Notes

New Zealand Tablet, 25 August 1910, Page 1361

Notes

Made in Melbourne: A Wanganui 4 Leader ’ As we go to press there comes into our hands a copy of the Wanganui Chronicle of August 18, containing an alleged leader on ‘The Crisis in Spain.’ The article is interestingnot on its merits, hut as an exhibition of the Chronicle’s idea of journalistic ethics. After perusing a portion of the article we were conscious of a strong impression that we had read all this before ,and on referring back to a recent issue of the Melbourne Age we found our suspicions verified. With the exception of an odd sentence here and there the Wanganui leader has been taken bodily from the leading columns of the Age of August not the ideas only but the very expressions, word for word, phrase for phrase, sentence for sentence —and all this without a quotation mark or the slightest acknowledgment of any kind. That our readers may see for themselves the fact and dimensions of the Chronicle’ s literary larceny we print the passages side by side, as they appear in the Age and in the Wanganui ‘ leader.’ « MELBOURNE AGE, AUGUST 6. The Crisis in Spain. ‘ls is almost four hundred years since Martin Luther dared to burn the Bull that Pope Leo X. issued against him. . . One by one the Latin races have found themselves forced to accept a belated instalment of the rejected Reformation. The Church of Rome, on account of the enormous property and other vested interests it had acquired in Spain, was forced to take sides in the civil wars early last century. It sided with the Carlists, and being defeated in this political struggle found that it had to pay costs to the victors. In 1835 the Jesuit Order was suppressed and others dissolved. But this represented far too extreme a swing of the pendulum towards radicalism, and by 1851 a written rconciliation between the Spanish Government and the Vatican was drawn up. This made the Roman Catholic religion the State religion of Spain, to the exclusion of all others; it restored the right of the Church to hold property in Spain, and permitted the establishment of religious houses on Spanish soil by the Orders of St. Philip Neri, St. Vincent ,de Paul, and one other not designated by name. But political and economic discontent with the Church still smouldered amongst the Liberals, for a Bill for the sale of Church lands provoked trouble in 1855 to such an extent that Pope Pius IX. broke off diplomatic relations with Madrid. To-day it is the Spanish Ministry that breaks off these relations, with the addition of a studied affront. The storm blew over, but the Liberals worked tenaciously at their theoretical point of religious toleration, and by 1876 got the following clause into the national constitution:—“Freedom of worship shall be lawful, though no public manifestations other than those of the Roman Catholic Church shall be allowed.” Recent troubles have centred round this restriction, though the real objection of Spanish Radicals and Republicans to the Church in Spain is still against its power of interfering with secular affairs through its vast accumulations of property. Education, for instance, continues to be almost entirely dominated by the Clericals. > The _ present Government in Spain, that of Senor Canalejas, evidently recognised at the beginning of this year that unless it attacked the Church and made more freedom for the Reformation in Spain, the Republicans would absorb all the young Liberal elements of the country, and work forward for a violent revolution. In the King’s Speech at the opening of Parliament on 15th June the hold announcement is made:—“My Government is taking steps to satisfy the public wish that they (the excessive multiplication of religious orders and congregations) should be reduced in number and subjected to the ordinary civil law regulating the right of association, and that negotiations should be opened with the Holy See for an agreement

to suppress those convents and religious houses which are not indispensable in each diocese.” . . . As long ago as 1830 Richard Ford, a clever traveller, gave the world a vivid insight as to the dominance of these clerical institutions. He wrote; —“How numerous and well appointed are the churches and convents there compared to the hospitals how amply provided are the relic magazines with bones and spells when compared to the anatomical museums and chemists’ shops; again, what a flock of holy practitioners come forth after a Spaniard has been stabbed, starved, or executed, not one of whom would have stirred to save an army of his countrymen when alive, and what coppers are now collected to pay Masses to get his soul out of purgatory!”’

WANGANUI CHRONICLE, AUGUST 18. The Crisis in Spain. ‘lt is nearly four hundred years since Martin Luther dared to burn the Bull that Pope Leo X. issued against him. One by one the Latin races have found themselves forced to accept a belated instalment of the belated Reformation. The Church of Rome, on account of the enormous property and other vested interests it had acquired in Spain, was forced to take sides in the civil wars early last century. It sided with the Carlists, and being defeated in this political struggle found that it had to pay costs to the victors. In. 1835 the Jesuit Order was suppressed and others dissolved. But this represented far too extreme a swing of the pendulum towards radicalism, and by 1851 a written, rconciliation between the Spanish Government and the Vatican was drawn up. This made the Roman Catholic religion the State religion of Spain, to the exclusion of all others; it restored the right of the Church to hold property in Spain, and permitted the establishment of religious houses on Spanish soil by the Orders of St. Philip Neri, St. Vincent de Paul, and one other not designated by name. But political and economic discontent with the Church still smouldered amongst .the Liberals' for a Bill for the sale of Church lands provoked trouble in 1855 to such an extent that Pope Pius IX. broke off diplomatic relations with Madrid. To-day it is the Spanish Ministry that breaks off these relations, with the addition of a studied - affront. The storm blew over, but the Liberals worked tenaciously at __ their theoretical _ point of religious toleration, and by 1876 got the following clause into the national constitution: — Freedom of worship shall .be lawful, though no public manifestations other than those of the Roman Catholic Church shall be allowed.” Recent troubles have centred round this restriction, though the real objection of Spanish Radicals and Republicans to the Church in Spain is still against its power of interfering with secular affairs through its vast accumulations of property. Education, for instance, continues to be almost entirely dominated by the Clericals. _ The present Government in Spain, that of Senor Canalejas, evidently recognised at the beginning of this year that unless it attacked the Church and made more free room for the Reformation in Spain, the Republicans would absorb all the young Liberal elements of the country, and work forward for a violent revolution. In the King’s Speech at the opening of Parliament on 15th June the bold announcement is made: —“My Government is taking steps to satisfy the public wish that they (the excessive multiplication of religious orders and congregations) should be reduced in number and subjected to the ordinary civil law regulating the right of association, and that negotiations should be opened with the Holy See for an agreement to suppress those convents and religious houses which are not indispensable in each diocese.* . . In slow-going Spain little is altered of all that the clever traveller Richard Ford observed in 1830 : “How numerous and well appointed are the churches and convents there compared to the hospitals; how amply provided are the relic magazines with bones and spells when compared to the anatomical museums and chemists’ shops; again, what a flock of holy practitioners come forth after a Spaniard has been stabbed, starved, or executed, not one of whom would have stirred to save an array of his countrymen when alive, and wliat coppers are now collected to pay Masses to get his soul out of purgatory! ,

That is what the Chronicle has palmed off on the confiding Wanganui people as its very own. It is a hare, bald, unblushing steal. If the Chronicle had not the necessary knowledge and grasp of the subject to be able to write off its own batif we may be allowed to mix our metaphors—why could he not leave the question alone? Or if, being .without ideas himself, he had to appropriate those of other people, why not, in common honesty, acknowledge the appropriation? A Catholic correspondent, naturally assuming that the article was the offspring of the Chronicle’s own brain, has written to the paper criticising and refuting the statements made. Now that it is seen that the production is not original but a mere phonograph repetition of ideas ‘ made in Melbourne 5 the situation is altered, A man who does not write his own leaders is hardly worth the waste of powder and shot.

Some Ricketty Authorities ’ In a controversy on * The Crisis in Spain’ now going on in the columns of the Wanganui Chronicle a correspondent signing himself ‘ Reformer ’ — would have been much more appropriate if he had signed himself ‘ Yellow Sash ’ — advanced some very queer statements on still queerer ‘ authorities.’ First he gives a statement regarding the alleged * wealth of the Jesuits at Manresa and quotes* as his authority‘a religious review, the Bevista Christiana .’ Needless to say ‘Reformer’ never- saw the Bevista Christiana in his life and would not know it from the proverbial bar of soap. He took his quotation direct from pp. 28, ,29 of Mr. Joseph McCabe’s hysterical and unreliable Martyrdom of Ferrer. Even. McCabe did not profess to be quoting directly from the Spanish paper. : He says ‘ A religious review (the Bevista Christiana — in Diercks’s Das Moderne Geisteslehen Spaniens) ’ etc. • So, in the anti-Catholic side of the "Wanganui controversy we have already had ideas ‘ made in Melbourne ; now we have quotations ‘made in Germany.’ Even if Mr. McCabe and his follower had been able to get the-original Bevista Christiana it would have been of little value as an authority. It may be nominally a ‘ religious review ’ but in reality it is a sort of journalistic wolf in sheep’s clothing, being a bitter and notoriously anti-Catholic publication. ‘ Reformer ’ next quotes from ‘a recent writer’ a statement regarding the •ward-robe of the Virgin at Toledo. The ‘ recent writer is none other than the same unreliable Joseph. Later statements as to the number of convents at Barcelona and Cordova arc from the same tainted source. Finally, as if quoting an entirely different author, ‘ Reformer ’ says: ‘Here is the opinion,of one writer’; and proceeds to give a quotation regarding the proportion of illiterates in Spain. The ‘one writer turns out to be identical with the ‘recent writer,’ .. the last quotation being taken from p. 27 of McCabe’s work. T. Thus the whole tissue of statements made by ‘ Reformer ’ turns out to be nothing more nor less than a-string of quotations from the apostle of rationalism and infidelity. Had Reformer been straightforward enough to give the name of his ‘ authority,’ readers would have known at once what weight to attach to such testimony.

Official Note on the Spanish Situation The Osservatore publishes the following very important official note on the religious crisis in Spain ‘ Since the question of the judicial position of the religious Orders and Congregations has arisen in Spain, a number of newspapers have diffused inexact news concerning the dispositions of the Holy See, accusing it of uncompromising rigidity as if it opposed a systematic refusal to any reasonable agreement. On the contrary, we are authorised to declare that the Holy See has shown itself disposed to make important concessions not less with the present Cabinet than with its predecessors. Among them we note: the limitation of the religious houses, by the suppression of all those in which less than twelve religious reside—some opportune exceptions; the obligation, of obtaining Government authorisation for opening new houses; the subjection of the religious Congregations to the imposts of the Realm which are paid by other Spanish juridical persons or subjects; the obligation for foreigners, who intend to found religious Orders' or Congregations possessing juridical personality recognised by the State, of being first naturalised in the Realm according to the civil laws. All this, while it .demonstrates the benevolent dispositions of the Holy Father towards the Spanish nation, proves also how incorrect and unjust it would be for the Government to take, of its own initiative, measures relating to the Orders and Congregations, which from their very nature are of a religious character, and which are at present the object of negotiations between the two Powers, as though the attitude of the Holy See rendered impossible any fair arrangement.’ The publication .of this note has been rendered necessary by the acts and words of Senor Canalejas, and his organs (says the London Tablet). They have tried to create the impression in Spain that it was no use attempting to come to an agreement with the Holy See because the Vatican has for, years persisted in putting obstacles in the way, and baffling all efforts of the Spanish Government to secure ecclesiastical reforms in harmony with the modern conditions of Spain. There is no truth whatever in these

s statements, < and «. the official note printed above indicates some substantial changes which the . Holy • See • was willing to accept. v ■