Liberalism in Spain.
The leaven of Liberalism has been working mightily in the direction of the severance of church and state in the land of the Inquisition.
The weak and capricious youngster who occupies the throne of Spain sent assurances to the Pope, late in October, of his filial attachment, and all that sort of thing. Six days later he signed the Associations bill, which had just passed the Chamber of Deputies, restricting the power and influence of the church in a degree but slightly less than in France. Then he made a little speech. There is an old Spanish custom that the premier should give a banquet at the end of each year that he and his colleagues in the ministry have been continuously in office. In view of the fact, as the young king recalled, that one hundred and twelve ministers had taken the oath before him during the four years and a half since his coronation, there had been no banquets at the expense of an incumbent premier. Alfonso, in signing the Associations bill, expressed the hope that Gen. Lopez Dominguez, who was then at the head of the Liberal ministry, with a large Liberal majority behind him in the Cortes, “would be able to reintroduce so pleasant a custom.”
And the premier said he hoped so, too.
Having passed the lower house and received the signature of the king, the reform measure which is agitating all Spain went back to the Senate. It must pass that body, and again receive the signature of the king, to become the law of the land.
Since 1876, when the Roman Catholic Church was reestablished as the state religion of Spain, after a period of seven years of freedom of thought, of education, of burial, etc., the Liberals have been slowly regaining the liberties secured by the revolution of 1868. The church has made strenuous resistance and has pursued a reactionary policy which has finally aroused all the liberal and progressive forces. The state already provided that marriages between Roman Catholics must be recorded in the civil register in order to have legal validity, but the church contends that civil unions are valid only when they are performed according to canon law. The church has also arrayed itself against the municipal control of cemeteries, and demands that the custom of setting apart certain sections of such cemeteries for the burial of foreigners and non-Catholic Spaniards shall be discontinued. Now the Liberals, who are in power, have taken the bit in their teeth, so to speak. It is proposed to emancipate the schools from monastic teaching, and to require a state registration of all the monastic orders in Spain, of which there is a large and increasing number since the agitation began in France. In short the state will insist upon the absolute control of civil marriages, the municipal control of the cemeteries, and a strict regulation of the monastic orders.
In the meantime Gen. Dominguez will not give that dinner. One faction in the Cortes thought that some time should be devoted to a consideration of the budget, as well as to the separation act, and he was forced to resign. A new cabinet was formed which lasted just three days—including a Sunday—and resigned. The Marquis de Armijo has succeeded in forming another cabinet, with old Gen. Weyler, by the way, as minister of war, and he is endeavoring to go on—with what success remains to be seen.