Captain Widdrington, R.N., in his volumes on “Spain and the Spaniards,” in 1843, cites from Gibbon, “What has Spain done with the four hundred cities she once possessed?” and replies, “Spain might answer to the pithy question, ‘Ask the church, they can, perhaps, inform you.’ It is not owing to the church,” he adds, “but to the ecclesiastical bodies under that name, whose will was the law for so many ages, that Spain has all but been erased from amongst the nations of the earth. The persecutions of the Jews; the expulsion of the Moriseoes; the locking-up of vast properties in mortmain; and the final establishment of the dreadful tyranny, to consolidate and keep these enormities together, have destroyed the resources of the country, and converted, probably, one-half of the finest part of it into despoblados. These causes, and not the discovery of America, have reduced this first of European kingdoms to the state in which we behold it. Where are the forty towns of Toledo, that have disappeared since the time of Philip II.? Ask the priesthood, for they are the real authors of such destruction. Where are the industrious people that teemed in Andalusia, the very names of whose locations are lost, although they once filled the country along the Guadalquivir, making it one vast garden and continued line of towns and villages? Ask the advisers and directors of the Catholic kings. Who have caused the reduction of Estremadura, nearly the most beautiful region in all Europe, to a vast despoblado? The same authorities. Let the traveller go from Burgos to Valladolid, and thence to Leon, returning by Benevente, or shape his course as he may in that region, he will see everywhere—amid the most fertile land, producing everything to gladden the heart of man—little more than the ruins of decayed villages and towns—the shadows and spectres of former wealth and prosperity; the same heads and hands have produced these fatal consequences—a state of things to which there is, happily, no parallel in Europe!”
Again, this intelligent author remarks:—“There is one very important historical fact to notice, which may help to explain some of the anomalies now daily being manifested. Until this generation, the ruling, consolidating, all-pervading, and all-managing principle of the government was the ecclesiastical power. This was the lever that raised the nation, and kept it up during the war of independence. Now this cause having been removed, as we have seen, rather abruptly—not lowered by gradual progress, but suddenly, and to many, unexpectedly—as yet no counterpoise has been applied to supply the place; so that the people, in the time of public excitement, are like a vessel that has suddenly lost her rudder in an Atlantic gale.”
Mr. Hughes, in his “Revelations in Spain, in 1845,” states the hatred cherished by the Spaniards against the English—though so deeply indebted to our country for having effectually aided them against the French and Napoleon—on account of our being Protestants, of whose religious principles they are profoundly ignorant, through the misrepresentations of their Romish priests; and he remarks, “If there is no Inquisition now-a-days invested with the ancient terrors, the dregs of its spirit survives in enforced religious observances. The regulation enforced by the council of Lateran, which requires every member of the Catholic church to approach the sacraments of confession and communion at Easter time, is sought to be made universally stringent to this day, not by the exploded horrors of excommunication and deprivation of Christian burial, but by minor pains and penalties. A fine is levied from every person who does not perform these religious functions at Easter. The poorer classes throng the churches in crowds during the latter weeks of Lent. The overworked clergy perform their duties in a necessarily brief and perfunctory manner; ten minutes dispose of each loaded conscience, and absolution is pronounced. Perhaps the worst feature of the system is the coercion exercised upon the female population of Spain. No young woman can manage to get married, unless she produce a certain number of tickets from her parish clergyman, attesting her regular approach to the tribunal of penance at stated intervals. There is need of much reformation in these respects; but there are few indications of an apostolical spirit in Spain; few tokens of the energy of good ecclesiastics!”
Testimonies of this kind might be multiplied, from most respectable authors, regarding the condition of Spain, not only declaring the desolation of that beautiful country, but affirming that the superstition and degradation of its people arise from the blind policy, and the intolerant operations of popery.
Spanish priests, educated and disciplined according to the established principles of the Romish court, may well be presumed to be ignorant, in a great degree, that the evils afflicting their country result from their ecclesiastical system. But it can hardly be supposed that all of them are entirely ignorant of the Holy Scriptures, and the national benefits that flow from the acknowledgment of them as the Divine rule of Christianity. Many of them must have become acquainted with the sacred doctrines and holy maxims of the oracles of God; and, therefore, a fearful amount of guilt must attach to the superiors in the priesthood. They must be regarded as responsible to the Almighty for the evils prevailing in their country, and they must merit the severest denunciations uttered against the Scribes and Pharisees, who by their traditions made void the law of God. And while, by their priestcraft and disallowance of the Scriptures, they injure both the temporal and eternal interests of their people, the priests in Spain must incur the righteous displeasure of the Eternal Judge!
CHAPTER XXI.
THE INQUISITION AT ROME AND DR. ACHILLI.
The Inquisition continued at Rome—Its deeds and cruelties—Pope Gregory—Pope Pius IX.—Memorial of the overthrow of the Inquisition in 1849—Letter to the Rev. E. Bickersteth—Siege of Rome by the French—Imprisonment and Release of Dr. Achilli.
Rome, the seat and centre of papal intrigue, continued to maintain the Inquisition. Travellers have remarked, however, that the abominations and horrors of that tribunal have never appeared in so shocking a point of view in that city, as in Spain and Portugal. This, though matter of fact, has not arisen from the superior clemency and humanity of the Italians, or from the greater benevolence of their religion, but from peculiar circumstances. The avarice of the popes has dictated the necessity of a less sanguinary policy at Rome, while it has been enriched by multitudes of foreigners of the higher ranks, who had been attracted as visitors to Rome, to view the monumental remains of its ancient greatness and glory. But a feeling of dread would have prevented the approach of many, if the tribunal in that city had made a public exhibition of its victims. Persecution and punishments were, therefore, not permitted to the same extent in Italy as in Spain and Portugal; though deeds of cruelty, at which humanity shudders, were perpetrated in the private dungeons of the Inquisition.
Many serious persons were led to suppose that the suppression of the Inquisition at Rome had followed its abolition in Spain. This, however, was far from being the case, as appears from the various accounts given by recent writers, especially Dr. Achilli, concerning the state of that institution in Italy.
Pope Pius IX. knew that the regular staff of ministers and officers of the Inquisition had been maintained, with its confessors, familiars, and guards, requisite for carrying out its sentences, by his predecessor, Gregory XVI. And although there had recently been no public executions, from what was discovered in the palace of the Inquisition, when it was taken, on the flight of Pius IX., it is clear that only a very brief period had elapsed since its horrid sentences were carried into execution on many a miserable victim.