The War Upon Religion Part 27

Dioceses were reduced in number; cathedral chapters, abbacies, and prebenderies were suppressed; the fees to the nuncio and to the seminaries were discontinued. Ecclesiastical property was offered for sale, and a thousand iniquities of one kind or another were brought forward to enslave and impoverish the Church.

In the meantime the question of the form of government to be adopted occupied the minds of all. Some called for a republic, some for a monarchy under the regency of Montpensier or of Serrano; others wished for a union with Portugal. Still others proposed a stranger king, Prince Napoleon, Duke of Genoa, a friend of General Prim.

During the first three months the government remained in the hands of three worthies, Serrano, Prim and Topete. The usual hypocrisy of all anti-Catholic governments betrayed itself immediately. There were outcries, mobs, rumors everywhere; but Catholic processions were forbidden. A crowd of corrupt apostates could travel from one end of Spain to the other preaching impiety, under the name of the "pure gospel," while they dispersed the conferences of St. Vincent de Paul and drove from their houses the defenceless nuns only to gather them together in places where they were delivered to the insults of the mob and every degrading humiliation. Books, newspapers filled with obscene pictures were spread gratuitously among the populace as a proof of the new civilization.

_PERSECUTION OF CATHOLICS._

Religious and Catholic writings were held up as barbarisms and inimical to the interests of the country. Schools for the teaching of falsehood and iniquity were free and untrammelled, while the seminaries and Catholic schools were closed at Madrid, Seville and other places.

Churches were destroyed and chapels burned to the ground without hindrance or protest. Catholics looked on in horror, but had to be silent while the terrors of an infidel government hung around them. The government itself encouraged its partisans to gather the spoils of victory, to satisfy their old punishments with terrible vengeance. To pay the national debt of forty millions of francs the property of the Church was again seized and sold. When the Revolution began, the motto of the rebels was "Spain and Honor;" now it had become a cry of irreligion and destruction.

At Antequera the sectaries attacked a convent of nuns, sacked it and burned it to the ground. Through the streets of Madrid mobs of vile a.s.sa.s.sins rushed wildly, calling out "Down with the Concordat! Down with the tyrants of Rome!" The anti-Catholic press hurled maledictions upon the Catholic faith. The Espana declared that it would have no Catholic sovereign; the Nacion proposed Alfred of England because he was a Protestant. At Seville the Church of the Capuchins was turned into a powder magazine.

The old revolutionary Aguirre abolished the religious communities, declaring that they were an integral and princ.i.p.al part of the shameful and oppressive regime which the nation had at last gloriously overturned. Bishops were ordered to leave their dioceses, and to cease all pastoral visits. At the same time, while Catholic churches were closed and religious communities dispersed, synagogues were inaugurated and Protestant temples opened.

In the meantime the politicians had been busy seeking a head for the government. The hopes of Montpensier were easily shattered, and the King of Portugal had refused to unite the Spanish crown with his own.

Invitations were then sent to princes in Germany and Italy, especially to the Duke of Aosta. Some looked to Don Carlos, who was then known as the Duke of Madrid, and who would like to be king under the name of Carlos VII. He had many partisans in Navarre, in the Basque Provinces, and in Catalonia. In his manifesto of June 30, 1869, he wrote: "Spain does not care to see the religion of our fathers outraged and insulted; and possessing in Catholicity the real truth, she wishes to see that religion free to exercise her divine mission. Spain is determined to preserve at any cost that Catholic faith and unity, which are the symbol of our glories, the spirit of our laws, the bond of our people, and the blessing of our country. In Spain through the tempest of the revolution many sad things have happened. But there are concordats which must be respected and faithfully executed." Carlos VII. presented himself in the name of G.o.d and of justice; but Napoleon III. plotted secretly against him; the Masonic bodies of Europe fought him; the Catholic powers abandoned him; and the revolutionaries in control of Spain refused him; so that all his efforts were in vain.

_AMADEUS OF SAVOY CHOSEN KING OF SPAIN._

The next six years found unhappy Spain delivered up to every excess of demagogy and disorder. On February 22, 1869, the Cortes met at Madrid for the purpose of drawing up a Const.i.tution, which was finally completed and published on June 6 of the same year. General Serrano was made Regent, while the government remained under the Presidency of General Prim. On November 16, 1870, the Cortes elected as king of Spain, Amadeus of Savoy, Duke of Aosta, son of the King of Italy.

Amadeus took possession of the throne in January, 1871, but the rivalries of the various parties in the country, and the weak disposition of the King made his reign one of perpetual strife. The Carlists under Don Carlos VII. took up arms and brought about a civil war in 1872. Finally, in 1873 Amadeus, wearied out with a charge that was difficult princ.i.p.ally because he permitted himself to be made the tool of the secret societies, renounced the crown on February 11, 1873.

[Ill.u.s.tration: AMADEUS OF SAVOY. Duke of Aosta, King of Spain.]

_SPAIN AGAIN A REPUBLIC._

For two years the country suffered under what purported to be a republican form of government. Serrano and Prim again came into prominence with their old hatred of religion and good order; but they were obliged to yield to the new dictators, Salmeron, Margal, and Castellar.

The new government elected a new Cortes, and to that body the popular suffrage sent a man who was destined to aid the struggling Church and bring back a semblance of peace to Spain. This was Don Antonio Canovas de Castillo, an old statesman who had served already in the battles of his country.

_CANOVAS DE CASTILLO._

It was in the midst of these disorders, in the face of adventurers ready to offend all the great principles of social life, liberty, property and religion, and all natural and const.i.tutional rights, that Canovas found a role worthy of his character. He grew powerful in that struggle for the defence of Christian society. He stood almost alone in the opposition; but his energy was indomitable, and his courage almost amounted to rashness as he set out to give battle to the secret societies, to Masonry and to the International whose t.i.tled members filled the Parliament.

As he ascended the tribune he heard the murmurs around him telling him that he was already hated. But his courage gave him words. He was called a doctrinaire. "A doctrinaire!" he said. "But who is not a doctrinaire?

Is there anyone who does not profess some doctrine, either good or evil?

As for myself, I know that my doctrine is good; it is the Christian doctrine, and I am proud to declare that I put aside the enjoyments of life as an end of existence, holding for certain that a Supreme Justice awaits all men at the doors of death. The individual who faces the inevitable afflictions of life, its maladies and its miseries, if you limit his aspirations to the times in which he lives, he becomes a foe of discipline; he carries his negations, not to Heaven, which does not exist for him, but to everything which proves an obstacle to his ambitions, to country, family, and society, to destroy them. He becomes an international.

"Reactionary you call me! There is no one who in these days of trouble ought to bear that name better than I. I have heard that the Senors, Margal and Castellar, were reactionaries; and the successor of Proudhon, who has written his diabolical gospel, Chaudrey himself, he was shot as a reactionary by the Commune of Paris. You are preaching social and economical emanc.i.p.ation to the ma.s.ses; but what obstacle has the workman from performing his labors freely? You promise social liquidation, the revision of property and of public fortune and their better division.

What good reasons, political, historical or philosophical do you bring to support these theories? Are you bound to accept as Gospel truth, every idea that rises in the minds of men? Must you take every man as a Messiah who proclaims himself an apostle or a prophet? If you do so, you will rob the State of all security, society of all stability, history of all solidity; and if you are indifferent, the philosophic theorizers will soon plunge the land into a torrent of blood."

[Ill.u.s.tration: ANTONIO CANOVAS DEL CASTILLO. Conservative Prime Minister.]

Canovas was listened to in silence, and his auditors uttered no protest; but they remained unchanged. Four years of republican rule ruined the country; liberty was betrayed by a license which permitted everyone to live according to his own caprice. Religion, buffeted and persecuted, its temples and property confiscated, its ministers proscribed, the public safety destroyed, with pillage unpunished in the cities conflagrations started in the country places, were the fruits of the new ideas which reigned in the high places of the state. Valencia, Grenada, and Seville became princ.i.p.alities, created Parliaments, frontiers, custom houses, coined monies, and levied taxes; it was a form of anarchy. Carlism took up arms again; Cuba revolted; and the government found itself powerless to bring matters to a peaceful condition.

In its anxiety the country looked to Canovas de Castillo. To those who spoke of insurrection he answered: "Let us wait; there is no need of bloodshed." On December 28, 1874, he appeared at the head of the troops at Sagonta, and proclaimed Alphonso XII. as King. The news spread quickly, and was accepted as a signal of deliverance. There was no resistance; the old government was gone; and the Cortes was dispersed.

_CANOVAS IN POWER._

Canovas was at once recognized as the representative of the absent King, and the country was ready to obey his directions. Armed with this power, he set to work to put the country in order. He exiled Zorilla, the chief of the demagogues, he banished the revolutionaries and expelled the teachers of disorder, who had the impudence to call themselves "the Intellectuals." As the Const.i.tution was but the legalization of tyranny, he drew up another, in which Catholic principles were respected.

The moment had come for inaugurating an era of peace. His ministry again declared that "the Catholic religion is the religion of the State,"

though it professed a tolerance for dissident sects. The monastic orders were received back into the land; churches were restored, the clergy received as much of the ecclesiastical property as had not been absolutely alienated. The Carlists were pacified, and the whole country once more brought within the bonds of patriotic union.

It was unfortunate that this great statesman, who had placed Alphonso XII. upon the throne, and watched over the first years of the present King Alphonso XIII., was a.s.sa.s.sinated by an anarchist, August 8, 1897.

_SPAIN IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY._

During the regency of Maria Christina, and the reign of her son, Alphonso XIII., the Church was not at first openly attacked, although various legislative measures have been proposed to cripple the religious orders and deprive the clergy of all authority in matters of education.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ALFONSO XII., KING OF SPAIN.]

There were difficulties in recent years, but while the Conservatives ruled under Senor Maura, or even the Liberals under Sagasta, the danger of any serious conflict was not imminent. But when the Liberals in 1905 were led by Moret, the rights of the Church began to feel the first signs of disrespect. The difficulties aroused by the new government concerned chiefly civil marriages, cemeteries, the toleration of non-Catholics, and the religious orders. Previously civil marriages were recognized as valid only between such persons as would make a declaration that they were not Catholics. Count Romanones, the Minister of Justice, caused the suppression of such declaration, thus introducing civil marriages even between careless Catholics. The Bishops protested, but in vain; and the Bishop of Tuy was even cited to court for the openness of his language.

_Ca.n.a.lEJAS._

After the fall of Moret, his successor, Ca.n.a.lejas, hastened to urge oppressive measures against the Church. Senor Ca.n.a.lejas was well known ever since 1887 for his anti-clerical tendencies, and had more than one conflict with the Vatican apropos of the dispersion of the religious orders. When he succeeded to the post of Premier, it began to be evident that he would forthwith proceed to laicise Spain according to his old vow.

It had always been the policy of Ca.n.a.lejas to settle old scores with the Holy See, and in doing so he descended to many of the brutalities that characterized Bonaparte in his dealings with Pius VII. King Alphonso proved a docile tool, and offered no resistance when ordered to sign any decree, however adverse to Catholic interests.

The first object of the Ca.n.a.lejas ministry was to be the revision of the Concordat. The Amba.s.sador to the Vatican, Senor Ojeda of Perpinan, was charged to place before His Eminence Cardinal Merry del Val, the Secretary of State of His Holiness, the desire of the Spanish Government to treat the question. The Holy See replied that it was ready to enter on the matter, as it had done with preceding Cabinets. Hence, to make a practical beginning, it offered on its own initiative, the four concessions agreed to in 1904, but which were not ratified by the Spanish Cortes, owing to the fall of the Maura Ministry.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Ca.n.a.lEJAS.]

These concessions were as follows: The suppression of all religious houses in which the community did not number twelve, with the exception of a few agreed upon with the Government; the authorization of the Government was to be obtained before a new religious house could be founded; strangers wis.h.i.+ng to establish religious inst.i.tutions in the country should first become naturalized as Spanish citizens; finally, the religious should be subject to the impost duties in accordance with the fiscal laws, like all other citizens.

The Spanish Government was not satisfied with these concessions, and expressed a desire for still others. The Holy See yielded even then, and set to work to examine the situation and to study all possible concessions.

While matters thus stood in abeyance, the Spanish Government suddenly, without warning or intimation, proceeded to settle the questions without the concurrence of the Holy See. A Royal Decree was issued with the intention of enforcing the Royal Order of 1902, whereby religious communities would be obliged to fulfil certain formalities before they could obtain legal existence and recognition. This Royal Order had never been enforced because it had not been agreed upon by both parties.

The Holy See protested in an official note to the Government of Madrid, and requested that the matter be suspended pending the negotiations already going on between the Vatican and Spain. The answer of the Government, only a few days later, was the pa.s.sing of a new decree giving free practice to alien religions. As this was also one of the subjects under discussion, the Holy See again protested. The Government, however, was not yet satisfied, and accordingly in the following Speech from the Throne, uttered many anti-clerical notes, especially its determination to put forward the projected law against the religious orders. The Holy See, in the face of these violations of diplomatic procedure, declared that if the Government continued to carry on its unilateral measures, it would be useless and impossible to proceed with the negotiations. But the Spanish Government only replied that it could not recall the measures it had already pa.s.sed.

By this trick Ca.n.a.lejas hoped to extend the rule of the civil power over a matter which pertains to mixed questions, and this in open contempt of the Concordat and the most elementary laws of diplomacy. It hoped to create the impression that the Holy See yields nothing, and in that way place it in the unfavorable light of being blindly obstinate. Moreover, it strove to place the Holy See in a position so humiliating that it would be obliged to reject its own overtures and accept whatever the opposition might grant. He hoped to discourage the protests of Catholic Spain by rendering the att.i.tude of the Vatican ridiculous.

Ca.n.a.lejas prided himself upon being the champion of freedom of conscience. It was a play to the gallery in the hope of gaining popular encouragement from abroad. It was an effort to stir up antipathy to the Holy See and embittering public opinion against it.

The game of the Premier was detected, and he at once began to complain of the intransigent att.i.tude of the Holy See, and accused the Holy Father of an intention to threaten. He spoke of "justice" and the "defence of the rights of Spain." He deprecated any idea of violating the Concordat or of wis.h.i.+ng to break with the Vatican. His whole policy in fact was but a miserable attempt to hoodwink the Spanish people.

The Vatican, in the meantime, demanded a withdrawal of the obnoxious laws until the negotiations already begun should be terminated. The Government in answer played the role of offended innocence, spoke of the tyranny of Rome, and lauded the "heroes" who were fighting for a liberal and independent regime. Hence the interviews with paid newspaper correspondents who could place the position of the Ministry in a favorable light before the world.

The Spanish nation, however, could not be brought to see any truth in the statements of Ca.n.a.lejas, or any sincerity in his intentions, as was evident from the universal demonstrations.