Religious Freedom in Ecuador
Preparatory to the proclamation of the last gospel message, which is to go to every country in the world, religious freedom is to a greater or less degree permeating the last strongholds of intolerance. The following paragraphs from an editorial in the Northwestern Christian Advocate show that great progress is being made in this direction in a land which was but lately a citadel of the papacy—Ecuador. Ecuador, like France, has recently abolished her concordat with Rome. The last Ecuadorean congress enacted a law “concerning religions,” among the provisions of which are the following:— ARTICLE 1.—The state permits the exercise of every religion which is not contrary to its laws nor to morality. ARTICLE 2.—An attack on a religion or the persons of its ministers, in the exercise of a worship permitted in the republic, shall be punished conformably to the provisions of the police law. ARTICLE 3.—The ministers of whatever religion shall be established in the country, in order to enter upon the enjoyment of the guaranties which the constitution and the present law authorize, shall be obliged to bring to the knowledge of the executive the regulations which are observed, or to be observed, in their religious practises. ARTICLE 4.—Religious beliefs shall be no obstacle to the exercise of civil and religious duties; but the ministers of a religion or those who partake of an ecclesiastical character shall not be competent to exercise public charges which proceed directly from popular election. Article 8, Section III, “Concerning Religious Committees,” reads thus:— All the convents and monasteries shall be subject to the examination and supervision of the boards of health and hygiene and of the police authorities, under the terms of the law on the subject, after the ecclesiastical authority has been previously advised. Article 26, Chapter IV, states: “The concordat ceases to exist, and all laws contrary to the present law are hereby abrogated.” The Protestant religion and worship will henceforth be protected in Ecuador under the following provisions of the new law:— ARTICLE 23.—The police shall be obliged to protect every class of civil and religious associations; but they shall prevent and dissolve those whose object is to disturb the public peace or commit any an infraction thereof; or if it is presumed that the individuals who compose them will be armed or will cause a conflict. Likewise the police shall be obliged to see that the exercise of every form of worship and its ceremonies are respected, in conformity with the constitution of the republic. ARTICLE 24.—Those who ridicule any religious act or the outward manifestations of any worship, shall be punished by a fine of from five to twenty-five sucres. ARTICLE 25.—They shall be punished by a fine of from ten to one hundred sucres and imprisonment for from three to thirty days:— 1. Who in any way assail the ceremonies of a worship which shall not have been prohibited by the regulations of worship. 2. Who interfere with the work of a minister of religion in the exercise of his worship. 3. Who by violence, disorder, or scandal, impede or disturb the exercise of a form of worship. All this is very satisfactory to Protestants; but we have yet to note on the part of papal spokesmen, who claim so much for the Catholic Church in respect to the defense of religious liberty, any statement commending this action in behalf of religious freedom by the congress of Ecuador.