PAPAL POLICY IN SPAIN.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 896, 16 August 1910, Page 7

PAPAL POLICY IN SPAIN.

, DIVISION IN THE CHURCH. CARDINALS SAY POPE MISLED BY HIS SECRETARY. REMONSTRANCE OF NO AVAIL. By Telegraph-Press Asfiociation-Copyrignt. (Rec. August 15, 9.0 p.m.) Madrid, August 15. A communication which has- been received here says there is gravo dissatisfaction amongst the leading Cardinals of tho Roman Catholic Church, including some who have formerly been . Papal Nuncios to Spain. Exception is taken by them to Cardinal Merry del Val, the Papal Secretary of State, and consulting the Congregation- on' Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs in connection with the Spanish crisis. The congregation, it is pointed out, was not thus ignored in the days of Pope Leo XIII. Every decision regarding Spain was due to Cardinal Merry del Val, and the Spanish Cardinal Vives of Tuto, the latter having been a life-long monk and altogether unfamiliar • with democratic ideals. ■ The Cardinals had drawn up a remonstranco to the Pope against tho destruction of Pope Leo's work in ■ establishing relations with all tho Powers excepting Great Britain and the United States, but the remonstrance was ultimately abandoned as being useless, Pope Piiis being in invariable agreement with Cardinal Merry 'del Val in Foreign Affairs. THE PRIME MINISTER CONFIDENT. BRITISH-INFLUENCE DENIED.. Madrid, August 14. The Spanish Prime Minister, Senor Canalejas, in an interview, said the majority of members of both Parliamentary Chambers were distinctly anti-cleri-cal. ■. . . ' "We shall," ho added, "establish a preponderance of civil power.' The Vatican's attitude has rallied the Liberals of every, shade to the Government. The status quo is now ended." He denied that the British Royal Family had inspired Government action with regard to the Church.. THE KING STILL ABROAD. ' . • ■ ' London, August 14. King Alfonso, of Spain, who,' with Queen Victoria, has been on a visit to England, has hurriedly returned to Madrid. ■ . (Rec.' August 15, 10.51 p.m.) I ■ , London, August 15. Instead of proceeding to Madrid, King Alfonso visited .the Archduke Ferdinand of Austria, at Ostend, and 'thence he goes yachting to Cowes. THE RELIGIOUS ORDERS IN SPAIN. .Writing last month of-the situation in Spain, the, Madrid correspondent of "Tho Times" said:—; ■ Even the house-porters (who,' like their comrades the French concierges, are bom politicians) remind their friends the night iratphmen that from 1835 to 1851 there was not one monk's frock to be seen in Spain, and the King was nevertheless "his Most Catholic Majesty" then as now. The daily press is also full of the retrospective historyof the liberty formerly enjoyed by Spain witl regard to Church matters. Was not Castile the only realm" of' Christendom in which, the Pope's rescripts had first to obtain the Royal authorisation before becoming legal, at a time when all Europe was governed by the bulls of the Popei of the fifteenth century ? And the action of Phillip II is held up as a model for-.the most modern of Radical Premiers. In 1851 a Concordat was signed allowing the return of three religious orders. It was never, clearly -stipulated, however, whioh three orders were to be the privileged ones, and members of all orders therefore began filtering into the country. After the loss of tho Philippines many of the Spanish monks established in that archipolaso returned to the continent, and recently many French orders have come to swell the numbers of the religious congregations already teeming through the land. ■ " ' The present situation would, therefore, seem to be due to the action-or inaction of successive Governments during the last half-century, who by their slackness in applying the law have allowed the present great accumulation of religious folk. Fc-r a long time it has been felt that something must be done to reduce' this state of things to order, and to.this feeling the Royal Order signed by the Queen Regent in 1887 relative to the registration of religious establishments and the negotiations opened by the Conservative' ' Government with the Vatican conformed. . To Senor Canalejas has fallen at last ftis task, and it might bo said that he had begun this delicate operation in a ' most prudent manner by simply enforcing tho Royal Order of the Queen Regent, if ■he had not perhaps committed the political 'fault' of introducing at the same time the Liberal measure authorising the external display of symbols by dissident Churches. This measure has been seized upon by the clerical elements at a pretext to accuse him of anti-religious feelings and vtant of courtesy towards the Vatican, though it ■ may seem reasonable enough if 'compared with what has been countenanced by the Pope in other countries. ..'.'•