500 beatified - A need for sensitivity

YESTERDAY’S mass beatification by the Pope of nearly 500 Catholics killed during the Spanish Civil War may not have had the exclusivity that can engender an air of authenticity on such occasions.

There are few conflicts as bitter or bloody as a civil war, as Spanish history, and our own, will confirm.

Yesterday’s ceremony will reopen some of the deep wounds that divided and nearly, on at least two occasions in the last century, brought civilisation to a standstill on the Continent.