The War Upon Religion / Being an Account of the Rise and Progress of Anti-Christianism in Europe

by Francis A. Cunningham

There was indeed a moment when the tide of revolution seemed forced back towards failure, and in that moment Candido Reis, the principal instigator of the revolution, committed suicide. The news only aroused the mob to increased fury, and sent them burning with anti-clerical hatred against the helpless religious. The horrors and the excesses of that oppression have been demonstrated by the numberless murders and by the horrible cruelties practised upon the defenceless victims of "Liberty."

It is probable that the complete story of the persecution inflicted upon the religious of Portugal will never be known. Some of the victims have disappeared as completely as if the earth had swallowed them. But the history of the survivors is full enough in its appalling details to give an idea of the utter barbarity of the oppressors and the ignorance which impelled them to action.

Against the Jesuits the Portuguese secret societies have entertained an abiding hatred ever since the days of the infamous Pombal. Long before the late Revolution the writer visited the ancient church of the Jesuits in Ponte Delgado in the Azores Islands, and there beheld the evidences of vandalism perpetrated years before upon altars and shrines that have not their equal in the world. Naturally the fury of the mob, in the recent upheaval, sought out these Fathers as a worthy object of brutality, and inflicted upon them indignities with a savagery worthy of the inhabitants of the Fiji Islands.

Three of the great Jesuit institutions met with especial attention, those of Quelhas, Barro and Campolide. When the revolutionists stormed the first of these establishments, they reported a story that the priests had fired bombs upon the soldiers, and then retreated into underground passages to hide. The facts of the case, as it later developed, showed that the house at Quelhas had actually been shut by the Government and deserted by the Jesuits. Nevertheless the story of the bombs and the underground passages went the round of the press of the world. These underground passages, by the way, were shown to be little sewer conduits about eight or ten inches in diameter, so that it would be extremely difficult for even the most ascetic Jesuit Father to enter, much less to live in them.

The College at Barro was one of the finest in Portugal, and it is a noteworthy fact in connection with it, that on the very last day of his reign the young King had signed a decree closing that Novitiate. In the house on the day of its attack there were eighty-six priests, brothers, novices and students, all members or intending to be members of the Society of Jesus. It is well known that the lower class of the Portuguese who fell under secret society influence were superstitious to an incredible degree. Hence, when it became noised abroad that there were strange apparatus in the college, such things as microscopes, X-rays, radium, and electrical appliances, the excited mob held up its hands in holy horror. The Jesuits who had such things, and talked in such learned language could surely be nothing less than hobgoblins, unnatural sprites and wicked spirits. The sentiment was fostered and encouraged in them by the unscrupulous spirits of discontent, who knew that anarchy could never prosper while learning and virtue remained unabused.

On October 5, the college was sacked, and its inmates marched out. After a humiliating journey on the railroad, they were finally imprisoned in the fortress of Caxeas. Father Torrent, a learned scientist of the band, was in a few days liberated as a French citizen.

The college at Campolide, the glory of Portuguese educational institutions, shared the same fate. Its Fathers were arrested and led away to swell the number of prisoners at Caxeas. The collection of laboratory apparatus, one of the finest in Europe, was delivered up to the fury of a mob, who could no more appreciate their worth than the savages of Africa. The magnificent library of 25,000 volumes contained rare works that can never be duplicated.

The wave of indignation and contempt that followed in the whole world when the true nature and character of the revolutionists began to be known, has urged the Portuguese controllers to excuse and palliate their acts. When the nuns were driven from their convents they were led to the vile quarters of the arsenal where their humiliations were continued. It was said that this was done to protect them from the mob; yet it is now known that the mob had no intention of sacking the convents; this work was done almost altogether by the soldiers and sailors. In fact when a few soldiers guarded the Irish convent at Belim, the Dominican convent at Benfrica, and the Irish Dominican monastery at Corpo Santo, the mob had nothing to do, and these convents remained untouched.

When the nuns were taken from their convents they were piled like criminals into any handy vehicle, and then driven in the midst of a shouting, hooting mob along the streets. The soldiers who marched with them, as is shown in the many photographs taken of the event, laughed with idiotic bravado, and assumed as much importance as if their delicate, helpless charges were so many fierce warrior captives taken on the field of battle. In the Arsenal several hundreds of them were huddled together in one large room. Here they were visited by Senhor Affonso Costa, the Minister of Justice, who swaggered about among the gentle-minded ladies, roared at them, and glared with his magnetic eye. For three hours he questioned and insulted them, while a score of attendant press agents took down his magnificent bravadoes to be embellished for the press of the day. Except for the misery of the poor Sisters, the whole scene was worthy of one of Sullivan's comic operas, calling for laughter where it did not inspire contempt.

This is the Portuguese Republic, the government to which the people of Portugal have been consigned. Its direction is plainly indicated from the fact that one of its first proposed laws is that which permits of free divorce. The Republic of Portugal has one rival on earth, that of the West Indies, to which people, laughing, give the name of Hayti.