For one thing, the televiewers heard the oath by which the Spanish bishops swear allegiance to the state before General Franco. Also featured was a series of interviews showing priests, monks and nuns more or less openly rebellious against the political regime in Spain. This has produced a grave embarrassment to the higher clergy who swear loyalty to the state.

One sequence, filmed near Barcelona, showed a meeting of rebel priests in a convent room placed at their disposal by the nuns. When the French TV interviewer asked one of the priests if political action was compatible with his priestly functions, he replied: “Yes, because the official church deals in politics all the time.” A long-haired ‘hippie’ type Jesuit priest stated that “in Spain, a priest reads the Gospel and Marx.” Asked whether the two were not contradictory, he answered, “No.”

But are these priests attaching more importance to political activity than to teaching people the Word of God? Television watchers saw the interviewer put this question to a Spanish Benedictine monk. Many were surprised to hear the monk answer: “Yes, this is true.”