ABSTRACT
Given the links between Spanish business and the political élite, the consequent misgivings of industrialists and bankers found an echo within certain Francoist circles. However, it was in the nature of things that such doubts as were sown would be gradual in their effect. More dramatic, in terms of the crumbling of once-reliable loyalties, was the increasingly anti-regime attitude of parts of the Church. The liberal policies of the Vatican after the Second Council had had an important effect on the attitudes of many senior members of the hierarchy. That influence from above was matched by the radicalization of young chaplains associated with the JOC and the HOAC and of workerpriests. Many priests and religious experienced at first hand the privations of migrant workers living in the slums of the great industrial cities. In the Basque Country and Catalonia, a reaffirmation of the traditionally close relationship between the clergy and the faithful was reflected in a growing ecclesiastical sympathy with regionalist aspirations and even, in Euskadi, with ETA.
