Mexico and its Religion Part 20

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 subst.i.tute for the power lost by the abolition of the Inquisition, as this wealth is distributed among 12 independent bishops. But, having succeeded in establis.h.i.+ng 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 _feted_ 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 disburs.e.m.e.nts, 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 acc.u.mulations 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 enfranchis.e.m.e.nt.

The money-power of the Church has proved sufficiently strong to save it from the hungry maw of a famis.h.i.+ng government, and to stand unaffected by the revolutions that surround it; and now and then, when too bitterly a.s.sailed by some political reformer, it finds relief in the a.s.sa.s.sination of the a.s.sailant, as in the case of the eloquent member of the last Congress, who, after a violent philippic against the corruptions of the priests, was found murdered in his chamber. And, as in case of the inquisitorial a.s.sa.s.sinations, the crime was proved to have been connected with a robbery. The power to overawe courts of justice, proverbially corrupt, and the facilities with which a.s.sa.s.sinations are procured, are now the most dreaded weapons of the Church, and may account for the nominal conformity of the intelligent cla.s.ses.

The unbelievers in Mexico, though considerable in numbers, are not organized with a positive creed. Theirs is only a negative existence--unbelief; and they are generally found conforming outwardly, as a more convenient and prudent course than running a tilt with the well-organized forces of the Church.

There is nothing peculiar in the spiritual powers of the Church of Mexico, as these powers are common to all Catholic countries, and vary only with the ignorance and brutality of the people; the more degraded the people, the greater is the power of the priest and bishop. The intelligent Catholic, educated among Protestants, looks upon his priest as a religious instructor, and interprets the _ego te absolvo_ as rather a matter of form, meaning little more than that he will intercede for him. He has caught and is applying a Protestant idea unwittingly. But with the gross mult.i.tude who const.i.tute the ma.s.s of the Spanish-American population, the priest is the G.o.d of the people; his giving or withholding absolution is a matter of life or death; and, however corrupt and debauched he may be, he still holds jurisdiction over the pains of h.e.l.l and the bliss of heaven. For a reasonable consideration in money, he will shut up the one and open the other. The offering in the ma.s.s of the bloodless sacrifice of Jesus Christ, as it is called, is not sufficient for the Catholic in a Protestant country, but the priest must also preach a sermon every Sabbath, like a Protestant minister, though he still holds to the efficacy of the ma.s.s in conferring blessings on the living and the believing dead. The preaching of the priest is a rare thing in an exclusively Catholic country. The ma.s.s is his livelihood, and if he be the head of a community, or a popular priest, he often makes a profit in taking in ma.s.ses to say, and letting out the job at a discount. The whole matter may be summed up by saying that the more profoundly ignorant the people are, the more devotional do they become, so that the priest has always a pecuniary interest in the ignorance of the people, and if he makes any effort toward their enlightenment, it is an effort made directly against his own pecuniary interests and the income of his office.

WORs.h.i.+P OF IMAGES.

The most ancient anti-Catholic, I might with propriety say, Protestant sect, whose form of synagogue wors.h.i.+p is congregational, and who are republican at heart, though too often submitting to a despotism, are the Jews. Between these two, the Jew and the Catholic, there exists an unmitigated hostility. The Catholic reviles the Jew with a sin of which, most likely, his own ancestors were not guilty,[67] and the Jew curses the Nazarene for the idolatry of his wors.h.i.+pers. He will make no allowances for the nice distinction between adoration and wors.h.i.+p, and insists that the making the likeness of any _thing_ to be set up in a place of wors.h.i.+p is idolatry, and that the image of the cross is as much an image as the image of Him who hung thereon. And in all this the Jew is right, if we are to obey the commandment of G.o.d. Yet the Jew forgets that a thousand years of trial were requisite to cure his ancestors of their p.r.o.neness to idols. After their first mission, accomplished in the birth of Christ, G.o.d has preserved them a perpetual witness against paganism. But so subtle is this sin, that we find ourselves setting up sensuous representations, while we point the finger of scorn at the Catholic, who ascribes miraculous power to an image of the Virgin. And what is the difference, the Almighty himself being judge, between setting up a cross in a place of wors.h.i.+p or ascribing miraculous power to an image, or, as is the fas.h.i.+on to say, some spirit acting through the image? Are they not different stages of the same disease, and each equally calculated to provoke the Almighty to jealousy.

SUMMARY OF EVILS.

Image wors.h.i.+p has another curious aspect. It is a very tolerable thermometer by which to measure the downward progress of nations. Pagan Rome, in times of comparative purity, had her laws against idolatry; but as her higher cla.s.ses advanced in refinement and sensuality, and the plebeians became debased and brutalized, the whole religious ideas of the nation degenerated into idolatry, a.s.sociated with a despotic miracle-working priesthood, and soon followed by a political despotism.

It is curious to witness how exactly it takes on the same form in different countries in traveling this downward road. The Buddhist of China, who has reached a thousand-fold lower level than the Catholic, has his unmarried priesthood, his monks, and nuns, and self-imposed penances, and tortures, and holy water, and a ritual in an unknown tongue (Sanscrit), so strikingly resembling the Catholic as to suggest the idea of a common origin, if such an idea were not impossible. Yet in the moral standard they seem to have reached the point of total depravity. Hence we might sum up the cause that have produced the Mexican of the present day by enumerating the absence of the scriptural idea of family relation; the despotism exercised by the priesthood with the aid of an Inquisition, and the unnumbered toll-gates they have placed on the road to heaven; the effeminacy of the higher cla.s.ses and debas.e.m.e.nt of the peasantry; the absorption of half the revenues of the country in superst.i.tious and idolatrous purposes, and the uncleanly habits superinduced by mental and physical degradation for generations, so that the word _leper_ is used to designate a poor man in the city where that loathsome disease has its victims.

[63] _Grando Sinoptico de la Republica Mejicana en 1850. Por Miguel M. Lerdo y Tejado_; approved by the Mexican Society of Geography and Statistics.

[64] This number 3223 includes all of the 1139 monks, except the lay brothers. The two cla.s.ses of priests, those who are not monks and those who are monks, are distinguished in Catholic countries as seculars and regulars (_clerigos_ and _religios_). Humboldt says the Mexican clergy are composed of 10,000 individuals (_Essai Politique_, vol. i. p. 172), and, including the nuns, and lay brothers and sisters, he puts the sum total of the religious at 14,000. But in a note he gives the numbers in five of the princ.i.p.al departments out of twelve, which foot up at only 5405 for the clergy of both orders.

[65] "The general revenue destined for the maintenance of the clergy and of religious services in the republic may be divided into four cla.s.ses: first, that which appertains to the bishops and to the canons, who form the chapter of the Cathedral; second, those revenues which appertain to particular ecclesiastics and chaplaincies; third, those of curates and vicars; fourth, those of divers communities of _religios_, of both s.e.xes.

"The first cla.s.s is princ.i.p.ally of t.i.thes and first-fruits, the product of which was very considerable in times past, when they included a tenth part of all the first fruits which grew upon the soil of the republic, and the firstlings of the cattle. But lately this revenue has much fallen off, since by the law of the 17th of October, 1833, it is no longer obligatory upon the cultivators to pay this contribution. Nevertheless, there still are many persons who, for conscientious reasons, or for other cause, continue to pay this tax, so that it produces a very considerable sum. This part of the clergy also receive considerable sums which have been left by devout persons for the performance of certain annual ceremonies called _anniversaries_.

"The collegiate church of our Lady of Guadalupe has, in addition to a monthly lottery, which operates upon a capital of $13,000, certain properties and other capitals of which the government takes no account.

"Particular ecclesiastics and chaplains are supported on a capital generally of $3000, established by certain pious persons for that object, besides the alms of the faithful, which are given for a certain number of ma.s.ses to be applied to objects of their devotion.

"The support of curates consists of parochial rights, viz., fees for baptisms, marriages, funerals, responses, and religious celebrations (_funcions_) which, in their respective churches, they command the faithful to make; and, finally, by the profits which they derive from the sale of _novenas_, medals, scapularies, ribbons (_madedas_), wax, and other objects which the paris.h.i.+oners employ.

"The income of convents of monks, besides the alms which they receive for ma.s.ses, _funcions_, and funerals, which they celebrate in the convent churches, consists of the rents of great properties which they have acc.u.mulated in the course of ages.

"The convents of nuns are in like manner supported by the income of great estates, with the exception of two or three convents which possess no property, and whose inmates live on charity.

"Besides the incomes named, which pertain to the _personnel_ of the clergy, there are, in the cathedrals and other parochial [churches], revenues which arise from some properties and foundations created for attending to certain dues called "_fabrica_" which consist of all those objects necessary for the services of this wors.h.i.+p (_culta_).

"From the want of publicity which is generally observed in the management of the properties and _rents_ [incomes] of the clergy, it is impossible to fix exactly the value of one or the other; but they can be calculated approximately by taking for the basis those data which are within the reach of the public, which are the total value of the production of the annual return (_movimiento_) of the population for births, marriages, deaths, and, finally, the devout practices which are still customary among the greater part of the population. Observing carefully these data, I a.s.sume, without the fear of committing a great error, that the total amount which the clergy to-day realize in the whole extent of the republic, for _rents_, proceeds of t.i.thes, parochial rights, alms, religious ceremonies (_funcions_), and for the sale of divers objects of devotion, is between eight and ten millions of dollars.

"Some writers have estimated the properties belonging to the clergy at one half of the productive wealth of the nation; others at one third part; but I can not give much credit to such writers, as they are only calculations that rest on no certain data. I am sure that the total amount of the property of the clergy, for chaplaincies, foundations, and other pious uses, together with rustic and city properties, which belong to the divers religious corporations, amount to an enormous sum, notwithstanding the falling off that is said to have taken place from the amounts of former years.

"All property in the district of Mexico [federal district] is estimated at $50,000,000, the half of which pertains to the clergy. Uniting the product of this property to the t.i.thes, parochial rights, etc., I am well a.s.sured that the total of the income of the clergy amounts to from eighteen to twenty millions of dollars."

[66] The Archbishop of Mexico $130,000 The Bishop of Pueblo 110,000 The Bishop of Valladolid 110,000 The Bishop of Guadalajara 90,000 The Bishop of Durango 35,000 The Bishop of Monterey 30,000 The Bishop of Yucatan 20,000 The Bishop of Oajaca 18,000 The Bishop of Sonora 6,000 -------- Total individual income of twelve bishops $539,000

--_Essai Politique_, vol. i. p. 173.

The reason why the Bishop of Sonora was limited to $6000 was that his diocese was so poor that he had that salary paid out of the king's revenue.

[67] Most of the Jews of our day are the descendants of the Babylonian Jews, who did not return to Jerusalem after the Captivity, but remained in the province of Babylon until they were driven out, some four hundred or more years after Christ; the Babylonian, not the Jerusalem Talmud, being most commonly in use among them.

CHAPTER XXIX.

Causes that have diminished the Religios.--The Provincials and Superiors of Convents.--The perfect Organization.--The Monks.--San Franciscans.--Dominicans.--Carmelites.--The well-reputed Orders.--The Jesuits.--The Nuns.--How Novices are procured.--Contrasted with a Quaker Prison.--The poor deluded Nun.--A good old Quaker Woman not a Saint.--Protestantism felt in Mexico.

THE RELIGIOUS ORDERS.

The monkish orders of Mexico have remained unchanged from the time of their first establishment. We have seen that they have fallen off immensely in numbers, but have increased immensely in efficiency, by the termination of those internal controversies between the Spanish-born and Creoles, and by enfranchis.e.m.e.nt from state control.

Not only are they now all native-born, but the Meztizos seem to be the predominant race in the priesthood. The priesthood is not now so inviting an employment as it was before the suppression of the Inquisition. Miracles have ceased to be a profitable speculation, while the revenue once paid to the monks has been followed by ill-suppressed contempt. The employment once monopolized by the Spaniards being now thrown open to general compet.i.tion, there is less willingness to submit to the despotism which ever reigns in religious houses than there was in the times of the vice-kings. Hard fare, cruel treatment, and public contempt have diminished the candidates for monastic orders, until the old proverb--"He that can not do better, let him turn monk"--is not unknown at Mexico. With the increase of liberty the number of nuns has diminished, as violence can no longer be used in getting a girl into a convent. For all these reasons the number of the _religios_ has rapidly diminished, while the wealth and efficiency of the Church has increased.

Having spoken of the bishops, the lords spiritual of Mexico, and the controlling influence they exercise over a feeble government, we come next to the second cla.s.s of spiritual masters of the country--the heads of orders, the provincials, and the heads of religious houses. These two cla.s.ses of dignitaries are usually elected for their known severity of discipline, either by the procurement of the bishop, or through fanaticism of the monks or nuns, who, having voluntarily made themselves convicts and prisoners for life, now undertake to add to their self-afflicted mortification by choosing for their head a superior the most hateful of their number. The novice is taught that the greatest favor with Heaven is to be obtained by implicit obedience under most trying circ.u.mstances, and the more cruel the despotism they unmurmuringly submit to, the greater will be the acc.u.mulation of good works. But cursed to the lowest depths of Purgatory is that recluse who dares to murmur even in his inmost thoughts; and if he so far forgets his duty as to murmur aloud, then all the powers of the Church are brought to crush his insubordination.

We have thus followed spiritual despotism through its various stages, from the Pope to the bishops; from the bishops to the provincials of religious orders; and then down to superiors of a community of half a dozen monks or nuns, by whom immorality is pardonable, but who regard disobedience or insubordination in the slightest particular "like the sin of witchcraft and idolatry." Such is the perfect organization of the papacy in all its parts, which, acting as one great secret, political, social, and religious a.s.sociation, labors continually to concentrate the riches of the nations at Rome as a common centre.

There is a peculiar feature in the Catholic Church in Mexico unknown in other Catholic countries: it is the preponderance of the regular clergy (monks) over the secular clergy. This is owing to Cortez, who wrote to the Emperor Charles V. to send him regulars, for the conversion of the Indians, instead of seculars, a.s.signing as a reason for this request "that the latter display extravagant luxury, leave great wealth to their natural children, and give great scandal to the newly-converted Indians." Hence more than one half of the Mexican clergy are monks, and wear the cowl; for at the time of the census of 1793, as we have seen, there were in the city of Mexico 1646 monks, besides lay brothers, against 550 secular priests, while in the fifteen convents for nuns there were 923 of these female monks.

CHARACTER OF THE DIFFERENT ORDERS.

The reader has already become quite familiar with the Franciscan fathers and their vows of poverty and self-mortification, and their skill at playing for gold ounces. They have pretty well maintained that reputation since the time of Friar Thomas Gage. But there are some honorable exceptions to this rule, though few and far between. We have already noticed how they were favored by Cortez, and the result has been that they are the richest fraternity in the republic. These holy men of the Angelic Order of Saint Francis have lately discovered a new source of wealth in renting their large central court to a Frenchman, who occupies it with the best garden of plants in Mexico; and as the convent occupies nearly a whole square in the central part of the city, they have pierced the convent walls, and rented out shops upon the business streets, while the soldiers of Santa Anna occupy the vacant cloisters of the convent. In this "happy family," with all the immense wealth of the establishment, the _donados_, and those monks who are so poor as to have no friends, find but a miserable subsistence.

Of the Dominicans I have already spoken in connection with the Inquisition. In their yard is the flag-stone which was used by them in offering human sacrifice before the Revolution. There it is kept as a relic and symbol of the power once enjoyed by the Church. There is yet a lingering hope that there may be restored to these brethren the power of roasting alive human beings. In speaking of depravity of morals, it is hard to say which of the fraternities has reached the lowest level, though common consent concedes the palm to the Dominicans.

The name of the Carmelites carries us back to the time of the Crusades; but they are better known in Mexico as the former proprietors of the _Desierto_, which Thomas Gage so touchingly describes. Their habitual practice of self-denial and mortification, in appearance, while rioting on the luxuries that devotees lavished upon them, has not been forgotten. These holy brothers had a hand in the Inquisition as well as the Dominicans. They were a set of scamps set to watch the purity of other men's lives, while they themselves lived a life of habitual profligacy. The ruins of their old convent, the _Desierto_, is still one of the most attractive spots about the city. As the traveler wanders among its ruined walls, he will find in the subterraneous cells ring-bolts fastened in the walls, where poor prisoners for their faith endured something more than self-mortification.

The monks of Santiago, San Augustin, and the Capuchins have all fine convents, and are rich; but the monks of Saint James are the most inveterate beggars.

The monks of San Fernando enjoy an enviable reputation compared with the spotted sheep I have just been considering. They are late comers, and have not learned all the ways of wickedness of the older orders.

Next come the "Brethren of the Profession," of whom it is pleasant to speak, after saying so many hard things of their neighbors. They stand so high as men of character and learning, that I am tempted to tell their story on hearsay, for want of better authority. They were once Jesuits, but when the royal _cebula_ of Carlos III. came for their expulsion, these fathers had sustained so good a character for charity and usefulness that they were allowed to return, on condition of renouncing the name and peculiarities of that order. I am inclined to believe this strange story to be substantially true, for clearly they are of the Jesuits, and yet they are not Jesuits. The reputation which they enjoyed in 1767 they still retain, and not only command the respect of all cla.s.ses of society in Mexico, but their chapel is the fas.h.i.+onable church of the city, where genteel people resort to say their prayers.

"The Brethren of the Holy Places of Jerusalem"--the Hieronomite monks, are not numerous, and are known in the markets as lenders of money, with the interest of which they support themselves and "the poor saints of Jerusalem;" that is, a portion of those lazy, greasy, fighting Latin monks at Jerusalem, that have been one of the causes of the present war in Europe.

"The Hospitalers of Saint John" (_Juanos_) are better known for their exploits in the time of the Crusaders than for any thing they have done in Mexico.

It would be a thrice-told tale to repeat the story of the Jesuits; the world knows that too well already. The details of their proceedings in Mexico till the time of their expulsion have been too often written by their enemies. Their great prosperity and their great wealth made them the envy of the other orders, as corrupt and depraved as themselves, but not so dangerous, because they had reached that point at which depravity ceases to contaminate. Dirty, greasy monks could not endure an order that wore the garb of gentlemen, and were in favor with the aristocracy, while they themselves were despised.

This envy was all-powerful with them, and led, for a time, to the laying aside of their own private bickerings, and uniting in the crusade against the common enemy, the Jesuits, and acting in harmony with the political power.