Mexico is the only Catholic country in which the Church has remained unchanged during all the revolutions of the last half century. The French infidel armies, and the wars and revolutions that followed the French invasions, overturned the Church of Spain and Italy, so that the Church organization that now exists in those peninsulas is a new creation. Not so in Mexico. Its revolution was for the purpose of saving the privileges of the Church from the too sweeping reforms of the Cortes of Spain. And there it now stands, with all the properties and annuities which it enjoyed in the time of the idiot kings. The Inquisition no longer enforces with fire the censures of the Church, and men are no longer compelled by legal process to pay tithes. But for these losses the Church has received a heavy compensation. The priests and inquisitors who ruled the childish court of Spain would allow no independence to the Mexican Church, but supplied, by royal appointment, all the candidates for vacant bishoprics and chapters, while the Vice-king was allowed to fill the inferior offices of the Church.
By the partial separation of Church and state which took place in 1833, the Church of Mexico became independent of the state. The chapters acquired the right of electing their own bishops; the bishops, by virtue of their spiritual authority, appointing the priests and exercising control over all Church property as quasi corporations-sole, at least over all property not vested in religious communities, if practically there could be said to be any real exception. What that newly-acquired power of the Mexican bishops amounts to, we in the United States, from our own experience of the same authority, can judge.
STATISTICS OF THE CHURCH.
That the reader may know how extensive is this money-power of the bishops, I subjoin an extract from a statistical chart[63] ] published by Señor Lerdo de Tejado, First Official de Ministerio de Fomento, the following synopsis of the clergy and their incomes:
"There is one archbishop, the Archbishop of Mexico, and eleven bishops, and one to be created at Vera Cruz. There are 184 prebends and 1229 parishes. The total number of ecclesiastics is 3223.[64] ] There are 146 convents of monks and 59 convents of nuns, and 8 colleges for propagating the faith. The convents of monks are inhabited by 1139 persons, and there are 1541 nuns in convents, and with them 740 young girls and 870 servants. There are 238 persons in the colleges for propagating the faith." This is less than half the number of the religios under the vice-kings, while the riches of the Church have immensely increased, as we shall presently see.
REVENUE OF THE CHURCH.
I translate from the same author, in a note, statistics upon the much-agitated question of the wealth of the Church of Mexico,[65] ] from which it will be seen that the total amount consumed in the maintenance of these 3223 persons, is annually $20,000,000, besides the very large sums expended in the repairs and ornaments of an enormous number of churches, and in gifts at the shrines of the different images, which can not be appropriated to the maintenance of the clergy. This sum of $20,000,000, if fairly divided among them, would yield an abundant support, though not an extravagant living; but, unfortunately, the greatest portion of this immense sum is absorbed by the bishops, while the priests of the villages contrive to exist by the contributions they wring out of the peons. At the time of the census, 1793, the twelve bishops had $539,000[66] ] appropriated to their support; but now their revenues are so mixed up with the revenues of the Church, that it is impossible to say how much these twelve successors of the apostles appropriate to their own support.
MONEY-POWER OF THE CHURCH.
In place of the Inquisition which the reformed Spanish government took away from the Church of Mexico, the Church now wields the power of wealth, almost fabulous in amount, which is practically in the hands of a close corporation-sole. The influence of the Archbishop, as the substantial owner of half the property in the city of Mexico, gives him a power over his tenants unknown under our system of laws. Besides this, a large portion of the Church property is in money, and the Archbishop is the great loan and trust company of Mexico. Nor is this power by any means an insignificant one. A bankrupt government is overawed by it. Men of intellect are crushed into silence; and no opposition can successfully stand against the influence of this Church lord, who carries in his hands the treasures of heaven, and in his money-bags the material that moves the world. To understand the full force of his power of money, it must be borne in mind that Mexico is a country proverbial for recklessness in all conditions of life; for extravagant living and extravagant equipages; a country where a man's position in society is determined by the state he maintains; a country, the basis of whose wealth is the mines of precious metal; where princely fortunes are quickly acquired and suddenly lost, and where hired labor has hardly a cash value. In such a country, the power and influence of money has a meaning beyond any idea that we can form. Look at a prominent man making an ostentatious display of his devotion: his example is of advantage to the Church, and the Church may be of advantage to him, for it has an abundance of money at 6 per cent. per annum, while the outside money-lenders charge him 2 per cent. per month. The Church, too, may have a mortgage upon his house over-due; and woe betide him if he should undertake a crusade against the Church. This is a string that the Church can pull upon which is strong enough to overawe government itself.
This money-power of the Church yet lacks completeness and concentration to make it even a tolerable substitute for the power lost by the abolition of the Inquisition, as this wealth is distributed among 12 independent bishops. But, having succeeded in establishing the temporal power of her bishops in Mexico more firmly than in the United States, the Papal court made another step in advance. In 1852, Mexico was electrified with delight at the condescension of the Holy Father in sending a nuncio to that city. For two full years this representative of the Holy See was fêted and toasted on all hands, as little less than the Pope himself, whom he represented. But last year all these happy feelings were dashed with gall and wormwood by an announcement that as the bishops controlled all this immense property by virtue of their spiritual authority, there was a resulting trust in his favor, or at least in favor of the Pope, whom he represented with full powers. It was Pandora's box opened in the midst of "a happy family." There was no disputing the nuncio's law; but to render to him an account of their receipts and disbursements, or to deliver over the bonds and mortgages to this agent of the Pope, was most unpleasant. The old Archbishop keeps fast hold of the money-bags, which, so far, the keys of Saint Peter have been unable to unlock. The battle waxes loud and fierce between the parties and their partisans, and Santa Anna stands looking on, dreaming of the happy time when, through the internal dissensions of the Church, these accumulations of 300 years of robbery and false pretenses will fall into the public treasury, and the people as well as the government will obtain their enfranchisement.