The Civil servant, as a rule, could feel no personal interest in his temporary native neighbours, his hopes being centred only in rising in the Civil Service there or elsewhere—Cuba or Porto Rico, or where the ministerial wheel of fortune placed him.
The younger priests—narrow-minded and biased—those who had just entered into provincial curacies—were frequently the greater bigots. Enthusiastic in their calling, they pursued with ardour their mission of proselytism without experience of the world. They entered the Islands with the zeal of youth, bringing with them the impression imparted to them in Spain, that they were sent to make a moral conquest of savages. In the course of years, after repeated rebuffs, and the obligation to participate in the affairs of everyday life in all its details, their rigidity of principle relaxed, and they became more tolerant towards those with whom they necessarily came in contact. They were usually taken from the peasantry and families of lowly station. As a rule they had little or no secular education, and, regarding them apart from their religious training, they might be considered a very ignorant class. Amongst them the Franciscan friars appeared to be the least—and the Austins the most—polished of all.
The Spanish parish priest was consulted by the native in all matters; he was, by force of circumstances, often compelled to become an architect,—to build the church in his adopted village—an engineer, to make or mend roads, and more frequently a doctor. His word was paramount in his parish, and in his residence he dispensed with that stern severity of conventual discipline to which he had been accustomed in the Peninsula. Hence it was really here that his mental capacity was developed, his manners improved, and that the raw sacerdotal peasant was converted into the man of thought, study, and talent—occasionally into a gentleman. In his own vicinity, when isolated from European residents, he was practically the representative of the Government and of the white race as well as of social order. His theological knowledge was brought to bear upon the most mundane subjects. His thoughts necessarily expanded as the exclusiveness of his religious vocation yielded to the realization of a social position and political importance of which he had never entertained an idea in his native country.
So large was the party opposed to the continuance of priestly influence in the Colony that a six-monthsʼ resident would not fail to hear of the many misdeeds with which the friars in general were reproached. It would be contrary to fact to pretend that the bulk of them supported their teaching by personal example. I was acquainted with a great number of the friars, and their offspring too, in spite of their vow of chastity; whilst many lived in comparative luxury, notwithstanding their vow of poverty.
There was the late parish priest of Malolos, whose son, my friend, was a prominent lawyer. Father S——, of Bugason, had a whole family living in his parish. An Archbishop who held the See in my time had a daughter frequently seen on the Paseo de Santa Lucia; and in July, 1904, two of his daughters lived in Calle Quiotan, Santa Cruz, Manila, and two others, by a different mother, in the town of O——. The late parish priest of Lipa, Father B——, whom I knew, had a son whom I saw in 1893. The late incumbent of Santa Cruz, Father M—— L——, induced his spiritual flock to petition against his being made prior of his Order in Manila so that he should not have to leave his women. The late parish priest (friar) of Baliuag (Bulacan) had three daughters and two sons. I was intimately acquainted with the latter; one was a doctor of medicine and the other a planter, and they bore the surname of Gonzalez. At Cadiz Nuevo (Negros Is.) I once danced with the daughter of a friar (parish priest of a neighbouring village), whilst he took another girl as his partner. I was closely acquainted, and resided more than once, with a very mixed-up family in the south of Negros Island. My host was the son of a secular clergyman, his wife and sister-in-law were the daughters of a friar, this sister-in-law was the mistress of a friar, my host had a son who was married to another friarʼs daughter, and a daughter who was the wife of a foreigner. In short, bastards of the friars are to be found everywhere in the Islands. Regarding this merely as the natural outcome of the celibate rule, I do not criticize it, but simply wish to show that the pretended sanctity of the regular clergy in the Philippines was an absurdity, and that the monks were in no degree less frail than mankind in common.
The mysterious deaths of General Solano (August 1860) and of Zamora, the Bishop-elect of Cebú (1873), occurred so opportunely for Philippine monastic ambition that little doubt existed in the public mind as to who were the real criminals. When I first arrived in Manila, a quarter of a century ago, a fearful crime was still being commented on. Father Piernavieja, formerly parish priest of San Miguel de Mayumo, had recently committed a second murder. His first victim was a native youth, his second a native woman enceinte. The public voice could not be raised very loudly then against the priests, but the scandal was so great that the criminal friar was sent to another province—Cavite—where he still celebrated the holy sacrifice of the Eucharist. Nearly two decades afterwards—in January 1897—this rascal met with a terrible death at the hands of the rebels. He was in captivity, and having been appointed “Bishop” in a rebel diocese, to save his life he accepted the mock dignity; but, unfortunately for himself, he betrayed the confidence of his captors, and collected information concerning their movements, plans, and strongholds for remittance to his Order. In expiation of his treason he was bound to a post under the tropical sun and left there to die. See how the public in Spain are gulled! In a Málaga newspaper this individual was referred to as a “venerable figure, worthy of being placed high up on an altar, before which all Spaniards should prostrate themselves and adore him. As a religieux he was a most worthy minister of the Lord; as a patriot he was a hero.”
Within my recollection, too, a friar absconded from a Luzon Island parish with a large sum of parochial funds, and was never heard of again. The late parish priests of Mandaloyan and Iba did the same.
I well remember another interesting character of the monastic Orders. He had been parish priest in a Zambales province town, but intrigues with a soi-disant cousine brought him under ecclesiastical arrest at the convent of his Order in Manila. Thence he escaped, and came over to Hong-Kong, where I made his acquaintance in 1890. He told me he had started life in an honest way as a shoemakerʼs boy, but was taken away from his trade to be placed in the seminary. His mind seemed to be a blank on any branch of study beyond shoemaking and Church ritual. He pretended that he had come over to Hong-Kong to seek work, but in reality he was awaiting his cousine, whom he rejoined on the way to Europe, where, I heard, he became a garçon de café in France.
In 1893 there was another great public scandal, when the friars were openly accused of having printed the seditious proclamations whose authorship they attributed to the natives. The plan of the friars was to start the idea of an intended revolt, in order that they might be the first in the field to quell it, and thus be able to again proclaim to the Home Government the absolute necessity of their continuance in the Islands for the security of Spanish sovereignty. But the plot was discovered; the actual printer, a friar, mysteriously disappeared, and the courageous Gov.-General Despujols, Conde de Caspe, was, through monastic influence, recalled. He was very popular, and the public manifestation of regret at his departure from the Islands was practically a protest against the Religious Orders.
In June, 1888, some cases of personal effects belonging to a friar were consigned to the care of an intimate friend of mine, whose guest I was at the time. They had become soaked with sea-water before he received them, and a neighbouring priest requested him to open the packages and do what he could to save the contents. I assisted my friend in this task, and amongst the friarʼs personal effects we were surprised to find, intermixed with prayer-books, scapularies, missals, prints of saints, etc., about a dozen most disgustingly obscene double-picture slides for a stereoscope. What an entertainment for a guide in morals! This same friar had held a vicarage before in another province, but having become an habitual drunkard, he was removed to Manila, and there appointed a confessor. From Manila he had just been again sent to take charge of the cure of souls.