Can it be said of the religious institutes, whether collectively or in the vast majority of their individual members, that they have prevaricated; that they have ever abandoned the duties entrusted to them in the administration of the sacraments, in the celebration of divine worship, in Christian preaching and catechising, in the vigilance of good manners, in the tutelage of moral interests, in protection and relief to the needy and weak, in advice and consolation to all about us, in the maintenance of obedience to the mother-country, in the extension of education, in the campaign against every kind of superstition and erroneous practice, in repression of concubinage, and of other public irregularities and scandals? Does not the tenet enter the head of the most exalted sectarian, if he has any lucid moment, that we religious have fulfilled with assiduous self-abnegation the obligations of our ministry?
We have become wearied with reading, your Excellency, whatever has been written and published against us for years, and we know also how much is said now in assemblies and gatherings. With our hand upon our heart, with our foreheads raised aloft, as one who walks in the light and fears not to have his deeds examined and discussed in the light, we challenge and defy our detractors and calumniators, and those who flippantly, or by any other unjust and inaccurate motive, talk and murmur, to show us with exact data and with perfectly authentic information, not only the accuracy of all their accusations, but the mere probability of whatever they allege against our honor and well-established credit, touching the fulfilment of our duties, both religious and patriotic.
Their procedure in respect to parochial obventions, to education, and intercourse with intelligent persons. It is said that we commit abuse in the exaction of parochial fees. Let the laws of the Church be consulted, let the doctrines of the moralists and the principles of positive natural and divine law be cited; and then submitted to that only sure rule as a criterion, let them tell us whether we abuse the public in that matter, and whether our procedure, within just bounds, is not that employed by the most disinterested priests.
It is said that we are hostile to education and the advancement of knowledge. But if by education and knowledge, doctrines not condemned by the Church, our Mother, are not meant, let them tell us whether the islands have any education that has not been established, protected, sustained, and encouraged by the clergy, in all branches of instruction, both primary, and secondary and superior.
It is said that we despise the intelligent men of the country, and that we make them the object of every kind of persecution. That assertion is so rare and stupendous that we wonder whether our enemies will write in imaginary spaces. A multitude of youths are graduated annually with the degree of bachelor or after the conclusion of some higher course, from the Ateneo Municipal, from the colleges of Manila and the provinces, and from the university. We are honored by the friendship of the vast majority of them, and take no little satisfaction in seeing them prosper and in knowing that they respect the Christian and solid education that they have received. It is known that very few of the great number of students that attend our lecture halls, and of the not few graduates that are scattered throughout the islands, have taken part in the rebellion; and that the vast majority of them have kept loyal to España, in fulfilment of the oath that they took on receiving the investiture of their professions. But what happens in the old world with the apprentices of free thought happens here: all those modestly call themselves intelligent who think that they exhibit signs of knowledge and talent by showing contempt for priests and religious; while it is a fact that a goodly proportion of those who express themselves in that manner have been unable to complete their courses with us, and are the refuse of our lecture halls.
Regarding the sanctity of their private life. An outcry is being made against the vices and immorality of the regulars in terms that seem to be inspired in Protestant and anticlerical centers of low quality. But in that, as in other things, saving what can never be avoided even in the communities most sanely organized, by the severest legislation and the most exquisite care, all who view us near at hand are not ignorant that nothing can be thrown into our face.
The words of Father St. Augustine, when defending his institute against accusations similar to those directed against the orders of Filipinas, are very opportune and efficacious in this matter. “Tell me, brethren, is my congregation, peradventure, better than Noah’s ark, in which, of the three sons Noah had, one was evil? Is it, peradventure, better than the family of the patriarch Jacob, in which, of his twelve sons, only Joseph is praised? Is it, peradventure, better than the house of the patriarch Isaac, in which, of the two sons born to him, one was chosen of God, and the other damned? Is it, peradventure, better than the household of Jesus Christ, our Savior, in which, of His twelve apostles, one was a traitor, and sold him? Is it, peradventure, better than that company of the seven deacons filled with the Holy spirit, chosen by the apostles to take charge of the poor and widowed, among whom one, by name Nicholas, became a heresiarch? Is it, peradventure, better than heaven itself, whence fell so many angels? Can it be better than the earthly paradise, where the two first parents of all the human race, created in original justice and grace, fell?”
Ah! the religious corporations of Filipinas, caring for the sanctity and salvation of all its sons, on seeing one of their individual members fail in his duties, after correcting him, and after taking, in accordance with law and religious prudence, measures efficacious to repair, if he did it, the scandal, and even, if necessary, to destroy and fling aside the rotten branch, cry out in pity with the apostle like a true mother: “Quis infirmatur et ego non infirmor? Quis scandalizatur et ego non uror?” “Who becomes sick spiritually and I do not suffer with him? Who suffers scandal and I am not burned?” That is what all should say who learn of the backslidings of their neighbor; that is the dictate of charity and of justice; that is demanded by respect and consideration to the ministers of the church. And so long as our systematic accusers do not prove that the orders consent and do not check the sins, in great part humanly inevitable—considering the conditions under which those dedicated to the ministry live—of the very few religious who have the misfortune and weakness to fall, they have no right to dishonor us and to cry out against what we are the first to lament and to try to correct.
Will they prove it sometime? We are quite assured of the opposite; and that though they have at hand, as many methods of inquisition and proof as the judge most interested in any cause can desire. Our convents, our ministries, our persons, are in sight of all. Our parish priests and missionaries are alone and surrounded by a multitude of natives. Whatever we say, do, or neglect to do, is seen and spied by all the people. Our habitations are of crystal for all classes of people. Our publicity as Europeans and our condition as priests place us in such relief in the missions and parishes, that it would be stupid simplicity to try to hide our doings and actions. Consequently, everything is favorable to our adversaries in the trial to which we provoke them, and to which each regular voluntarily submits himself, from the moment that, faithful to his vocation and obedient to his superiors, he sacrifices himself to live among these natives, his very beloved sheep of the flock of Christ. Our honor, our reputation rests in their hands. It would be easy for our adversaries to confound the religious institutes if truth presided over their accusations. But since truth is that which does not glitter in their words, the saying of Holy Writ becomes verified in their conduct: “They spake against me with a lying tongue, and with the speech of hate did they attack me;” and in regard to us the saying of St. Peter: “You shall keep an upright conscience with modesty and fear, so that as many as calumniate your upright procedure in Christ, shall be confounded.”[23]
Other equally unjust charges. We shall not compare our conduct with that of the respectable and very estimable native priests of the secular clergy, whom the majority of the separatist Filipinos flatter, undoubtedly because it is not to the purpose of their plans to combat them. We shall not rebut the shamelessness of supposing that part of our property has a criminal origin, and that we are certain despots in our rural estates who suck the blood of our tenants by various methods, an infamy so often refuted with authentic data of overwhelming proof. We shall not speak of the vast imposture of imputing to us all the executions by shooting, imprisonments, tortures, trials, and confiscation of property of those implicated in the last insurrection. We scorn the absurd fable that we are absolute masters, not only of consciences, but of all the archipelago, at the same time that they, obviously contradicting themselves, as error is wont to do, declare that our prestige and influence in the islands is lost. We neglect to attribute to ourselves whatever hate and censure, according to them, have been made in the country by the military [institutos armados], the governors, the judges, and all the public organisms, in deportations and other kinds of punishment; as if we religious managed to our liking the machine of the government and administration of this territory, and as if, from the governor-general down to the last agent of the police, all were but the blind executors of our will. We lay aside those and other things—poorly executed arguments—which certain misguided sons of this country are still employing, and which are unfortunately repeated by certain peninsulars, in order to manifest their hatred or prejudice against the clergy; and pass on to speak of the insurrection and of the imperious necessity of remedying the extremely embarrassing situation of the religious corporations in the archipelago.