I hope this doesn't double post...
Here is a song I wrote about the Catholic Church canonising a Rom, a few years ago. It marks the day I stopped playing the Uilleann Pipes for mass in my wife's' parish. I was told by a Monsignor, during a conversation about the event, that he and others in the church did not feel that Franco's was the "wrong side."

YOUR NEW SAINT

Oh tell me, Father Michael, what's that I heard you say?
The church, for all its past neglect, named a Gypsy saint today.
Well, tell me all the details. I'd really love to know,
'Cause it's been more than a little time, since to our church I'd go.

Tell me what his deeds were, and how he came to die.
Was he murdered by the Gadje, while in exile forced to fly?
Was he hanged by James of Scotland, when Faa was sent away,
Or killed by a Polish peasant mob on some lonely cold, byway?

Did he die with the resistance, in the dark Vichy midnight,
While bringing food and weapons to carry on the fight,
Or aiding Jews and exiles to escape the Nazi scourge,
Or killed by Nazi death squads, bent on their racist purge?

Did he die in Auschwitz death camp, where Zigournier Nacht took place,
The night that tens of thousand Rom were murdered for their race,
Or in the Czech Republic, thrown from a bridge to die?
Oh, tell me, Father Michael, was that the reason why?

I can't believe what you're saying, about the way he died,
Defending a fascist priest, defending Franco's side.
If that's the side that God was on, forgive me if I say,
It will be a cold day in hell before with you I'll pray.

I sing the song to the old Irish Spanish Civil War song "Johnny's Gone to Spain," the one that goes,

"Oh, who will plow the fields now, and who will reap the corn,
And who will tend the sheep now, and keep them neatly shorn?

If you sing it, please acknowledge the authorship.

Larry Otway,
Devlessa
Larry