1. All references to Serra d’Or will be given in this form, i.e., roman numeral for the month, followed by the lasts two digits of the year, followed by the page number.
2. Personal testimony supplied by Francesc Vallverdú. Serra d’Or was not alone in bringing Catholics and Marxists together in a common intellectual enterprise: Cuadernos para el Diálogo, founded by Joaquín Ruiz-Giménez in 1963, had a similarly pluralist policy
3. Dom Gregori M. Minobis, ‘Entre "conservadors" i "progressistes"’, Serra d’Or, VI, 9 (September 1964), 6-8. There is a detailed account of the ‘affaire Pax’ in the footnotes to this article. For a corroborating account, see Josep M. Piñol, El nacionalcatolicisme a Catalunya i la resistència, 1926-1966 (Barcelona, Edicions 62, 1993), 193-5.
4. Quoted in Román Gubern, La censura. Función política y ordenamiento jurídico bajo el franquismo (1936-1975) (Ediciones Península, 1981), 148-9.
5. Gubern, op. cit., 141.
6. Juan Goytisolo, Coto vedado (Barcelona, Seix Barral, 1985), p. 269
7. Gabriel Arias Salgado, Política española de la información (Madrid, Ministerio de Información y Turismo, 1957). Quoted in Manuel L. Abellán, Censura y creación literaria en España (1939-1976) (Ediciones Península, 1980) 87, n.59.
8. This technique of oblique allusion can cause certain methodological problems for this type of research, for it means that relevant data can turn up in unexpected places. In a review of John Ford’s western The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, we find, ‘Aquí es fa cara al drama feixista, i es resol; el triomf de la llibertat i de la democràcia és la gran lliçó del vell Ford’ (II-63, 63).
9. Josep M. Piñol, op. cit., 167.
10. Fr Minobis’s death in 1965 at the early age of 32 was a loss keenly felt by the community and all those who collaborated on the journal.
11. The only reference is a note inserted, in a not very prominent position, in the April 1965 number (p. 89): ‘Contràriament a allò que ha estat anunciat, Dom Aureli M. Escarré no ha deixat d’ésser l’Abat Mitrat del Monestir de Santa Maria de Montserrat. Nosaltres ens dolem del seu allunyament i desitgem que ben aviat el puguem tornar a tenir a Catalunya. - La Redacció.’
12.v Piñol, op. cit., 196-7.
13. A similar view is expressed in a reader’s letter, emphasising the scope of the activities which were possible even within existing constraints: ‘Si no hagués estat per la persistència d’alguns, avui encara no es publicarien llibres en català, no existiria Serra d’Or, no tindríem "Cavall Fort", no s’organitzarien cursets de català, no s’hauria acabat el Diccionari, no tindríem l’Agrupació Dramàtica,...i moltes altres activitats que no cal anomenar’ (I-63, 2).
14. A note on the arrest and torture of a Catholic journalist in Paraguay during the Stroessner regime serves a similar function in raising readers’ consciousness about human rights issues (VIII-61, 6).
15. The fact that this happened on the last working day of the Second Vatican Council (7 December 1965) has been interpreted by some commentators as indicating the Council’s desire to end on a positive and expansive note. Others, perhaps more realistically, point to the length of time taken to reach agreement on this document.
16. A similar view is expressed by Dom Evangelista Vilanova in another article: ‘Ja no podem parlar del menyspreu del món de la mateixa manera amb què en parlaren els Pares de l’Església’ (2-62, 13).
17. Salvador Seguí was the leader of the moderate faction of the C.N.T. He and his lawyer Francesc Layret were killed in March 1923, either by hired assassins in the pay of the factory-owners or by the police.
18. The relevant section reads: ‘Artículo vigésimosegundo. - Uno. Queda garantizada la inviolabilidad de las iglesias, capillas, cementerios y demás lugares sagrados, según prescribe el canon 1.160 del Código de Derecho Canónico.
Dos. Queda igualmente garantizada la inviolabilidad de los palacios y curias episcopales, de los seminarios, de las casas y despachos parroquiales y rectorales y de las casas religiosas canónicamente establecidas.
Tres. Salvo en caso de urgente necesidad, la fuerza pública no podrá entrar en los citados edificios, para el ejercicio de sus funciones, sin el consentimiento de la competente autoridad eclesiástica’. It is unclear whether the Church authorities did give this permission, but the action of the state authorities in viewing the meeting as a ‘caso de urgente necesidad’ suggests a politically biassed interpretation of the Concordat.
19. See Piñol, op. cit., 204-228.