A History of the Inquisition of Spain; vol. 4

by Henry Charles Lea

VICISSITUDES OF TOLERATION

There still remained the juntas de fe of the bishops, some, at least, of whom persisted in maintaining them, with the old inquisitorial methods, in spite of the constitution of Pius VIII and the royal decree of February 6, 1830. Their continuance was incompatible with the rapidly increasing anticlerical spirit of the dominant party, and they were prohibited by a decree of July 1, 1835, in which, after alluding to the disregard of the papal and royal utterances, Cristina ordered that they should cease immediately wherever they had been established. The ordinary episcopal courts were required to observe the law of the Partidas, the canons and the common law in all cases of faith and others, of which the extinguished Inquisition had had cognizance, conforming their procedure to that in other ecclesiastical matters and admitting the appeals allowed by law. Cases of solicitation were provided for by a clause providing that, where scandal or offence to morals might ensue, a prudent secrecy should be observed, the hearings to be held with closed doors, in the presence of the accused and his counsel, from whom nothing was to be withheld.[1030] Thus the last trace of inquisitorial procedure was forbidden on Spanish soil.

After so many centuries of conscientious intolerance, the lesson of toleration was hard to learn. On August 14, 1836, the Motin de la Granja forced Cristina to proclaim once more the Constitution of 1812, with its prohibition of any religion save Roman Catholicism. This instrument, with all its crudities, was soon found to be unworkable, and the Constitution of 1837 marked an advance, in its simple declaration that the State obligated itself to maintain the cult and ministers of the Catholic religion, which was that of Spaniards. Then came a reaction and, when the Constitution was revised in 1845, the principle of intolerance was reaffirmed. The European disturbances of 1848 strengthened this spirit in the Church, and it found expression in the penal code of 1851, of which Articles, 128, 129, 130 and 131 inflict imprisonment and exile for any attempt to change the religion of Spain, for public worship in other faiths, for apostatizing from Catholicism, or for publishing doctrines in opposition to it.[1031] The Spanish bishops were even encouraged to call for the revival of the Inquisition under their management, but this would have been superfluous.[1032] That the law was quite sufficient for the repression of Protestant propaganda was shown, in 1855 by the long imprisonment and exile of Francisco Ruet at Barcelona. It is true that in 1856, during the brief return of the Liberals to power, a Constitution on a more tolerant basis was framed, but a speedy reaction prevented this from going into effect, and the instrument of 1845 remained in force until the revolution of 1868. Ruet’s chief disciple was Manuel Matamoros, who made numerous converts in Málaga, Granada and Seville, but, in 1860, prosecution caused to fly to Barcelona, where he was thrown in gaol and taken back to Granada. Some twenty more were arrested, among whom were his two principal aids José Alhama and Trigo. Matamoros and Alhama were condemned to eight years of presidio and Trigo to four, while similar sentences were pronounced in Seville on Tomas Bordallo and Diego Mesa Santaello. The affair made a sensation throughout Europe; the Evangelical Alliance bestirred itself and a deputation representing nearly every nation assembled in Madrid to intercede for the convicts. The pressure was so great that, on May 20, 1862, the sentence rendered three weeks before was commuted to nine years’ of exile, which enabled the Evangelicals, from the safe refuge of Gibraltar, to maintain relations with their secret converts.[1033] That under this reaction the resuscitation of the Inquisition was seriously considered, may be assumed from the publication, in 1859, of a pamphlet containing the speech of Ostolaza, in the Córtes of Cádiz, in favor of the Inquisition, and those of Muñoz Torrero and Toreno against it, with the manifesto of the Córtes, thus contributing to the debate, under the guise of impartiality, the weight of argument against the Holy Office.[1034]

When came the revolution of 1868, the Constituent Córtes, after a vigorous debate, affirmed, May 8, 1869, the principle of religious liberty by the decisive vote of 163 to 40. In the new Constitution, proclaimed June 6th, the free exercise, public and private, of faiths other than Catholicism was guaranteed both to foreigners and Spaniards.[1035] Under this the Código penal reformado, which is still in force, provides penalties of fine and imprisonment for any interference with religious belief, whether by constraint to acts of worship or impeding those of the individual’s chosen faith.[1036] Finally, in 1876, still another Constitution, which has endured to the present time, after declaring Roman Catholicism to be the religion of the State, prohibits the molestation of any one for religious opinion or for the exercise of his cult, in so far as Christian morals are respected, but it does not permit public ceremonies other than those of the State religion.[1037]

VICISSITUDES OF TOLERATION

This summary of the vicissitudes in the progress of toleration, since the suppression of the Inquisition, is not foreign to our subject, for it teaches two lessons. One is that the main assaults on the ecclesiastical system of Spain, its members and its temporalities, were committed before toleration was extended to the heretic, for the secularization of church property, the abrogation of tithes and first fruits and the suppression of the regular Orders were chiefly effected by measures adopted between 1835 and 1855. The other is that the slender results of Protestant propagandism, from the days of George Borrow to those of Pastor Fliedner, show how little Catholicism has to fear from such efforts among a people who, if they abandon the faith of their fathers, are much more apt to seek refuge in negation of religion than in heresy. Together they demonstrate that the terrors of the Inquisition were superfluous, and that the injuries which it inflicted on Spain were not compensated by any corresponding benefits, even from the stand-point of the Church.

CHAPTER II.
RETROSPECT.

PRESENT CONDITION

NO modern European nation has endured such vicissitudes of good and evil fortune as the Spanish. From the virtual anarchy of the Castilian kingdoms under Juan II and Enrique IV, the resolute wills of Ferdinand and Isabella evoked order and, by the union with Aragon, the conquest of Granada, Naples and Navarre and the acquisition of the New World, they left Spain in a most commanding position. When, under Charles V, to this were added the Netherlands, the Austrian possessions, Milan and the headship of the Holy Roman Empire, the hegemony of Europe was secured, and the prospect of attaining the universal monarchy seemed sufficiently possible to arouse the fears of Europe. The loss of the Empire and of Austria, awarded to the younger branch of the Hapsburgs, strengthened rather than weakened the inheritance of Philip II, by rendering it less cumbrous and unwieldy, while the acquisition of Portugal unified the Peninsula and the increasing wealth of the Indies promised almost unlimited resources for the extension of his power. Yet this power, so colossal in outward seeming, was already becoming a mere shell, covering emptiness and poverty, for its rulers had exhausted the nation in enterprises beyond its strength and foreign to its interests. Throughout the seventeenth century its downward progress was rapid until, at the death of Carlos II, in 1700, it had reached a depth of misery and helplessness in which it might almost despair of recuperation. Yet its efforts, in the War of Succession, showed that it still possessed a virile nationality; its decadence was arrested, and a slow upward progress was begun, accelerated under the enlightened rule of Carlos III, until, at his death in 1788, it had so far regained its position that, if not yet a power of the first rank, it might not unhopefully look forward to attaining that position. Then followed the weak and disastrous reign of Carlos IV, under the guidance of Godoy, when impotence invited the intrusion of Napoleon, resulting in the manifestation of national energy, which surprised the world in the heroic War of Liberation. After the Restoration in 1814, the land was, for more than half a century the scene of almost unintermittent conflict between antagonistic forces, resulting in the apathy of exhaustion after attaining the form of democratic constitutional monarchy. Yet we are told that absolute monarchy has merely been replaced by absolute Caciquismo or, in American parlance, the rule of the political “boss.”[1038] Government, it seems, is exploited purely for the private interest of the office-holding class and the strength of the nation has been wasted, its development has been neglected, until the unexpected feebleness revealed in the war of 1898 led earnest patriots to declare that, if the existing maladministration were to continue, it would be better to seek shelter under England or France, and to put an end to the history of Spain as an independent nation.[1039] This shock to the national consciousness, and the skilful and vigorous agitation to which it gave birth, bear promise of results in the political as well as in the material and industrial development of the land, and we may reasonably hope that a nation, which has suffered so much with fortitude, is entering upon a new career that may make amends for the miseries of the past.