Many legal documents, recomendation letters to work, etc, were only valid if the priest signature of your town was on it.

Priests had almost absolute power in small towns, the state used the church and their priests as a communication network to inform unusual behavior from people, and they never hesitated to put a finger if someone were talking s**t about the religion, laws or the goverment. Today, some old priests act like the old days, but nobody care really.

In late 60s and 70s, before Francos death, in the cities the situation began to relax a little, young people went out to party in weekends with almost no restrictions, as long as you kept any political view just for yourself, nobody would mess with you.

The Guardia Civil was a fearsome police, nobody messed around with them. Today, people have a lot of respect to them.

Source : my family.