After the Spanish civil war, between the years of 1939-1975, Spain was under the control of an authoritarian dictatorship led by its fascist dictator, Francisco Franco. Franco had a strong allegiance to the Catholic Church and as a result the church saw an extreme gain in its powers during this period. All other religions were, in a sense, banned and the Catholic Church was the sole dominant faith which it was forced upon the Spanish people as a sort of government mandated obligation. Franco even took it upon himself to be able to appoint the administrators in the Spanish Catholic Church all the way down to the level of parish priests. This made the allegiance to Franco extremely strong during the 1940's and 1950's. During this time anything and everything that was contrary to the teachings of the Catholic Church was made illegal in Spain. Things such as divorce, abortion, contraception, homosexuality, and sexual infidelity took an illegal status in Spain. In the mid 1960's, with the commencement of the second Vatican council, the Catholic authorities in Rome sought to try and undermine the the authority of Franco with appointing their own priests and bishops to work in Spain in place of the Franco appointed incumbents. This was an effort to loosen up the grip that the Catholic Church had on Spain and promote religious freedom. In a sense Franco was too Catholic for even the Catholic Church when the Roman authorities themselves saw it fit to help diminish the power of the church in Spain. Throughout the 1940's and 1950's the Catholic Church literally had it's hands into practically every aspect of Spanish life with their presence in radio stations, advertisements, and dominance in universities. Catholic teaching was even apart of the curriculum of public schools. Also, they had a number of financial privileges as well with being exempt from all taxation while receiving large sums of funds for the buying of land and maintenance of buildings from the government. In 1966 Franco finally agreed to allow other faiths to exist but still held firm to his preference of Catholicism over any other faith.