The Troubles in Spain.
Although the Catholic faith has always been deeply rooted in the hearts of the Spanish people, yet during the nineteenth century the anti-Christian spirit contrived at times to create disorder and to introduce persecution. The spirit of the French Revolution made its way early into the Peninsular.
The reign of the weak king, Carlos IV., who was misled by his shrewd and unscrupulous minister Godoy aroused dissatisfaction to such an extent that his own son, the future Ferdinand VII., joined with the malcontents in a warlike feud. The Kingdom thus distracted by internecine troubles was an easy prey to the conquering Napoleon. In 1808, Carlos IV., was forced to abdicate his throne which was thereupon bestowed upon Joseph Bonaparte. The reign of this usurper, especially his oppressive measures towards the clergy and Catholic people, stirred up the Spaniards, who flew to arms. After three years of heroic struggle, aided by the English, they liberated their country from French rule, and in 1814, restored the Spanish throne, with Ferdinand VII., as its occupant.
ACCESSION OF FERDINAND VII.
In 1812 the liberal Cortes at Cadiz effected a Constitution inimical to the interests of the Church. Upon his accession, the king annulled the constitution, and restored the Church to the position and rights it had held previous to the advent of the French. The Jesuits were recalled from banishment, and other religious orders were encouraged to pursue their works of charity and beneficence. Unfortunately, Ferdinand was always wanting in firmness and in Catholic principle. Surrounded by astute and ambitious flatterers, he soon fell into the hands of the Liberals who induced him to revoke his good resolutions, to violate the rights of the Church and to re-establish the old despotism.
APOSTOLICS AND LIBERALS.
In 1820 the sentiment of the country was divided between the two opposing parties, the Apostolicals, who defended the claims of the Church, and the Liberals, who looked for license under the name of liberty. The Liberals were soon in the ascendant, and forced the King, in 1821, to restore the Constitution of 1812. The Apostolical party bitterly resented the treachery of the King, and after an uprising in all parts of the country, aided by French intervention, the Liberals were defeated. Ferdinand, however, was little disposed to follow the dictates of the victorious party, who in their disgust at his vacillating policy turned to the King's brother, Don Carlos, whom they determined to place upon the throne.
DISAFFECTION OF FERDINAND VII.
The discontent between Ferdinand and the Catholic party grew more acute from year to year. When, in 1823, the Holy See refused to receive the Jansenist, Villanueva, as ambassador, the Government at Madrid dismissed the Papal Nuncio, Guistiniani. Those of the clergy who would not accept the Constitution were imprisoned, banished, or put to death. Only a few took the oath imposed on them. In 1829, the King married Maria Christina of Naples, a woman who was destined to play a notorious part in Spanish history. Through her influence he abrogated the Salic law, which excluded females from the throne, and which had been forced upon Spain by the European powers in the Treaty of Utrecht, in 1713. By this act he hoped to shut out from the succession his brother Don Carlos and his heirs, in order to place upon the throne his daughter Isabella, who was born on October 10, 1830. By this act Ferdinand gave to his country a cause for disorders which remain even to the present day.
FERNANDO VII. DE BOURBON, KING OF SPAIN.
CARLIST WAR.
Ferdinand VII. died in 1833, and his daughter was proclaimed Queen of Spain, under the regency of her mother Christina. The country was at once plunged into the horrors of civil war. Don Carlos, the pretender to the throne, and his adherents were ordered to leave the country. Aragon and the Basque Provinces took up arms in his cause, while the Liberals gathered around the regent. In the conflict the followers of Don Carlos were called the Carlists or Apostolicals, while the opposing party received the name of Christinists.
HATRED OF THE JESUITS.
In 1834 the enemies of religion took occasion of the cholera, then raging in the Peninsular, to incite the populace against the religious orders whom they accused of having poisoned the wells. They began their hostilities with the Jesuits who were cut down even at the foot of the altars. The horrible cry was heard everywhere: "Away with Christ!" On July 17, a furious mob precipitated itself upon the Jesuit college with cries of rage, calling out: "Death to the Jesuits!" "Let not a Jesuit escape!" Fifteen fathers were massacred, and some of them with a refinement of cruelty that passes description. Similar horrors were carried out the same day in the various monasteries of Madrid, those of the Dominicans, the Fathers of the Redemption of Captives, and the Franciscans. Forty-four of the latter perished, seven Dominicans and nine of the Order of Mercy. The leader in these atrocities was that Espartero, who having imbibed in his boyhood a knowledge of the faith, had learned in South America the awful art of shedding blood for the sake of personal ambition.
ATROCITIES OF ESPARTERO.
In 1835 the massacres were renewed at Saragossa, Barcelona, Cordova and many other places. In 1836, a decree ordered the sale of all property belonging to the religious orders. After the religious—as is always the case—the secular clergy were attacked, and the churches everywhere throughout the land. Bishops and priests were banished; ecclesiastical property was pillaged or sold; the supremacy and rights of the Pope were set aside; in a word, the Catholic Kingdom saw the beginning of a national schism.
THE POPE PROTESTS.
Pope Gregory XVI., in 1836, protested against these persecutions, and the Government, awakened to some sense of shame, sent Vilalba to Rome to effect an agreement with the Holy See. The truce was but of short duration.
In 1840 another revolution broke out, the result of which was the deposition of Christina, as regent, and the exaltation of the infamous Espartero in that capacity. The change was the signal for renewed hostilities against the Church, so that, in 1841, Pope Gregory XVI. was again moved to utter a vigorous protest. The Government replied by forbidding the publication of any Papal documents, and by confiscating what remained of the Church property.
In January 20, 1842, a law was proposed having for its object the entire separation of the Spanish people from the influence of the Holy See.
PAPAL ENCYCLICAL.
The Pope replied to this proposal by a strong encyclical, in which he said: "In fact, it is determined by this law that no account of the Apostolic See shall be held by the Spanish nation; that all communication with it for all manner of graces, indults and concessions shall be intercepted, and that those who contravene this prescript shall be severely punished. It is also decreed that letters apostolic and other rescripts issued by the same Holy See, unless they shall have been demanded by Spain, shall not only not be kept, and be inefficacious, but that they shall be denounced to the civil authority in the shortest interval of time, by those whom they shall reach, that they may be delivered to the government; and for those who shall violate this prescript a penalty also is fixed.
DON CARLOS DE BOURBON, DUKE OF MADRID.
"It is moreover ordained that impediments to matrimony shall be subject to the bishops, until a code of civil laws shall establish a distinction between the contract and the sacrament of matrimony; that no cause involving religious matters shall be sent from Spain to Rome; and that in no time shall a nuncio or legate of the Holy See be there admitted with the power of granting graces or dispensations, even gratuitously.
"And more! The most sacred right of the Roman Pontiff to confirm or reject the bishops elected in Spain is clearly excluded; and the punishment of exile is to be inflicted as well on all priests designated to any episcopal church, who shall seek confirmation or letters apostolic from this Holy See, as on all metropolitans who shall demand the pallium from it.
"After this, it is indeed to be wondered at, that the Roman Pontiff himself is in that law asserted to be, as it were, the centre of the Church, since room for communication with him is not left, save by the license and under the inspection of the government.
"Desiring then to restrain, as much as in us lies, the evils, which in this great perturbation of the Catholic religion throughout Spain are growing more heavy; and to give our assistance to those most dear of the faithful, who, long since, are stretching forth suppliant hands towards us, we have determined, after the example of our predecessors, to resort to the prayers of the universal Church, and most studiously to excite the piety of all Catholics toward that nation.
"Therefore, while we renew and confirm, by these letters apostolic, the complaints and expostulations published in the allocutions before mentioned, and abrogate and declare to be of no force all acts hitherto done by the government of Madrid against the rights and dignity of the Church and of this most Holy See, we again exhort all ... to implore the mercy of the omnipotent God for the unhappy Spanish nation."
BALMES AND CORTES.
The government in turn endeavored to suppress the Encyclical, but its efforts in that direction only resulted in spreading it the more throughout the land. A veritable awakening followed. Both clergy and people publicly demonstrated their loyalty to the persecuted Church, whose defence was ably taken up by such writers and orators as the celebrated Father James Balmes and Donoso Cortes. In 1843, the young Isabella, then being thirteen years of age, was declared of age, and made independent of any regency. The reign of Espartero was, for the time at least, at an end.
Espartero, during his ascendancy, proved himself a scourge to the Catholic Church in Spain. When he fell, the Catholics began to breathe more freely. A stop was put to the sale of ecclesiastical property. In 1845, whatever remained was used to give some little maintenance to the clergy, but the real and personal estate had already been disposed of in great part, and could not be recalled. To arrange matters a concordat was drawn up, and Castillo y Ayensa was sent to Gregory XVI. for that purpose. But the good will of the government evaporated before anything definite could be concluded, and the concordat was rejected by the Cortes.
CONCORDAT OF 1851.
However, after the Spanish government had aided the Pope in his exile at Gaeta, and helped to restore him to Rome, more definite proceedings towards a concordat were begun. The new concordat was concluded on March 16, 1851.
It was just before the conclusion of this concordat that Donoso Cortes delivered a remarkable address to the Spanish Chamber of Deputies, in which he said:
"Do not tell me that in Spain, in Italy, in France and in Hungary the Revolution is conquered; that is not true. All the social forces united and driven to their utmost have only driven the Revolution under cover. The people can no longer govern, and the true cause of this is that there is no true conception of divine or of human authority. This is the disease that is strangling Europe, society and the world. This is the reason why the people can no longer govern. When Revolution in Europe shall have destroyed the standing armies, when Socialism shall have exterminated patriotism, when we shall see only two parties, the spoilers and the despoiled, then shall Russia quietly send its armies into our land, and the world will behold the greatest chastisement recorded in history."
The new concordat contained among its articles the following: "The Catholic, Apostolic, Roman religion, will be as in the past, the religion of the State, to the exclusion of all others. The Church shall conserve the rights and prerogatives which belong to her according to divine law and the sacred canons; in public and private institutions, education shall be conformable to the Catholic religion; the bishops in the exercise of their ministry and of their mission shall enjoy that entire liberty demanded by the sacred canons; the Church shall continue to possess, and to acquire new properties, under whatsoever legitimate title; and this her right of possession shall remain inviolable."
ATTEMPT ON THE LIFE OF QUEEN ISABELLA.
The concordat was signed at Rome, by Pope Pius IX., who in the consistory of September 5, 1851, proclaimed its publication in terms of the greatest gratification. But the joy of the Catholic people upon this return to Spain to better sentiments was not long lived. On February 2, 1852, Queen Isabella, as she was speaking on the street with the Papal Nuncio, was attacked by a ruffian, who attempted to plunge a dagger into her side. The would-be assassin was arrested and thrown into prison. He was one of the conspirators under Espartero.
As the unhappy man had once been an ecclesiastic and had apostatized under the fury of the revolutionary propaganda, the revolutionary journals made capital of the fact to cast aspersions on the clergy, declaring that the assassin belonged to the clerical party. The government comprehended that it was necessary to put a restraint upon the press, and in consequence, many journals were compelled to stop publication. At the same time a spirit of conversion began to touch the hearts of the people. Everywhere the missionaries were active, and out of the religious houses the words of new life were heard to echo into the homes, the factories, the army and the navy. The revolutionists began to be alarmed, and set to work to destroy what the preaching of Catholic doctrine had effected.
The Liberals, haters of God and of country, commenced a series of barbarities. With the intention of destroying the monasteries and convents, they set fire to the Jesuit houses in Valladolid, Huesca, Barbastro, Saragossa and Valencia. At Valladolid in one day they burned three convents, and among them the celebrated and magnificent Trinidad. And these same incendiaries when they came into power in Spain two years later, dared to cry out against the barbarities of the Catholic Church.
REVOLUTION OF 1854.
In 1854 the revolution again broke out. Many of Spain's best generals, among them Leopold O'Donnell, went over to the party of rebellion, whose object was the overthrow of the monarchy and the establishment of a republic. The people, misled by a thousand rumors, knew not to whom to turn, but finally took as their leader that Espartero who had already proven himself a danger to Spain, hostile to the Church, and a slave to the secret societies.
On July 18, 1854, the royal palace at Madrid was sacked by the mob, though the Queen succeeded in escaping to safety. Though the Revolution called for a republic, with Espartero at its head, yet that general preferred rather to lead the ministry under royalty, and so contrived to restore Isabella to her throne. Under this second regime of Espartero the Church suffered even more cruelly than before. The agents of the secret societies, which controlled the Cortes, began to demand the revocation of the concordat, the suppression of the religious orders, and a general persecution of the Church. The minister Alonzo set the example by driving out of the Escurial the monks of St. Jerome.
PERSECUTION AND CALUMNY.
To persecution the anti-Christians added calumny against the bishops and clergy of Spain, accusing them of desertion in the time of danger, of abandoning the victims of the cholera. These open falsehoods aided somewhat in stirring up a spirit of hostility even in places where the devotion of the clergy was known to be most heroic. Stories then were circulated of arms hidden in the sanctuary of Loyola; as a consequence, the Jesuits were driven from this shrine, even though it was well known that their only occupation at Loyola was the maintenance of a college for the education of missionaries to Cuba, Porto Rico and the Philippine Islands.
ISABEL II., QUEEN OF SPAIN.
At the same time certain deputies in the Chamber complained that the journal, "The Catholic", had dared to publish the Bull of Pius IX. on the Immaculate Conception without governmental permission. One of the ministers, Madoz, proposed restoring the ruined treasury by the sale of all ecclesiastical property without exception. Another deputy, Escosura, a furious and fanatic anti-Christian, insulted, in a session of the Chamber on March 24, 1855, the Bishop of Osma, whom he called a butcher because of his defence of the church property; the Minister of Grace and Justice, Aguirre, demanded the punishment of those bishops who dared to preach religious unity. For this "crime" the Bishop of Osma was exiled to the Canary Islands. The same Aguirre caused the Bishop of Barcelona to be exiled to Carthagena.
It was in vain that the Holy See strove to compose matters. Appeals to the ancient piety of Spain, and to the well known virtue of the nation were alike unheeded. It was not the nation that ruled, but a clique who had gained control by force of arms, and it was this clique that sent back the appeals of the Holy Father with contempt and derision. The Cortes was filled with irreligious enemies of the Catholic name; it was these who set aside the concordat, from its first article to the last. It was these who forbade bishops to ordain priests, who forbade monasteries of nuns to receive new novices; and who converted to State use all chapels and religious schools. In the deliberations of the Cortes, on January 12, 1855, it was determined that the seminaries might no longer teach philosophy and theology, and that all ordinations of the clergy should be suspended.
PROTESTS FROM THE HOLY SEE.
The Holy Father in the consistory of July 6, 1855, protested vigorously against the evils and spoliation of the Church in Spain. His words were useless, since Espartero and his followers continued in their way despite all claims of reason and right. They had driven the Bishop of Osma into exile, they had closed the Seminary of Toledo, they had forbidden the priests of Saragossa to leave the limits of their parish without governmental permission, they had dispersed the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, they had prevented the bishops from uniting in council, the Bishop of Urgel was exiled as a Carlist, the Bishop of Plasenza was persecuted because he had refused to give an inventory of church property, the Bishop of Avila would have been imprisoned but for fear of the people who threatened to intervene.
The persecutions became so rabid and frequent that Monsignor Franchi, the Papal Nuncio, left Madrid, and diplomatic relations were severed with the Holy See. Moreover, Zavala, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, dared to write to the various governments that the concordat was being faithfully executed, that the contract made with the Holy See was observed, and that the government was religious and pious. The Pontifical Allocution unmasked the falsehood, but did not change the condition of affairs.
ESPARTERO GOVERNMENT FALLS.
The government of Espartero, capable of every evil, incapable of good, finally fell into odium with the people. In 1856 Spain shook off the yoke imposed upon her by the rebels, who had enslaved the Queen and fettered the Church. On September 15, the country returned to its former government, and restored the Constitution of 1845. The new Minister of Grace and Justice recognized the necessity of restoring to honor a clergy vilified by the passions and impetuous discords of the times. The elections to churches were made according to the customs of Catholic Spain, and peace began to smile again upon the religious institutions of the land.
The appointment in October 1856, of Marshal Narvaez, to the presidency of the Council, was an act that promised the restoration of law and order. Narvaez, the Duke of Valencia, was one who knew the meaning of conspiracy, civil war, and revolution. He had seen with his own eyes the sad results of them, and how they impoverished, weakened, and strangled the State. A man of character and firm will, he knew how to form a a cabinet in harmony with his own ideas, and with them he set to work to re-establish order.
The Jesuits, expelled in 1854, were permitted to return; the concordat was again put into execution; all orders and decrees contrary to it were annulled, and on October 15, De Seijas Lozano, Minister of Justice, represented to the Queen that it was time to render to the bishops full liberty to confer sacred orders. In his brief he spoke in the highest terms of the Spanish episcopate, and of the piety and heroic devotion of the priesthood. It was a new note in contrast to the chorus of infamy that had been heard for the last two years. The end of the year 1856 beheld a serene heaven brooding over Spain, and a people who sighed with relief as they thought of the nights of horror and iniquity through which they had so lately passed.
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1867.
For a decade at least the Church in Spain enjoyed comparative peace. The war then broke out again and continued with new vigor. The masonic General Prim, returning from Mexico disappointed because he had failed to create a position for himself, brought back to Spain a new batch of conspiracies. In 1867 the Moderates were in control with Narvaez at their head. They were not altogether unjust, and were somewhat friendly to the Church and the Catholic Party, which was then represented in the Cortes by Candido Nocidal and other illustrious men of Spain. At the same time the Cortes numbered among its members the Progressists, who were hostile to the Church and to the Queen, and who united in many measures with the Socialists, a party which was most dangerous and most opposed to the nature and to the traditions of the Spanish people. General Prim was the recognized leader of this union. He was a man of most extravagant ambition, who in the hope of becoming President of a future Iberian republic, or first minister of the Queen, gathered together all the forces of disorder which had lain dormant since the last revolution.
ESPARTERO.
Prim first addressed himself to the King of Portugal, proposing to unite that country with Spain under the crown of Portugal. Being refused, he turned to the Duke of Montpensier, who rejected his proposals in the conviction that the time was not ripe for a revolution. He was not, however, disconcerted, and in union with O'Donnell, gave himself up to the problem of betraying his country to some foreign ruler. The first skirmishes of the followers of Prim were abortive owing to the vigilance of Narvaez, and many of the conspirators were driven out of the country.
TRICKERY OF NAPOLEON III.
Narvaez, however, died in 1868, and was succeeded as President of the Council, by Gonzalis Bravo. The policy of the latter was built upon an imprudent confidence in the friendship of the French Emperor, Napoleon III. Trusting to the promises of that crafty prince, both Bravo and the Queen remained inactive, while the forces of the enemy under General Serrano pushed forward.
LEOPOLD O'DONNELL,
Duke of Tetuan.
Bravo in turn relinquished the government to Joseph Concha, an old conspirator, in whose heart the hatred toward the Church had never completely died out. In the meantime the rebels forced their way through the country, and gained as they went forward the favor of a populace whose spirits were inflamed by the lust of bloodshed and plunder. With a nondescript army Serrano took possession of Madrid in September, 1868.
The Queen, despairing of her own safety, fled into France, and left the entire country in the hands of the revolutionists. On September 30, she protested against the treachery of Napoleon III., but no one would or could listen to her. It was only another of the unholy acts of the French Sovereign who had thrown ruin into various countries of Europe. Rome had seen the Holy Father betrayed by him; Florence, Naples, Parma, and Modena fell under his treachery; the Emperor of Austria had trusted him and found him wanting; he had cajoled the folly of Maximilian in that unfortunate prince's adventure into Mexico; and now he had betrayed Spain. One more piece of treachery remained in his conduct toward the Holy See—then came the reward of his double-dealing in the Franco-Prussian war, when he was himself cast down from his throne and driven into disgraceful exile.
SPAIN A REPUBLIC.
General Prim, whose usual tactics were to raise a great cry, stir up revolt, and then when the danger came, to disappear, had been missing through all the fighting. Now that the danger was over he suddenly re-appeared. But both he and the Duke of Montpensier came too late. Serrano was in control with a mob of irreligious ruffians gathered together from Paris and Brussels and filled with a mortal hatred of the Catholic religion. The proofs of this spirit were not long in coming. The Jesuits were the first to be hunted down, and after them the other religious; and while the revolutionists were raising the cry of "freedom of worship for all," they sacked and profaned monasteries and churches. 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 assassins 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 principal 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 God 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 Constitution, 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 principally because he permitted himself to be made the tool of the secret societies, renounced the crown on February 11, 1873.
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 constitutional 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 titled 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 emancipation to the masses; 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."
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 principalities, 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 Constitution 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 assassinated 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.
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.
CANALEJAS.
After the fall of Moret, his successor, Canalejas, hastened to urge oppressive measures against the Church. Senor Canalejas 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 Canalejas 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 Canalejas ministry was to be the revision of the Concordat. The Ambassador 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.
CANALEJAS.
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 wishing to establish religious institutions 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 passing 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 passed.
By this trick Canalejas 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 attitude of the Vatican ridiculous.
Canalejas 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 attitude 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 wishing 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 Canalejas, or any sincerity in his intentions, as was evident from the universal demonstrations.
In the meantime the Holy Father's demand that the obnoxious laws be suspended until the consultation in regard to the Concordat should be ended, was received as an ultimatum at Madrid. In answer thereto, Canalejas determined to recall the Ambassador accredited to the Holy See. In consequence he directed a telegram to that effect to Senor Ojeda, who at once set out from the Eternal City without fixing any day for his return, leaving the First Secretary of the Embassy as his representative. The Papal Secretary of State was informed that "The Ambassador had been recalled to Madrid to receive directions."
This event, however, did not cause any great surprise in Catholic circles. It was well known that the mere recall of an ambassador does not in itself always signify a definite rupture, although in this case it constituted at least a very serious step.
FERRER AND THE BARCELONA RIOTS.
For a long time Spain, like Portugal, had been made the camping ground of so-called "progressives," men and women who set out with the theory that the world was wrong and they, the prophets appointed by "destiny" to set it right. Among these self-constituted prophets of a new order was a certain Francisco Ferrer of Guardia, the son of a Catalonian farmer, who had acquired some wealth and influence by means that were shown to be disreputable. Fired with an unholy hatred of country and Church, his whole history is one of conspiracy and revolution. He had been actively connected with every effort to overturn established government since 1883. On every occasion he was known to be in active correspondence with the leaders of those revolutions, and was connected with everything they did. 1885, 1892, 1895, 1898 were years that stand out clearly marked in his career of disorder, down to the time when the anarchist Morral attempted to assassinate King Alphonsus XIII.
After the movement of 1885 he fled to Paris where he chose for his friends men like the Jew, Nacquet, who has the unsavory honor of introducing divorce into the French code. An enemy to the sacred institution of marriage, he soon abandoned his wife and three children, and shortly after sealed his desertion by a divorce. To support himself he devoted his time to the teaching of Spanish, in which occupation he made the acquaintance of a middle-aged spinster named Meunier. Out of this friendship Ferrer gained some pecuniary profit, for this woman on her deathbed left him a fortune amounting to $150,000.
With this fortune, after he had become affiliated with the Grand Orient of Paris, Ferrer returned to Barcelona. It was here, in 1901, that he inaugurated his notorious scheme of "the Modern School," while at the same time he increased his fortune by gambling, and lived in a scandalous companionship with a woman of ill fame.
In his "Modern School" Ferrer advocated every doctrine of disorder and insurrection. He chose for his teachers men well known for their anarchistic ideas. His object was to eliminate from the minds of the children every idea of religion, patriotism, and morality. It was not Catholicity alone that he assailed, but everything that society stands for: the flag, country, marriage, property, family, and State. His school-books contained such teachings as these: "The flag is nothing but three yards of cloth stitched upon a pole;" or "The family is one of the principal obstacles to the enlightenment of men." Other doctrines contained in his teaching are too indecent for reproduction. His principal of the girls' school was Madame Jacquinet, an anarchist who had been driven out of Egypt, and who described herself as "an atheist, a scientific materialist, an anti-militarist, and an anarchist." Another of his professors was that Mateo Morral who attempted to kill the King on his wedding day. Another was Leon Fabre, one of the leaders in the Barcelona riots.
The schools of Ferrer increased in various districts of Catalonia, until about 1906, nearly 2000 children were receiving his instructions. In the spring of 1909, he went to London, where he lived in company with the ex-school mistress. It was while in England that the first signs of discontent in Catalonia began to manifest themselves. The war in Morocco demanded soldiers for its prosecution, and on hearing that the Government was about to make a requisition in Catalonia, Ferrer, on June 11, suddenly left England and hurried back to Barcelona. There he again entered upon his campaign of revolutionary teaching, inflaming the minds of the people against the Government which had the hardihood to ask soldiers for a foreign war.
His teaching had its effect. On July 26, Barcelona broke out into open revolt. There were only 1600 soldiers in the town to meet the assaults of the rioters. The general strike ordered by the workingmen's associations crippled all means of trade and commerce. The mobs first assailed the banks and stores, but finding them too strongly guarded turned their attention elsewhere. The city was placed under martial law, and the small detachment of troops were divided where the danger seemed most imminent. There was no thought of the churches, convents, and religious houses.
Mr. Andrew Shipman, in his exposé of the case for McClure's Magazine, describes the horrors of the few days that followed. "The day of July 27 was a ghastly one, filled with smoke, murder, and terror. The kerosene can was used after looting had secured every valuable article, and before midnight the mob had attacked and burned some twenty-two institutions in the newer and outer part of Barcelona. The police pursued them as best they could; but the revolutionists were divided by their leaders into sections, attacking churches, schools, and houses simultaneously at remote distances from one another. During the night the King and ministry, who were communicated with by cable—for all telegraph lines were cut—suspended the constitutional guarantees, leaving the city and province in an actual state of war.
"All day on the 28th the burning, looting, and destruction of churches, convents and schools went on; but by nightfall the troops had broken some of the barricades, and began to subdue some sections of the rioters. On Thursday, the 29th, they had the rioting under control, and the revolt was crushed. On Friday the roving bands of anarchists, rioters, and idlers were entirely stopped, and the next day street traffic began again.
"It is sickening to tell of the savagery of the mob. Even the dead nuns were dragged from their coffins and paraded with revolting and obscene orgies, and then thrown into the gutters. Clerical teachers in the schools were stripped, tortured and shot. Even little children were not spared. Churches that had stood as monuments from the days of the Crusades were destroyed; while everything valuable was plundered from them, and from the schools and religious houses. They even stole the clothes and petty jewelry of the girls in the boarding schools."
Immediately after the cessation of hostilities the arrest and punishment of the ring leaders were begun. Among those arrested was Francisco Ferrer, who was tried by a court-martial, found guilty of rebellion and treason, and, on October 13, 1909, was executed.
Although the trial was fair, and has been officially declared such by Canalejas, a man who holds no friendship for the causes of Catholicity and Spanish right, nevertheless the news of Ferrer's execution raised a commotion throughout the world. Strangely enough the odium of the act was saddled directly upon the Catholic Church, against which the secular press delivered itself of diatribes full of bitterness. The fact seemed to be forgotten, or concealed, that the Church had no more to do with the execution than an infant just born. In fact the Holy Father himself had written in terms of clemency; but his advices were disregarded. The matter was purely a political one, the case of a convicted revolutionist, found guilty by one of the fairest courts in the world, and upon the most disinterested testimony. Happily the better instincts of civilization soon awoke to the real character of the whole proceeding, and the Church was exonerated among good men from any complicity, however just, in the death of the traitor.