PRIESTS IN PORTUGAL.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1235, 18 September 1911, Page 5

PRIESTS IN PORTUGAL.

ONLY WANTED FOR FUNERALS,

By Telceraph—Press Association—Oopyristit

Lisbon, September 15.

The Republicans nio dispensing with tho services of priests except for funerals.

Thirty priests in the Braga district have refused to conduct Republicans' services. The Government threatens to imprison them.

TIIE CHURCH HUMILIATED. A Portuguese bishop recently eavo hit opinion of the new law for tho separation of Church and State in that oouutry. He said"The law is entirely different from tho French and Brazilian laws. It places the Portuguese clergy in % humiliating and abjcct position. No government has ever before had such ooutrol over the Church. Not only arc all tho present possessions appropriated, but also future acquisitions; if a congregation desires to build a new church, the building passes after ninety-nine years into tho hands of tho State. All gifts mado to tho Church ojo to bo handled by parochial commissions, and the church only receives about one-tenth.- the remainder being distributed as tho Government thinks fit. The State will practically have control over the administration of canonical rights, which should pertain only to tho ciiurch. For instance, it appoints the professors in seminaries; tho seminaries aro reduced from thirteen to five; sisterhoods are abolished, and public processions aro restricted. Tho law attacks ecclesiastic discipline by inviting priests to marry and giving pensions to their widows and children. It loaves tho bishops and the clergy to tho mercy of tho lav element, and even tho promised stipends will remain under the control of parochial commissions and other Government bodies, which aro generally adverso to tho Church."