[Written from Durazno, Uruguay, June, 1892, to the El Abogado Cristiano Ilustrado, Mexico. Translated from the Spanish by Brother F. C. Kelley.]
THE president of the Republic of Argentine in his last message to Congress referred in eloquent language to the shameful ignorance of the clergy of the State church (Roman Catholic), the parish priests, bishops, and religious orders, who, without number, fill the republic, and daily disgrace it by their perverse acts and intrigues against all law that does not meet their approval. Very seldom do you hear from the pulpit of the papist, in this or our neighbor republic, a purely scientific, historical, or literary discourse, that credits intelligence to its authors.
The national clergy of these countries appear only to know one book and part of another, i. e., “The Lives of the Saints” (by Butler), with an appendix of their wonderful miracles, and the Apocrypha of the Old Testament. The president, doubtless humiliated in spirit as a citizen and patriot, emphatically declared, in his present message, that it is necessary for the people of Argentine to have better educated ministers, who are better qualified to teach and consequently more worthy of being heard. It is now time that some voice should speak with authority respecting this important subject.
In Chile the political situation is one that promises no good to the nation. I could speak of a movement of the priests for the overthrow of President Mouatt. The following paragraph shows how trying must be the political situation to the hearts of all the true liberty and progress loving Chilians. The president of Chile will present at the opening of Congress a plan for a law to abolish the civil register. The Liberals, who control the actual government, are not strong enough to keep the power, and they have been obliged to yield to all the extreme demands of the *Conservatives. With intense feelings we realize188what is shown by the dark and threatening political horizon of this sister republic. We trust and hope that God will overthrow the wicked plans of these heartless men.
The Roman Catholic priest has been the curse of these South American republics, and is to-day their greatest reproach. It is strange that a people who have shown themselves so energetic and fearless against their strongest foes, should consent to enslave themselves to the feet of the church caste. They have wounded mortally all of their enemies save the principal one, the one who, first of all, ought to have been sacrificed on the altar of the sacred rights of a proud and free people. Happy will be the South American people on the day that they agree forever that no two words are more contradictory than priest and liberty; for where the priest rules and governs, liberty cannot rule and govern.
Throughout this beautiful republic you hear the voice of the Catholic priest speaking against the civil marriage. The priest opposes it because it affects his purse. Through the operation of this law he has lost many dollars. Before this there was no one to dispute him. It is not a question of principles, nor the finding of a reason; it is a subject of dollars and cents, and nothing more. Here is the cause of their tears and protests.
The Roman priest has a very poor memory, invariably forgetting that in these republics, at least, he is a public employe, a servant of the nation that supports and honors him. The nation pays him through respect to a constitutional article, but not to insult it at his pleasure, for the nation is more honorable than he. The Catholic priest ought to be the first to respect and honor the constitution of the country in which he lives, only to be supported by it. In these places, nevertheless, the priest is the first, cunning ingrate, to despise the Constitution of the republic that so generously allows him upon his soil. If Roman priests would speak against drunkenness and the games that yearly claim thousands of victims from among us, and of other vices a little less odious and detestable, against which the Catholic pulpits never boldly say a single word, as they do against the civil marriage, the Roman Church would not be the corrupt and useless body that it is at the present time in these countries.
The Papal Church does not educate the young. It seeks only to fill its churches with old men and women, the greater part of whom have passed the years of their youth in gross ignorance, and to whom the idea of a rational and a personal religious faith is the most foolish of all delusions.
Bishop Toro, of Cordoba, Argentine, recently made a journey to Rome with the object of obtaining from the pope certain privileges concerning the coronation of a miraculous image of the virgin that he found in the church of Santa Domingo. The bishop returned a few days since highly pleased with the success of his mission. How these crafty deceivers delude the minds of men with shameful and outrageous frauds, violating both the law of God and of reason! With what trifles do these pretended servants of the Highest bias the mind? When will men be undeceived and see these perfidious idolatries in the light of the truth of Christ? The people are superstitious, and, under the names of saints, worship a host of gods, and not the true God and his Christ. The inhabitants of these countries, with scarcely an exception, know nothing of the gospel that was preached by Christ and his apostles. The missionary of the cross is as necessary in this republic as in great China. This last declaration will appear, without doubt, strange to many, but it is not exaggerated; it is a most solemn truth.