Untitled article | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Co. · New York · December 1, 1898

General Weyler Tells What the Catholic Church Has Done for Spain.

WHATEVER doubts may be entertained regarding the late Spanish general Weyler as a worthy character, there can be no question of his competency to tell the truth on the subject of Spain’s union with the Catholic Church, and its resulting effects upon that country; and this, according to press dispatches, he has recently done in a letter to the Queen Regent. We have not seen the letter, but find the following reference made to it by the Christian Advocate, St. Louis, Mo.:—

“With a force of logic impossible to answer, he [Weyler] tells the queen that Spain’s lamentable condition at present is due to the clericals, and in support of his proposition he cites facts hitherto almost unknown outside of Spain, but familiar to Spaniards acquainted with their own social and political condition.

“Weyler declares that while Spain is poor, the church in Spain is richer than in any other country in Europe; not even in priest-ridden Italy does the church possess so much. ‘Many of the richest corporations in the kingdom belong to the church, notably the Transatlantic Española, the leading steamship company. The clerics also have large landed estates, both in the peninsula and in the colonies. Nearly all the land of any value in the Philippines belongs to the religious orders and is rented to the islanders by them.’

“In return for the benefits conferred upon it by the state and people, Weyler asks what the church has done for the country, and answers his own question by the statement that not only has it done nothing, but that in crises like the present its influence has always been against the court and government, and while the bishops have ostensibly favored the priests, whose power among the common people is unlimited, have invariably opposed the few measures of reform that the government has had the courage to suggest. This is the way the church has returned thanks for the benefits conferred upon it, for the privileges enjoyed by its clergy, for the immense wealth it has wheedled and cajoled from the government and people of Spain. The letter is the most frightful arraignment ever made of a religious denomination, and is all the more remarkable coming from the man it does.

“Weyler states plainly that the cordial support of himself and his followers depends upon a change of attitude by the government toward the church.”

Such words from one in the position of this leading Spaniard, far outweigh all that can be said by shortsighted and weak-kneed Protestants on the subject of the danger which threatens civil government in any land from the machinations of the papal church.