CHAPTER IX.
Fasts and Penances—How observed—Indulgences—Spain is privileged by the Bull of the Holy Crusade—Description of that bull—Prices of copies—Commissary-General of Crusades—His Revenues—Their shameful application—Copy of that bull—Other acts of penance—The Disciplina or whipping—Cilicios.
The Roman Catholic Church prescribes two kinds of mortification with respect to food, viz., fasting and abstinence from meat. Fasting is obligatory during the whole period of Lent, and on the eve of each principal feast-day in the year. To comply with this obligation, it is enough to eat a mere formal meal on these days, consisting of some light vegetable diet in the morning, and again in the evening. This observance, however, admits of some indulgence, and confessors are wont to absolve many of their penitents from its severity, under pretext of their having to do hard work, or to contend with physical infirmity. The clergy, besides the fasting common to all the devout, are bound also, during the holy week, to abstain from eggs, milk, and all sorts of food which come under the denomination of lacticinio, or any thing of which milk or eggs form a component part. Friars and nuns fast, also,
during the whole of the period called advent; and when those obligations are truly performed, there is no doubt that they have a considerable influence on the physical constitution. Medical men are authorised to consent to its infraction by their patients. In some religious communities of both sexes, but especially in those of the Capuchines, the fast-days are multiplied to such an extent, that they compose the greater number of days in the year.
Abstinence from meat varies in the different bishoprics, according to the established custom or the bishop’s will. In France, for example, in some dioceses they never eat animal food on Fridays or Saturdays; in others, Friday only is a fast-day, but in all of them abstinence from meat is obligatory during the whole of Lent, Sundays excepted.
Spain is a country privileged in this respect. By virtue of a contribution paid to the government, and which the latter divides with the Pope, Spaniards are absolved from the greater part of all those duties. The origin of this privilege dates from the time of the crusades, when the popes, in order to meet the expenses of those expeditions, imposed this tribute on Spaniards, in exchange for the dispensation. In course of time, however, this usage was abolished; but Charles III. solicited of the Pope its renovation, with a view of depriving the English of the vast sums of money which they received in Spain from the produce of the stockfish (bacalao) of Terranova. This singular institution, called the Holy Crusade, occupies a great number of public officials, and had produced immense
sums previous to the general change of ideas brought about in Spain by the war of invasion by the French. In every year, at the beginning of January, the Commissary of the Holy Crusade, who is generally a high personage among the clergy, and his attendants, set out in carriages, with a procession consisting of his subalterns and the municipal body-guard of the city. In one of the carriages is unfurled and exposed to view the standard of the Holy Crusade. From that day the sale of the bull is opened, and several thousands of copies of this bull are printed. The price of each copy is about sevenpence. The printing is executed in a very inferior manner, and the paper used for the occasion is of the most inferior quality. The bull in substance states that the contributor, having paid the money required for it, is authorised for a year to enjoy all the prerogatives which it concedes to him. By its influence, the days of abstinence from meat are reduced to Ash-Wednesday and the Fridays in Lent, the last three days of the holy week, and the eve of the great festivals.
The Commissary-General of Crusades, the absolute master of this enormous public revenue, is bound to deliver a part of the profits to the treasury, and to lay out the rest in works of benevolence in such manner as he, in the exercise of his charity, may think fit. This important office is usually conferred on some one of the clergy who may happen to be a favourite of the court; and almost every person who has attained this distinction has been notorious for his luxuriousness and prodigality. It is related of some of them in the time of Ferdinand VII., that having exhausted all
inventions in the culinary art, in the splendid banquets given by them frequently to the chief persons of the court, they have even placed upon their tables live sardines, brought from a distance of three hundred miles through a country in which there were no regular roads, swimming in sea water, in large glass bowls, and after gratifying the guests with the amusement which such a spectacle afforded, the little finned creatures were then sent to the kitchen, and served up as a dish of the greatest delicacy.
It is a public thing in Madrid, and one which is spoken of without the least disguise, that a large portion of those funds is set apart as pensions of considerable amounts to the mistresses of grandees, and persons in high offices of the state, and also in order to political and other purposes, far alien to the objects of the institution. The Roman Catholics of other countries are scarcely able to credit that so monstrous an abuse of the pontifical authority really exists, it not being possible to conceive that, for a paltry sum of money, Christians can remain exempt from an obligation considered sacred by Catholicism.