Is it possible to invent or suppose greater absurdities than those
here mentioned? Nevertheless, in order not to prolong this address,
I shall only present a few of the cases which are cited in abundance
in these little booklets (opusculos), distributed in great profusion
among our people. What logic, what reasoning can we expect of minds
nurtured with such absurdities, fed up with fakes of such puerile
nature that one can hardly believe them to have been narrated by men
of simple common sense?
The mattress where San Vicente died has become possessed
of the virtue of making miracles; by merely lying on it on
different occasions over 400 sick persons afflicted with
various diseases became well (p. 32).
One time when San Antonio de Padua preached on the seashore it happened
"that the fishes to whom he preached came out of the water and heard
him with all attention." No devotee ever doubts the coming out of
fishes, nor does he interests himself in the solution of the physical,
physiological, linguistic, and especially logical aspects of such an
event, but the Novena to the Saint confirms it so (p. 20).
This lecture would be unduly prolonged if I were to mention all
the absurdities that appear in the Novenas of which I have quite a
collection, which constitute a real array of documents of positive
usefulness for the history of the superstition which I have scarcely
touched upon here. With what has been said there is enough to explain
the origin of the immorality, the real cause of the predisposition
to vice, the absence of a sense of responsibility, the natural
explanation of what incomprehensible character formed of a mixture of
sentiments which the missionaries have contributed to the Filipino,
Indio, Spaniard, and Chinese, all influenced by the injurious spirit
which pervades all that literature which is completely antagonical to
reason. Such, and not the lay education, is responsible for this evil.
I am not here to formulate theories or to speak of a capricious
hypothesis. Before an audience such as this which I have the
honor to address, I need to weigh the value of my words and of my
judgment. For this reason I have cited facts, repeating the exact
words, not of the profane literature composed of the anonymous Corridos
whose detrimental influence is well known, but the authentic texts of
Novenas authorized by the ecclesiastical censorship for not containing
anything contrary to sane morals, as it is said in the permits granted
for their printing.
Nor have I thought for a moment of mixing religion in my criticism; nor
is it in my power to vary the results or consequences that may result
from the facts mentioned in the Novenas, which are the literature
responsible for this state of puerile mentality, absolutely inadequate
for an understanding of morals, composed of matter that paralyzes,
rather than bring out, progress.
Morals is nothing but the triumph over one's self, thru which man
does what he should and not what he wishes. In the immoral man there
is no struggle between two tendencies, one against evil and the
other against good. There is only the instinctive tendency; there
is no rational control in opposition. What mastery over self does a
man have who for the purpose of controlling his habit of dirty and
obscene speech seeks the intervention of a saint? Lacking in will,
dispossessed of any idea of struggle with himself, how can he triumph
over himself? Slave to his own passions it might have seemed that
the only thing that might control him was the punishment in store in
future life; but this fear does not preoccupy him in the least since
at the same time that he is threatened with eternal fire he is told
the manner of evading it without ceasing to do evil.