I am usually grateful to commenters who correct obvious errors of fact here, but there was a “correction” from a Catholic called McCarthy, on a post of mine (on the Pope honouring Spanish Civil War clergy* ) a while back, that I took to be anything but correct. So it’s sweet to find the top Spanish Catholic Bishop basically saying what I said.

To quote the Times:

Spain’s most senior bishop has issued an unprecedented apology for the Roman Catholic Church’s role in the Spanish Civil War.
Until now the Church has always highlighted its role as a victim in the 1936-39 war, which ended in victory for Francisco Franco’s troops and marked the start of a fascist dictatorship that lasted until his death in 1975.
Last month Pope Benedict XVI beatified nearly 500 Spanish priests and nuns who were killed in the years before and during the conflict.
Yesterday, however, the head of Spain’s Episcopal Conference said that the Church must also seek forgiveness for “concrete acts” during the strife-torn period.

Respect is due to the Bishop for making an apology. Even more so, when there are still living human beings who were affected by the circumstances and who can hear it, in contradiction of current fashions for apologising for centuries old wrongs.

McCarthyism UK is a pretty dire affair. The current lead post is about how fathers can’t bring up babies properly and the one before worries about what will happen to unbaptised aborted foetuses. And so on.

Mr McCarthy’s blog profile sums himself up as being “For Church, Crown and currency!”

Hmm, an odd combination, albeit alliterative. If he’s historian enough to believe the Spanish church was unconnected with Franco, then he probably wasn’t aware that the British Crown is very specifically C of E. A British monarch isn’t even allowed to marry a Catholic, or wasn’t until recently, (hastily covering my back against any more expert pedants out there.) And currency? Does that mean any currency? Does the Yankee dollar count? Does the Euro count? Does the currency-I’ve-just-made-up of some-place_I’ve-just-made-up because I CBA looking through Wikipedia count? Is he for them all? Does it mean he wants loads of currency?

* A correction of my Rwanda mis-spelling would have been welcome, for example.