How national catholicism prevailed over fascism in the cultural imaginaries of Franco’s dictatorship

Micro-historical analysis of the city of Seville, 1937-1945

Abstract

This article analyses the political tensions between the Falangist and Catholic sectors during the early stages of Franco's dictatorship. It is approached from a microhistorical perspective in the city of Seville. Both vectors shaped the ideological and nationalist parameters of the regime from a complex balance determined by the international context and the internal correlation of forces. In Seville, tensions were resolved on the symbolic and ritual level. Cardinal Segura tried to avoid symbiosis between Catholic practices and fascist secular models, prohibited the fascist salute to religious images, refused to pay homage to the <<the fallen>>, to write the name of José Antonio on the Cathedral and expelled FET y de las JONS from the city's main festival, Holy Week. In this way he succeeded in expelling Falangism from the city's legitimising and identifying mechanism.