THE POOR AND THE RELIGIOUS ORDERS
CHAPTER V
THE POOR AND THE RELIGIOUS ORDERS
My readers may be inclined to think that the Religious Orders are a kind of King Charles’ head, which I, a twentieth century Mr. Dick, am unable to keep out of this book. The truth is that in an attempt such as this to make intelligible the views and aspirations of the working classes of Spain, the Religious Orders are the central and dominating fact which overshadows everything else. Whether we discuss the material condition of the poor, their education, their political disabilities, or whatever it may be, and make any attempt to analyse the matter and discover the reasons of their deplorably backward condition, we always get back to the Religious Orders as the cause—if not in actual fact, at any rate in the firm and unshakeable conviction of the people—of all their misfortunes.
It must be remembered, in connection with the Religious Orders, that the position of nearly all of them in Spain is illegal. According to the Concordat, made before the expulsion of Isabel II., the only Orders allowed in Spain are those of St. Vincent of Paul, St. Philip Neri, and one other, to be nominated by the Pope by agreement with the Government, while all closed Orders of nuns are prohibited. The Pope has never yet named the third Order, and apparently no steps are ever taken to oblige him to carry out his part of the bargain.
I will now give—generally in the words of the narrators—typical instances of the way in which the Religious Orders are said to interfere with the livelihood of the working classes, and of the manner in which once wealthy families have been brought to ruin through their machinations.
The porter of a Jesuit college—for the servants of these institutions love their employers no better than do their friends and relatives outside—told his brother, who told me, that every night during the first two or three weeks in August, 1909, after the Barcelona riots, refugees were admitted to the college. At least eighty, he said, came in all. They slipped in secretly, after the lights were out, disguised in lay dress, often of the poorest description, having travelled half dead with fear [muertos de miedo] from Cataluña. That the porter’s story was true was proved by the large purchases of provisions made by the college during that month. A baker told me that the frailes were more insistent than ever that all the waste bread should be given to them “for the poor.” And, he added, the “good Fathers” were already buying twice their usual supply of him. “The frailes always demand all the bread we put by for the poor,” said my friend. “We would prefer to give it direct to the poor ourselves, for we do not feel sure how much of it they get from the frailes, whose house-keepers are great hands at making pasteles and dulces[7] for sale to good Catholic families. These good Catholic families prefer to buy their pasteles cheap from the friars, who say that they are sold for the good of the Church. We do not care to give our stale bread to be used in injuring the trade of our companions the confectioners; for the friars, having no taxes to pay, can naturally undersell ordinary tradesmen, and all the more when they get the bread for their confectionery free. But if we said that we wished to give our bread to our own acquaintances among the poor, the Jesuits would ruin us. They would tell all their clients that we were bad men and enemies of the Church, and we should lose all our trade. We know this by experience. So we give our stale bread to the frailes and they let us live. But the poor are getting no bread from the frailes since the Barcelona business.”
During the disturbances in Cataluña it was said that “shiploads” of monks and nuns were being landed in the middle of the night at sundry ports along the coast, and that they so effectually betrayed themselves by their nervousness of manner that the country people had not the slightest doubt as to who and what they were. But as the people had no desire to injure them personally—notwithstanding a certain amount of talk about cutting throats and hanging—they were permitted to pass unmolested, though it is true that there were occasional scowls at ill-clad individuals who wore their trousers “with a difference,” as though they missed the flowing skirts of their cloth.
And it must be remembered that at the very time that these frightened men and women were travelling the country in disguise, numbers of families were sorrowfully bidding farewell to sons, brothers, and husbands, on their departure to the war which, as the people will always believe, was begun in the interest of Jesuit capitalists, sheltering their ownership of the Morocco mines and the great steamer companies behind the names of lay millionaires.