The Inquisition's Legacy and Franco-Era National Catholicism

The Spanish Inquisition, operating from 1478 until its formal abolition in 1834, policed religious orthodoxy for over three centuries, targeting conversos, Moriscos and later Protestants and other perceived heretics with interrogation, torture and public execution by burning at the stake in autos-da-fe, leaving a lasting historical association between Spanish state power and religious enforcement.

Under Francisco Franco's dictatorship from 1939 to 1975, Catholicism was declared Spain's official religion and National Catholicism became a pillar of state ideology, granting the Church extensive control over education, marriage law and public morality while banning Protestant worship and other minority religious practice in public; the 1953 concordat with the Holy See cemented this arrangement, though a 1967 law under pressure from the Second Vatican Council's reforms introduced limited toleration for other faiths. Since Spain's transition to democracy after Franco's death, the 1978 constitution disestablished Catholicism as official state religion while acknowledging the Catholic Church's particular social role, and Spain has since become one of Europe's more socially liberal Catholic-majority countries, legalizing same-sex marriage in 2005 and maintaining formal cooperation agreements with the Catholic Church, Protestant federations, Jewish and Muslim communities alike.