Roman Catholicism in Spain

by Anonymous

The Agonizante of Madrid [81] (which is the third case) also murdered the companion of his vices, on her own bed too, in which they had passed the preceding night. The true motive of this murder could never be satisfactorily ascertained. But the friar having been taken in flagrante, the judges could not hesitate for a moment in passing sentence of death upon him. All the Spanish clergy had recourse to Ferdinand VII., and used their utmost influence to obtain a pardon, or at least a commutation of the sentence; but the king was inflexible, and the criminal died at the hands of the executioner, by the garrote, in the Plazuela de la Cebada, in Madrid.

Under the same reign of Ferdinand VII., the Convent of the Basilios of Madrid was the theatre of most scandalous and sanguinary atrocities, which had their origin in the relaxed manners of the inhabitants of that establishment. The friars were accustomed to introduce by night into the cloisters women of ill fame, and this custom had grown into something like a right or privilege, which the friars were resolved to maintain at all hazards, as it was afterwards proved; for the abbot, who until then had connived at these irregularities, wished all of a sudden to adopt a system of the utmost rigour and discipline, and to reduce the friars to the severe observances of their order. The convent was situated in the most populous part of Madrid. One night in the year 1832, loud screams were heard

by the inhabitants of the opposite houses, and by people who were passing in the streets. The civil authorities were called to the spot, and informed of the circumstances. They demanded entrance at the doors of the convent, but the friars refused to comply. Force became necessary. The gates were broken open, and the officers rushed in. All, however, that the public could ever learn of that nocturnal invasion was simply that the head of the unfortunate abbot was found in one cell, and his trunk in another. Ferdinand VII. did not on that occasion display the same degree of indignation and severity as he had done towards the Agonizante. He was at that moment in all the plenitude of his despotic power, and this mysterious affair of the convent of the Basilios was buried in the most profound oblivion.

These terms of harmony have always existed between the Spanish monarchs and the clergy, who have been accustomed to lend themselves, reciprocally, to the interests and persecutions of each other; and hence it is that a great number of crimes similar to that just referred to has never before been brought to light. Some of these, however, have been of such a nature and magnitude, and accompanied with such extraordinary circumstances, that, in spite of the efforts made by the clergy to conceal them, they have not altogether eluded the public curiosity. To this class belongs the celebrated case of the Capuchines of Cascante, the recollection of which is traditionally preserved, and is still the subject of many a conversation, although to the present day we are not aware of any account that has been published on the subject of that shameful

transaction. There still exist those who either were children in the time of Charles III., or who heard, from the lips of their fathers or grandfathers, all the particulars of that flagrant case, as well as of the extraordinary sensation which the discoveries then made produced on the public mind. The facts, which appear indisputable, are these:—Towards the middle of the reign of that sovereign, a prelate of one of the districts of the province of Arragon had good reason to believe that there existed intimate and criminal relations between the nuns and the friars of two convents situated in the same town. It had been observed that the number of foundlings had been for some time considerably on the increase, many of which were left, by persons unknown, in the houses of poor women, who received with them very considerable sums of money. At first, no suspicion whatever fell on the friars, who continued their offices of preaching, saying mass, confessing penitents, and giving ostentatious indications of their leading humble and ascetic lives. A diligent watch was instituted by the authorities, but as far as exterior observances went, there was no reason to believe that any suspicious persons from without ever entered the convent of the nuns; it was therefore thought right to have an internal examination of that convent, a measure never had recourse to by the authorities but on occasions of the gravest kind.

The result of this step was, that in the interior of the edifice was discovered a door leading to a subterranean passage or tunnel which crossed underneath the principal street of the town, and led direct to the

convent of the Capuchines. All the inmates of both establishments were immediately taken prisoners; a judicial examination followed, when it was found that for many years the societies of these two convents had been living in a state of concubinage,—that even the outward doors of the two houses were seldom shut at night,—that the friars had free ingress to the convent of the nuns, where both sexes gave themselves up to the most dissolute abandonment in drunkenness, gluttony, debauchery, and all sorts of carnal excesses. The authorities found more than they had expected, and began to repent the course they had taken. The trials, however, were pushed forward apparently with all usual formalities, but the judges were exclusively ecclesiastics, and everything was conducted with profound caution and secrecy. The prisoners were removed to several towns in Arragon, and kept apart from each other, in different cells; but in one single night they all disappeared, and were never afterwards heard of. The only part which the civil authority took in this mysterious affair was to command the two convents to be pulled down, and salt to be sown on their foundations,—a ceremony which was accordingly performed, and one which the laws of Spain then required as to all houses which had been the scene of any atrocious offence.

It may hardly be necessary to reiterate what we have already more than once insisted on, as a well authenticated fact, that in the midst of all such irregularities and crimes as those detailed to show the unnatural and violent character of celibacy in the clergy, there

always have been, in Spain, a large number of persons of both sexes, who have been privileged to take up and bear this cross of privation with singular resignation and constancy. But those efforts on the side of virtue, that perpetual conflict with sentiments most grateful to the human heart,—and that separation of an entire class, constituted in society self-acting, without any relation of endearment towards a general society,—may be considered as some of the grave inconveniences of Roman Catholicism, or rather as some of the most formidable obstacles which that faith opposes to the regular habits and to the peace of families.

The dangers of celibacy in the clergy are perhaps more serious and more inevitable in Spain than in any other country of Europe. The Spanish nation is, generally, renowned for its chivalrous sentiments, for the violence of the tender passions, and for the influence which the fair sex exercises, not only in all the domestic but in the civil and political relations of life. There is, in the society of the Spanish lady, a distinctive feature of character, called franqueza, which, above all others, gives her the greatest charm in the eyes of a foreigner. She is eminently sociable, and is the life and essence of Spanish society, in which she maintains an imperium over all tastes, affections, and operations. Besides this, it is the universal custom of Spaniards to be constantly going in and out of one another’s houses without ceremony or invitation; and this frequent contact with Spanish women, generally pretty, but almost always amiable and graceful, naturally produces intimate relations, and not unfrequently reciprocal attachments.