ABSTRACT
After the war, the superiors of many of the religious congregations asked
those of their members who had stayed in the Republican zone to write
down what they recalled of their adventures. Among those who did so were
the Jesuits and the product of their accounts was the interesting book Los
Jesuitas en el Levante* Rojo. Catalun˜a y Valencia 1936-1939.1 The work
became famous through the question that Father Thio´ asked himself and
Antonio Montero quoted aptly in his widely circulated Historia de la per-
secucio´n: ‘did they persecute the priests because of Christ or Christ because of the priests?’ The Jesuits’ book had appeared anonymously, with only the
letters ‘E.A.S.I’y placed at the end of the prologue by way of signature. Thus the question was quoted without revealing who asked it or even who wrote
the book. Among the Jesuits it was rumoured that ‘E.A.’ were the initials of
the secretary of the Provincial Superior and so the publication came to be
taken as having been authorized, though unofficially, by the Province. I was
therefore surprised to notice, in a book by Father Bernardino Llorca, SJ2 ,
the attribution of ‘Levante Rojo’ to Father Miquel Batllori, who was likewise SJ. I commented on this to Batllori himself, who was then working in
the Library of the Abbey of Montserrat on the preparation of the Archive
of Vidal i Barraquer. He appeared most annoyed by Llorca’s indiscretion
but did not deny his authorship; on the contrary, he explained how the
misattribution came about. When the Provincial entrusted him with the task
of turning into a book all the essays that the Jesuits of Catalonia and
Valencia had written about their experiences during the war, he answered
that the material was historically unusable because the events were too recent and because the atmosphere of ‘Crusade’ and ‘Died for God and for
Spain’ still permeated everything. The Provincial insisted and Father Batl-
lori resisted until, finally, the order became formal. Father Batllori obeyed,
but said that he would limit himself to transcribing the texts and would not
give his name to the book. He did, however, sign the prologue with the
aforementioned initials, which happened to coincide with those of the Pro-
vincial’s secretary, who had acted as intermediary and messenger during the
course of the production. When the book appeared in public, the Provincial
believed that Father Batllori, in retaliation against the order that he had been given, had not only signed the book but had wanted it to be attributed
to the Provincial’s secretary. He sent for Father Batllori and reprimanded
him severely. Father Batllori respectfully suffered the dressing-down and,
when it was over, said in a gentle voice, ‘I’m puzzled that Your Reverence
should not know that, at the end of the prologue, the initials ‘‘EA’’ simply
mean ‘El Autor’’.
