The International Challenge: Lóon Degrelle
The challenge came from Léon Degrelle, an energetic Catholic militant already well known in his Belgian homeland. As a student at Louvain, Degrelle had supported the French rightist Charles Maurras, and he was famous for anti-communist pranks. He was also active in the Catholic Action movement, and in 1929 he had gone to Mexico, where he spent several months with the Cristero Catholic rebels. After he graduated in 1931 he revitalized the Catholic Action publishing house, Éditions Rex. In the fall of 1933 Rex was in financial difficulties, which Degrelle alleviated partially by promoting and profiting from the new apparitions in Belgium.[72]
On student days, Dr. Mon de Goeyse, Louvain, 22 July 1983. Robert Brasillach, Léon Degrelle et l'avenir de "Rex" (Paris: Plon, 1936), 26-28. For the opportuneness of the apparitions see Étienne, Mouvement rexiste, 20-21, and Degrelle, Persiste et signe, 73-76.
The first of a series of Belgian visions began at Beauraing in an artificial grotto to the Virgin of Lourdes on 29 November 1932. There, before a total audience of 150,000 persons, five children, aged nine to fifteen, had visions until 3 January 1933. Then from January 15 to March 2 an eleven-year-old girl had eight visions at Banneux. At Beauraing there was a new seer in the summer of 1933, an adult male who was supposedly cured on June 11 and who had visions in June, July, and August, drawing a crowd of 300,000 on August 5. Subsequently individuals had visions in Onkerzele and Etichove in Flemish Belgium as well as at other sites.[73]
Toussaint and Joset, Beauraing, and Joset, Heylen. There was strong opposition in Études carmélitaines, gathered in Les Faits mystérieux de Beauraing (Paris, 1933). For contemporary reactions and reports of other visions see Annales de Beauraing (January to 1 April 1933), subsequently Annales de Beauraing et Banneux. Bruno de Jésus-Marie listed over twenty sets of visions for 1933 in "Beauraing: Notre réponse; Critique historique," Études carmélitaines, December 1934, pp. 313-314.
News of the Beauraing visions reached San Sebastián in mid-December 1932 as "An Ezquioga in Belgium." Even foreign Catholic commentators observed that the Belgian "epidemic of heavenly communications" was like "occurrences of a somewhat similar nature at Ezquioga." Supporters of the Belgian visions preferred to compare them with those at Lourdes. The Walloon dioceses of Belgium had some of the highest rates of attendance and some of the greatest numbers of Lourdes pilgrimages outside of France. In this they were similar to the dioceses of Vitoria and Barcelona. There were other similarities. Like the Basque Country, Belgium was peopled by two groups with different languages. Both had highly devout rural areas check by jowl with industrial development. And for Spanish Catholics hoping to recapture the allegiance of the working class, Belgium was a model to follow.[74]
PV, "El Ezquioga Belga," 10 December 1932; VG, "Un Ezquioga en Bélgica," 21 December 1932, p. 16. No comparison with Ezkioga in Ahora (Madrid), 16 December 1932, or Vicente Sánchez Ocaña, "Apariciones en Bélgica," in Estampa (Madrid), 21 and 28 October and 4 and 11 November 1933. El Debate and LC ignored the visions until the visions of Tilman Côme drew huge crowds in August. Quote is from Thurston, "The Apparitions of Our Lady in Belgium," The Month, November 1933, pp. 455-457. See also The Month, February 1933, pp. 159-169, and Léon Merklen in La Croix, 27 September 1933, p. 1. Ezkioga analogy also in Études carmélitaines, April 1933, p. 143, and October 1934, pp. 255-261.
The Ezkioga believers had shown immediate interest in Beauraing. In June 1933 the photographer Joaquín Sicart printed a sheet that compared the two sets of visions. He pointed to the numerical superiority of Ezkioga in terms of visionaries and visions and contrasted the publicity and the sympathetic diocesan attitude in Belgium to the paltry number of pamphlets and the harassment of seers in Spain.[75]
Cardús to Olazábal, 25 January 1933. Múgica used the caution of the Belgian bishops as support for his actions in BOOV, 1 December 1933, pp. 624-625.
As soon as Degrelle read about the visions in Beauraing, which lay close to his hometown in the Ardennes, he left for the site. As at Ezkioga, so at Beauraing: in the absence of an official inquity the local doctor played a central role in evaluating the visionaries and served as a liaison with the press. Degrelle persuaded him to write a quick description and published it while the visions were still in progress. The pamphlet sold phenomenally both in Belgium and in France. As apparitions unfurled across the land, Degrelle published at least six other pamphlets on visions at Beauraing, Banneux, and other sites.[76]
See Joset, Sources, 9-10 and bibliography. Degrelle claimed French and Dutch editions of Maistriaux's pamphlets sold seven hundred thousand copies, but others put the number lower (Degrelle, Persiste et signe, 75-76; Toussaint and Joset, Beauraing, 98-100; Étienne, Mouvement rexiste, 20). Other pamphlets by Gerardin, Saussus, Magain, and Sindic are listed in Vlan, 8 February 1934, p. 15, and in Rex pamphlets. Charges of exploitation are in "Après la condamnation de Rex," Annales de Beauraing et Banneux, 15 May 1937, p. 4.
Articles in the French photo magazine VU may have alerted Degrelle to the potential of the Ezkioga visions. In any case, at the beginning of September 1933 he showed up with a team of writers. His group observed a seer in Tolosa and visited Gloria Viñals in Bilbao. She surprised them by telling of a set of visions in Belgium they did not know about. Luis Irurzun cooperated with a vision that confirmed the authenticity of the Belgian apparitions. On the night of September 9 the group put up a cross where that of Patxi had been cut down. Some of the
Sicart broadside about Belgian apparitions and Ezkioga, 1933
local Ezkioga believers at once wrote the bishop, asking him to allow the cross to remain and informing him proudly that the Belgians were in Ezkioga "gathering ample information about the apparitions which they will distribute throughout Europe."[77]
Ducrot, VU, 16, 23, and 30 August 1933, pp. 1289-1293, 1329-1333, 1363-1367. In the August 16 issue there was also a page on the Beauraing visions. Three writers went with Degrelle: Raphaël Sindic, a high-school teacher, later wrote on the summer 1933 visions of Tilman Côme; Abbé Daniel Goens wrote about the group's visit to the Tolosa seer in EE (May 1934, pp. 1-3) and about a bleeding crucifix in Asti (Italy); Hubert d'Ydewalle, in Spain for Degrelle's biweekly Vlan earlier in 1933, was sympathetic toward Nazi Germany.
For Viñals see Sindic, Apparitions en Flandre, 1-2; Boué, 102-103; and EE, December 1933, pp. 1, 5. For Tolosa seer, EE, May 1934, pp. 1-3. For Irurzun, AC 230. A rough draft of the letter believers sent to Múgica, "Al Ilmo. Sr. Obispo de Vitoria," private collection.
Múgica's pastoral letter forestalled Degrelle, who had time to issue only photographs of four seers in his magazine Soirées with a note announcing a major series of articles. He never published the series.[78]Degrelle, Soirées, 21 September 1933, text copied in Études carmélitaines, October 1934, pp. 256-257. Goens mentioned Ezkioga in his pamphlet on a bleeding crucifix in Asti, p. 19.
The bishop's circular placed the Ezkioga visions out of bounds for ordinary people. By having it read in all parish churches on September 17 and 24 and once again in the month of October, Múgica ensured that no Catholic in his diocese failed to hear about it. The circular made official the discredit from Laburu's talk, from the governmental offensive, and from slanderous verses. Many believers did as they were told and handed in postcards, leaflets, books, and other memorabilia. Others gave their souvenirs and vision material to friends in neighboring
dioceses to keep. On October 12 when Luis Irurzun had a vision on the hillside, only twenty-two persons were there to watch.[79]
On Múgica's circular, Pérez Ormazábal, "Mandando leer la Circular." For Irurzun, believer to Cardús, Ezkioga, 12 October 1933. On handing in material, Casilda Arcelus and Francisco Ezcurdia, Ormaiztegi, 9 September 1983, p. 2.
The bishop's decree stunned the vision community. It was Múgica's first public act against the visions since his return to the diocese. Rigné was dismayed at the blanket dismissal of all seers and believers and at what seemed to be a reference to himself, though he felt Burguera got what he deserved. He and his wife went to mass in another town so they would not have to hear it read in front of their neighbors.[80]
Rigné to Olaizola, Ormaiztegi, 23 September 1933.
As Laburu had done after his talk, Múgica attempted after his decree to silence particular visionaries. On 18 September 1933 when he was in Durango he called María Recalde to the church of Santa María; three priests were present. I have only her version of events—that he tried to get her not to go to the vision hillside or to meet with believers, under denial of Holy Communion, and that he was particularly interested in Padre Burguera and her written vision messages. She told him that just as the apostles had to shed their blood to spread belief in Christ, so the seers were ready to shed theirs for Ezkioga. Similarly, the parish priest of Legazpi confronted Pilar Ciordia, who was staying at Benita's house. Her replies, at least as Burguera reported them, were just as spunky. Other parish priests notified prominent believers to stay away from the site.[81]
B 433-437. On 5 January 1934 the mayor of Durango, allegedly on the behest of the parish priest, detained Recalde for a night. López de Lerena apparently had had to promise his parish priest not to go to Ezkioga (letter to friend, 6 October 1933). The priest of Ormaiztegi spoke to Rigné.
The seers looked once more to the Virgin for a response. Luis Irurzun heard her say that this was a test, that the seers should obey the bishop and pray and that the truth would triumph. Luis believed that the bishop's edict did not apply to Navarrese, so he himself continued to go to Ezkioga, one of the few who did so. In the long run, he said, "The writings that go against the apparition are like wet paper that falls apart and the ink washes away. That will happen with this document." The child Martín Ayerbe reported that Múgica would change his mind eventually. Another seer said this about-face would happen in November, when everyone would go to Ezkioga and the catastrophe would finally occur. But Pilar and Benita were less sanguine and heard the Virgin say the bishop would be punished.[82]
Irurzun visions of 22 and 26 September 1933 in J. B. Ayerbe's dittoed "Peroraciones del portentoso vidente Luis Irurzun de Irañeta (Navarra)," from Balda's letters, AC 231; Martín Ayerbe in J. B. Ayerbe to Cardús, 8 October 1933; catastrophe, in López de Lerena to Ezkioga believer, 25 October 1933, private collection (seer probably Gloria Viñals); Pilar and Benita in B 701-702, and Victoria Aguirre, Legazpi, 6 February 1986, p. 4.
Those who had no hope that Múgica would alter his opinion could imagine his replacement by a bishop favorable to the visions. Such rumors circulated among Basque believers in mid-November 1933. Someone, probably Carmen Medina, took Evarista Galdós to Granada sometime late that year to see the auxiliary bishop there, Lino Rodrigo Ruesca. Rodrigo reputedly had visited the north, spoken to seers, and believed in the visions. Evarista hoped he would be named bishop of Vitoria.[83]
Local elites thought they could get bishops moved. Opponents went to Rome to get López y Mendoza shifted from Pamplona about 1905 and almost succeeded. Aranzadi (Ereintza, 312-313) asserted that Basques lobbying in Rome moved the centralist Cadena y Eleta from Vitoria in 1913. For rumors, Ayerbe to Cardús, 16 November 1933: "I know a lot about the new bishop and how he intends to arrange this business"; and 4 January 1934: "We know nothing new about the change in the bishop, although we hope it will be this month." On Medina and Granada, ARB 176, and García Cascón to Arturo Rodes, 20 January 1934. Rodrigo (1885-1973) became bishop of Huesca in 1935, where he helped the Aulinas.
A shift of bishops would have had to come from the nuncio, Federico Tedeschini, and from Rome. Medina told Ezkioga believers in the summer of 1932 that Tedeschini thought the Ezkioga visions were "from heaven." Rumor had it that Evarista had helped to cure him after an automobile accident on 23 August 1933 in Miranda del Ebro. Tedeschini spent almost a month recuperating
in San Sebastián in the clinic of Benigno Oreja, who was or had been a believer himself. At that point Carmen Medina lent the nuncio Evarista's crucifix, one of many that Ezkioga seers and believers claimed had given off blood. According to Carmen, the nuncio kept it next to his bed.[84]
B 137; Tedeschini went to San Sebastián by train after the accident and stayed there until September 6, when he left for Avila, see from 24 August to 7 September 1933 El Debate, Osservatore Romano, LC, and ED. The chaplain of the Hijas de la Providencia, the nuns at the San Ignacio clinic, was Jesús Imaz, who thought himself cured by the Virgin of Ezkioga. Evarista told the crucifix story to García Cascón in Irun on 7 December 1933; García Cascón to Arturo Rodes, Terrassa, 20 January 1934, ARB 175-176.
We can only speculate what Tedeschini really thought about the Ezkioga visions. He was working to achieve a modus vivendi with the Republic and as such was diametrically opposed to the Integrists who were die-hard supporters of Ezkioga in 1933. The aristocratic, sociable, and extraordinarily flexible nuncio may have been using Medina to put pressure on Ezkioga publicists to hand over their writings and may have misled Medina about his sympathies. What we know for certain is that some Ezkioga promoters considered him an ally.[85]
For Tedeschini see Redondo, Historia, and Garriga, El Cardenal Segura, 86-87. The Madrid believer Alfredo Renshaw knew the nuncio and thought him sympathetic to the visions (Ayerbe to Cardús, 24 October 1933).
Burguera, on the contrary, was sure that the nuncio was part of a plot to suppress the book. Burguera pinned his hopes instead on Pius XI, to whom he and five seers sent a petition. But on 21 December 1933 Cardinal Donato Sbarreti, secretary of the Holy Office, wrote Múgica that, after examining the dossier from Vitoria in August and the circular of September, the Vatican approved the bishop's decisions.
After parish priests read the bishop's attack on him three times from every pulpit, Burguera went into hiding. He depended almost daily on visions to guide him through the last details of his book and to help him publish it. Pilar Ciordia, who appears to have cultivated his paranoia, warned him on 10 October 1933 of impending danger, and he fled from the Hotel Urola in Zumarraga to Legazpi. There he learned from Benita and Recalde that Baudilio Sedano would find a printer for the book in Valladolid and that the believers would pay for publication.[86]
B 438, 414-421; Cardinal Sbarreti's "Communicacíon" reached San Sebastián 8 February 1934 (ED, 9 February, p. 1; LC, 10 February, p. 4); on danger, B 701-702; on his book, visions of September 29 to October 29, B 613, 701-706.