THE CHURCH MILITANT
The Church of Spain asserts that its mission is peace, and as has been
said, supported the assertion, when Queen Victoria initiated the
patriotic fund for the sick and wounded at Melilla, by declining as a
body to contribute, on the ground that men of peace would be stultifying
their office if they supported a war fund. When it was pointed out that
the healing of the sick and the binding up of wounds, however incurred,
was as much the Church’s mission as the preaching of peace, the reply
was given that the priests as a class were poor men who could not afford
to give away money. It may be remarked that what they call their poverty
is so well recognised by the working classes that they never dream of
applying to their parish priests when they are in distress; they say it
would be useless to do so, because “the priests do nothing without
securing their fee in advance.”
But for a body whose first duty, on their own showing, is the preaching
of peace, it cannot be denied that the Religious Orders, if not the
secular clergy, are distinctly militant.
While Maura was in office nothing about priests and firearms would have
been allowed to appear in the papers, but about a fortnight after his
fall the _Pais_ asserted that previous to the Barcelona outbreak the
Carlists and Jesuits had accumulated a great quantity of arms in some of
the small towns in Cataluña, which were subsequently conveyed at night
from one religious house to another in Barcelona. And, said the _Pais_,
while the local authorities were imprisoning luckless working men who
neither possessed weapons nor made any sort of revolutionary movement,
the contraband purchase of arms was still going on, “the priests and the
Religious Orders shamelessly lending their aid to it, and the people
keeping silence because they believe that every Government, whatever it
may be called, is either friendly to Carlism or is afraid of it and
cannot or will not interfere with it.”
On reading this article (which the Ultramontane organs did not
contradict) I was reminded of a story which had been told me three
months before by one of my working class friends. A pious old woman, the
wife of a small shopkeeper in a town where there are many religious
houses, went one night to a service at a church attached to a
monastery.[15] The weather was hot and the old woman tired. She fell
sound asleep in a dark corner and woke at midnight to find the church
empty and the doors locked.
Recognising at once that she had no choice but to stay where she was
until morning, she was looking about for the most comfortable bench on
which to pass the night, when she saw a light in the sacristy
communicating with the monastery and heard steps approaching. Fearing
lest the fathers should accuse her of being there with intent to rob the
church, she crawled under a bench and lay trembling. From this position
she saw a number of monks and priests file into the nave, form up in
ranks, and go through various military exercises under the command of
one of the number, who looked and spoke like an officer. The drill
continued for some time, and after it was over the unwilling witness had
to stay where she was until the doors were opened for early Mass, when
she made her escape, ran home as fast as her poor old legs would carry
her, and related what she had seen to her husband and neighbours. This
was told me by a lad who sold fruit to the husband, who declared that he
had heard it from the old woman herself.
At the time I paid no attention to the story, knowing how the dramatic
instinct of the Spaniard lends itself to exaggeration in repeating
anything that appeals to the imagination, and thinking that the whole
thing might have been a dream. But later on I found reason to think
there might be some basis of fact in what was related by my young
fruit-seller. When the _Pais_ article appeared I was told, in the course
of a conversation about it, that a priest in a neighbouring town had
said in the hearing of my interlocutor--of course unaware that he was
listening--that his party were all armed and prepared to shoot “on
sight” every one whom they knew to be inimical to them, directly the
opportunity offered. And thenceforward for some weeks constant reports
of the arming of friars and their lay allies--the “Young Catholics,”
“Luises,” and other such associations--were published by the one party
and denied by the other with equal frequency.
In this connection the following passages from an article in the _Correo
Español_ are rather significant.
“In Barcelona ten Carlists sufficed to prevent the burning of a church,
and put the mob to flight, so that they left in the hands of our friends
the weapons they were carrying in pursuit of their vandalic designs” [an
incident already referred to]. “And there are 100,000 brave men such as
these in Spain.... We are prepared for all! all!! all!!!” (in crescendo
capitals). “The fight, which inevitably had to come sooner or later, has
now begun between Catholics and sectarians, between civilisation and
barbarism, and we must not stop till we have destroyed them.”
It all reads like transpontine melodrama, and as such I at first
regarded it. But when day after day announcements appeared that new
Carlist clubs were being opened in one small town after another, when
Señor Llorens returned from his second sojourn with the troops, loaded
with plans, sketches, reports, and what not, relating to the campaign
and the general condition of the Army there, and openly announced that
he had obtained them for Don Jaime, and when, although the people were
shouting songs of defiance to the Carlists and their “King,” the
militant “Catholic Association of Social Defence” announced that it had
increased its working class membership from 31,000 to 200,000, one began
to wonder whether the Carlist “army” might be something more than comic
opera.[16]
The stories related of secret arming and drilling in the churches at
night are obviously not capable of verification by a layman and a
foreigner,[17] but that the Jesuits in Barcelona were armed before the
revolt began, and used their arms with skill, seems certain. A near
relative of one of these warlike men of religion told me that they had
twice driven back the mob by firing from their balconies, so it seems
fair to assume that when the newspapers talked of the shooting down of
the crowd by the Jesuits they had some ground for their statement.
Civilians in Barcelona found in the possession of arms were arrested,
even though they had not used them, but it does not appear that the
Jesuits incurred any penalty for using their weapons on the mob.
One mysterious feature in the events of that week has never been cleared
up, and possibly never will be.
On the first two days of the rioting there was fighting about the
barricades which had been raised in many of the central streets, but the
scarcity of firearms among the rioters was noticeable, a large number of
them being without arms of any kind. Mainly, no doubt, in consequence of
this, the struggle was practically over by the third day, after which
there was no more street fighting, the troops occupied the city, and the
attack on the Religious Orders, which might so easily have spread all
over Spain, was at an end.
Yet, notwithstanding that the fighting was over, shooting from the roofs
of the houses went on for two days more. No one ever saw those who
fired: the shots came from invisible persons concealed behind the
parapets and other sheltered positions. And, what was the more
remarkable, whether the shooting was in working class districts, or, as
was frequently the case, from houses in those quarters of the city where
rich men live, the noise of the report and the bullets which were found
were always the same. The “man on the roof” invariably used a Browning
pistol, a weapon not easily procured by a poor artisan. Thirty, forty,
fifty such shots would be fired in succession, the troops would hurry up
to the roof from which the bullets came, find no one there, and see
nothing suspicious, yet hear the rattle of the shots again as they
returned to their duty in the street below. A civilian who ran up the
stairs from the ground floor in one of the “haunted” houses told me that
although several shots were fired as he ran, no one was to be seen
above, except a young priest professedly on the same errand as his own.
It was said that among the many people arrested there was at least one
priest. But nothing more was heard of him, and whether he was released
as innocent, or allowed to disappear, was not revealed to the public.
No one has yet explained who organised the expensively-armed
sharpshooters who displayed such remarkable skill in firing from an
elevation without being caught in the act. The people believe that they
were members of the clerical party whose object was to exasperate the
troops against the rioters who were supposed to be firing at them, and
thus to bring about a fight in which the whole town should be involved.
Meanwhile Don Jaime was to convert the mêlée into an organised
revolution against the established order of things, which should spread
from Barcelona all over Cataluña, and from Cataluña throughout Spain.
This, for what it is worth, is the popular explanation of one of the
most mysterious features in the “anarchist” rising of July, 1909.
But the people go farther still. They attribute not only the incidents
of July, but the whole of the political unrest in Cataluña to the
underground activities of the Carlists and their allies the
Ultramontanes. It is firmly believed by the unlettered peasantry, who
read or listened to the accounts of the beginnings and endings of the
“Red Week,” that the emissaries of the Pretender planned and carried out
every incident that led up to the general strike with which the rioting
began.
The protest against the calling out of the reservists--the greatest
error of the many committed by the Government at that time--was said to
have been engineered by the Carlists. It was not spontaneous and found
no real echo in the feeling of the nation.
The next step was to proclaim a general strike, but even then there was
so little idea among the working classes that anything like violence was
intended, that women and children strolled out to the meeting-place as
for an outing, with the men who were unconsciously being led into
action which was to brand them as revolutionaries and assassins.
To this day no one has been able to say how or why the rioting began.
The only thing clear is that the great majority of the strikers expected
and intended to proceed peaceably to formulate their demands, although
no one knows exactly what these were to be, for no formal report of the
strikers’ complaints, or even of the factories they worked in, has ever
been published.
The Civil Governor, Señor Osorio, objected to the calling out of the
troops, and fell into permanent disgrace with Maura and his Cabinet for
saying that but for the undue harshness employed by the military
authorities, the rising would never have attained serious proportions.
He was dismissed from his post--perhaps inevitably, since he had not
foreseen events. It is worth noting that the week before the riots the
Government had expressed themselves as perfectly satisfied with the
tranquil condition of Barcelona under Señor Osorio, and had withdrawn
most of the troops in garrison in the province.
Meanwhile the Ultramontane Press never wearied of repeating
blood-curdling tales of the awful scenes of carnage, rapine, and
sacrilege, brought about by the teaching given in the lay schools, a
hundred of which, they said, Maura had been compelled to close in order
to put an end to a system of education which produced such horrors: and
since the Opposition newspapers were not allowed to publish a line
without the sanction of Señor La Cierva, the Minister of the Interior,
the nation, had it read the Ultramontane papers, would have supped its
fill of uncontradicted libels upon the working people of Cataluña. But
the nation does not read the Ultramontane papers. The Press of that
party, indeed, admits the exiguousness of its circulation by pathetic
appeals to the faithful to furnish money for the propaganda which in
Ultramontane opinion constitutes the only hope of arresting the crimes
born of the instruction given in the lay schools, and fostered by the
seditious labours of the _Liberal_. But although the people closed their
ears to the fulminations of the Church papers, the hand of the Church
lay heavy on all Spain in 1909, for the continual reports of bombs and
arrests, and the whispered tales of the secret drilling and arming of
“good Catholics,” kept everybody on the rack, fearing they knew not
what. The slow progress of the campaign in Melilla, the constant arrival
of shiploads of sick and wounded, and the impossibility of obtaining
trustworthy news of what was really going on, filled the cup of anxiety,
and every one was in low spirits, for every family had friends or
relatives in the war.
Meanwhile Don Jaime, in his castle of Frohsdorf, was occupied in editing
a verbose document which he published later on, addressed “to those
loyal to me.” The gist of this was that as long as Spain was engaged in
war he would make no move, but that when the flag waved victorious he
would remember that he had to fulfil unavoidable duties imposed by his
birth. “And,” said he, “social order, shaken by the revolution, is
tottering to its foundations. And this not so much from the attack of
anarchical crowds as from the cowardice of the powers who make compact
with them, delivering themselves as hostages in order to save their life
and property. In the violent struggle which is approaching between
civilisation and barbarism I yield to no one the first place in the
vanguard in the fight for society and the country.”
Curiously enough, an incident in which the nation at large took very
little interest nearly proved the last straw. This was the execution of
Ferrer.
Everything had been done beforehand to excite the public over the
affair. Columns upon columns of matter prejudging the case had filled
the Ultramontane Press for weeks, while the _Sociedad Editorial_ and the
republican _Pais_ were accused of complicity with the prisoner because
they pointed out that the publication of incriminating documents alleged
to have been found in his house, before the Court had pronounced them
genuine, was contrary to all the principles of justice. In Republican
and Socialist circles this action on the part of the Government--for
copies of the documents in question were sent to the Press by persons in
Government employ--produced the indignation that might be
expected--indignation that probably was counted upon to bring about an
outbreak of violence. But the mass of the people, thanks to their lack
of education, knew and cared very little about Ferrer and his alleged
offences against society.
While all Europe was excited about the fate of the founder of the lay
schools, the Spanish people, believed abroad to be seething with anarchy
and sedition, were peaceably if dispiritedly pursuing their usual
avocations, only interested in Ferrer, if they took any interest in him
at all, as another victim of the tyranny of the Church, whose “tool,” as
they call Maura, had brought Spain so low.
This was because the _Sociedad Editorial_, and especially the
_Liberal_, laboured as indefatigably to keep the temper of the people
within bounds as their opponents on the Ultramontane press laboured to
produce irritation. At one period in the protracted controversy I
wondered whether the editors or staff of the _Sociedad Editorial_ could
actually be unaware of the lies spread broadcast concerning the
political party for which they stand, so temperate in quality and so
limited in quantity were their comments on the foreign campaign against
the honour of the Spanish nation. But I soon came to understand that it
was not ignorance of what was going on, although the Censorship used all
its wits to keep foreign newspapers out of the Liberal-Monarchist
newspaper offices. It was the deliberate policy of the wise and
far-sighted Liberal-Monarchist party to keep their working-class readers
in the dark about the Ferrer incident, because they knew that if the
mass of the people became aware of the attack upon their honour, a civil
war between the Ultramontanes and the people would have broken out
within a week.
It seems impossible to doubt that the desire of those who pull the
strings that work the Ultramontane party leaders was to provoke such a
war. The declaration of the _Correo Catalan_ that a hundred thousand
good Catholics were ready to follow the example of the Jesuits who
fired on the crowd in Barcelona and to “go all lengths” against the
forces of “anarchy” bears no other interpretation. The
Liberal-Monarchists, who know that in any such war the people would
stand as one man for the King and the Constitution against the
Ultramontanes with the hated Pretender at their head, might have been
excused had they dallied with the idea of sweeping out the Religious
Orders by force, and thus settling once for all the eternal quarrel
between the State and the Church of Rome. But no such course of action
would have been admitted as possible by Moret, who is, and will remain
while he lives, the spiritual if not the ostensible leader of his party.
Well aware that he was offending the more advanced and impetuous among
his followers, and that he was being accused of lukewarmness in
defending the Liberal party from attacks both at home and abroad, Moret
firmly pursued his lifelong policy of conciliation instead of
provocation, and it was thanks to his firmness alone, during the last
three months of Maura’s rule, that Spain was not once more thrust into
the horrors of internecine strife.
The week before Maura’s Government fell the Radical and Republican party
in Madrid demanded permission to hold a meeting on the following
Sunday, to protest against what they considered the illegality of a
trial in which witnesses for the defence were not summoned. The
organising committee frankly stated that whether Maura gave leave or
not, the demonstration would equally take place.
What might have happened had the Ultramontane Government still been in
office on the day of the demonstration, no one can pretend to say. But
in the meantime the climax came and the Maura Government fell, amid
general rejoicings. The demonstrations took place, not only in Madrid
but in all the large towns, and were in every case conducted with the
most perfect order. Their original object seemed to be lost sight of in
the satisfaction at the change of Government. The speakers said very
little about Ferrer, because Ferrer was of so little interest to the
people; in the majority of cases the demonstrators limited themselves to
a protest against Maura’s policy and a demand that he should never hold
office again.
The Religious Orders were, or professed to be, in a state of panic
terror when the demonstrations were announced. They declared that they
expected violence, incendiarism, and robbery; treasures of gold and
silver work, images, paintings, &c., were removed to private houses for
[Illustration: A DEMONSTRATION OF REJOICING AT THE FALL OF THE
ULTRAMONTANE MINISTRY, NOVEMBER, 1909.
[To face page 174.]]
safe keeping; and the general exhibition of alarm on the part of friars,
nuns, and parish priests made them a laughing-stock to the working
classes for the month during which the demonstrations continued. The
Civil Guard were sent, at the request of the ecclesiastical authorities,
to assist the friars in their projected self-defence and to instil
courage into the trembling nuns, and the garrisons were everywhere kept
in barracks in readiness for attacks which nobody dreamed of making. A
Civil Guard told me, with a twinkle in his eye, that he and his
companion had sat up all night in the portal of a convent, knowing all
the time that they might just as well have been in their beds for all
the danger the convent was in. No doubt many nuns seriously believed
their houses to be in peril, although the Jesuits must have been
perfectly aware of the truth, and it is not easy to find words in which
to characterise the folly, to say no worse, of a policy which tries to
forward its ends by permitting women cut off and completely ignorant of
the world to spend hours of misery anticipating dangers which their
leaders must know to be imaginary.
It cannot, however, be denied that the deep-seated and chronic hostility
of the people to the Religious Orders became manifest all over Spain,
as reports of panic-stricken friars spread from mouth to mouth,
converting their traditional dread of the Church into a feeling of
contempt. The working-class Spaniards fear the underground action of the
Church because they know it may mean starvation for their wives and
children. But it was something new for them to see the “long skirts”
fleeing from Cataluña in fear of their lives, and the spectacle led to
open exhibitions of scorn, which are a new feature in the history of the
Church in Spain.
There were not wanting either journalists or private persons to hint
that the alarm shown by the Religious Orders at the demonstrations
against Señor Maura was fictitious, and a renewal of the Catalonian
riots would have suited their plans. It was said that the slightest
hostile action on the part of the working classes would have been made
the signal for a Carlist rising, and that numbers of priests and monks,
as well as civilians of that party, were armed in readiness for such a
contingency.
This was why the organisers of the demonstration so urgently appealed to
their followers not to be provoked into recrimination by “persons
subsidised by the other party, who would place themselves among the
demonstrators with the intention of causing disturbances.” They thought
it necessary to warn the public that what might seem the merest act of
personal aggression on the part of an ordinary loafer might really be
the initiation of an organised plan to raise a serious revolt. And they
prayed their friends to bear in mind that persons committing such acts
of aggression might be the secret agents of the Jesuits, and therefore
on no account to be induced to retaliate. These appeals were issued in
leaflets which were distributed by the thousand in all the towns where
demonstrations were to be held, and no doubt contributed largely to the
self-restraint and good conduct of the crowd everywhere.
If the organisers were justified in believing that the Jesuits wanted to
create disturbances, the angry and exceedingly untruthful comments on
these leaflets in the Ultramontane Press might be accounted for. They
were described as deliberate incentives to the usual list of
crimes--incendiarism, sacrilege, &c.--and “good Catholics” were ordered
to destroy any that fell into their hands without reading the infamies
uttered by the “anarchist canaille.” Naturally the description given by
the Clericalists of their opponents’ circular only excited the curiosity
of the “good Catholics.” The “good” working man read the paper with the
added interest given by its prohibition, and finding nothing criminal
in it, went with the rest to the meeting to hear what it was all about.
It is quite likely that the Church’s anathema of the essentially
constitutional leaflets issued in most of the industrial cities on the
first two Sundays of November, 1909, resulted in making new converts to
Liberalism among the small minority of working men who till then were
still following the dictates of the priests.
BARCELONA AND THE LAY SCHOOLS