Concordat prison

The Concordat Prison (in Spanish, Cárcel Concordataria) refers to the prison that the Francoist State in Spain operated for dissident Catholic priests. It was a pavilion of the provincial prison of Zamora. The Concordat of 1953 allowed that jailed priests did their time in religious houses, but conservative convents were not pleased to take leftist priests and progressive convents could sympathize with the prisoner. Lots of the prisoners were Basques. Already in the Spanish Civil War, Basque nationalist priests had rejected the rebels. The priests were isolated from the common and political prisoners in the rest of the prison. While most of the priests were there for political crimes, there were also child abusers, who led a separate life. Many could have skipped prison by paying fines but refused. The prisoners suffered of cold and bad healthcare. While the prison food was bad, their families provided them so that those who sought austerity insisted to not be sent so much food. Outside contacts were very limited. Visits were limited to close relatives. Catalan and Basque priests were forced to speak Spanish so that the guards could spy on them. The media was censored, even church publications. Information about the assassination of premier Luis Carrero Blanco and the 1969 Synod of Bishops was removed. Correspondence was rationed and censored. The Catholic hierarchy was incom

Prison data from Wikidata (CC0). Summary from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA).