others, cases also arose in Huelva and Alicante. In Manresa (Barcelona) fourteen persons were arrested in 1962 for studying the Bible together, although the charges later were dropped. At Zaragoza, where special pioneer Máximo Murcia and his wife were imprisoned for fifteen days in 1960, an American family was harassed by the priest and the police for allowing Bible meetings in their private home. The list could go on to include the deportation of missionary Carl Warner in 1961. Yes, there were innumerable cases of persecution, and there was continual harassment throughout Spain during that ten-year period. But all the hardships strengthened the faith of the brothers and Jehovah helped them to carry on in doing the divine will, so that the increase continued by leaps and bounds.

The opposition of the clergy​—both Catholic and Protestant—​has never ceased. Of course, they had the active collaboration of the Ministry of the Interior for years.