ROME IN THE PHILIPPINES.
By Editor
Two weeks ago, on page 420 of the REVIEW, we reprinted from the New York Times an editorial on “Rome in the Philippines,” relative to seditious leaflets that had been distributed everywhere among the natives in Manila. There was pointed out a close parallel of sentiment between the matter in the leaflets and that in a late sermon by Archbishop Nozaleda. We had seen mention of those leaflets, and had read extracts from them; but the matter was so brazen that we could hardly believe that it could have been circulated by the Catholic authorities, or with their knowledge. The evidence presented by the Times convinced us that it was really so. And since that, we have received a copy of the Manila Times, which presents the subject in such a shape as to leave no room for doubt. The thing, being so manifestly true, should be as fully as possible known in the United States. The matter was published in the Manila Times of April 19, 1900, from which we copy direct. The leading editorial is as follows:— When the Rev. Father McKinnon made a public exhibition of himself recently, as a furious fanatic, a coarse slanderer of honest men and high principles, and an instigator of racial and religious strife, it was a surprise and a sorrow to us, and to all his friends; and many said, gravely, that he injured his church, and that his ideas did not accurately represent the ideas of that church. But now a greater surprise has come. The church itself has gone further and offended worse than McKinnon, not officially, but effectively; for the leaflets which have been scattered broadcast in the churches and homes of Manila are not indeed published in the name of any church dignitary, but they are full of quotations from the pope himself. Nothing could be more defiant. They say, as clearly as words can say, that the decrees of General Otis count for nothing, and that it is very reprehensible of General Otis to consider himself supreme in the Philippines. They quote chapter and verse, to show that any who disagree will suffer the extreme penalty of divine wrath. This agrees substantially with what Archbishop Chappelle has said, in newspaper interviews before he left the United States, and in conversations since he reached Manila. He has said, over and over again, that the church will and must do exactly what it wishes, without tolerating the slightest interference on the part of the government. He has talked big about how he pacified Cuba and Porto Rico when the government could not; and how he could pacify the Philippines, and the government could not. He has emphatically asserted that if the government refused to agree to his demands, there would be trouble. Now the trouble is beginning. This is no new situation. Just before the outbreak of the war between Spain and the United States, the superiors of all the orders of friars in the Philippines sent home a long memorial to the Spanish government, in which they said, frankly: “If the government does not aid the church, the revolutionary movement will increase every day. . . . The civil authority ought to be a bulwark of the church.” The church refuses to be a bulwark of the state, and is ready to undermine it if not granted supremacy. The threat which they threw at King Alfonzo is transferred to General Otis; the priests are, in effect, inciting sedition. If these pious humbugs have their way, the people of Manila will see a revival of the ancient annual service in the cathedral, at which the archbishop, with magnificent pomp and ceremony, laid the national flag on the floor before the altar, and trampled it underfoot, in token of the supremacy of the church. This document says not only that the church and state must not be separated, but that the church is the greater of the two, and the laws of the state are nothing. “You are not to obey the civil authorities,” it says; “you are to condemn and reject their acts and decrees.” This means nothing less than war to the knife. Very well, let it be war, and we shall soon see who will win. It had to come sometime; it may as well come now as later. It can only end as Governor Leary’s little religious war in Guam ended.