PENANCE AND PRIEST.
Confession and penance play a large part in the religious life of the
common people. The priests exercise great ingenuity to preserve the
confessional. The better educated classes have long ago deserted the
confessional, but it still holds sway over the common people and hangs
like a dark shadow over the immoral deeds of the priests. Along with it
flourishes the performance of penance. These two hand-maidens in
wrong-doing often thrive in an absurd way.
In Penedo, the capital of the State of Alagoas, a new wharf was being
built and the money granted by the Government was not sufficient to
complete the work. The contractors approached the two monks who were to
hold a mission in the city during February, 1904, and offered to pay
them $500 if they would instruct the people to, in penance, carry
across the city the stones which had been brought from the interior. A
large quantity of building material had been brought down by rail and
needed to be transported across to the wharf. The monks agreed, gave
instructions accordingly, and in one week the people carried these
stones across the town to the wharf. The transfer of these stones would
have cost $2,500. At least 10,000 people engaged in this colossal act
of penance. They came from two counties. Thus the contractors, by a
little skillful manipulation, made penance save them considerable money.
In some of these penances the people wear crowns of thorns on their
heads and cords about their necks and go barefooted through the streets
of the city in their pilgrimages to the church. All, that through these
means they may find some ease for the conscience which accuses them of
evil.
What shall I say of the priests? I believe I will say nothing. I
declined steadily to soil the pages of my note book with the records of
the immoral deeds of these men. I will let speak for me an educated
Brazilian, a teacher in an excellent school in Pernambuco, who is not a
professing Christian, but who, like a great many of his class, admires
Christianity very sincerely. When Mr. Colton, International Secretary
of the Young Men's Christian Association, passed through Pernambuco in
June, 1910, he was given a banquet by some of the leading men, which
event offended so grievously the Catholic authorities that they
published in the "Religious Tribune," their organ, a bitter diatribe on
the Young Men's Christian Association. The professor, to whom I
referred, who is now one of the leading judges in the state, published
the following answer to this attack. He is in far better position to
speak authoritatively about the Brazilian priests than I am. His
article ran as follows:
"FURY UNBRIDLED."
"The official organ of the diocese of Olinda could not on this occasion
control its great animus. It threw aside its old worn-out mantle of
hypocrisy, it precipitated itself furiously and insolently against the
Y.M.C.A. It not only does not forgive, but does not fear to
excommunicate the local and State authorities who appeared at the
banquet nor the directory of the Portuguese reading rooms who lent
their hall to said Y.M.C.A.
"After affirming that the evangelization of Brazil means its
unchristianizing the clerical organ begins to call the members of the
Association and Protestants in general wolves in sheep's clothing.
"But we ask, to whom does this epithet apply better? To us who dress as
the generality of men, thus leaving no doubt as to our sex and freeing
our consciences from the ignominious Roman yoke, direct ourselves by
that straight and narrow way which leads to salvation; or to this black
band which secretly and maliciously makes of a man its prey from the
moment in which he sees the light of day until the moment in which he
goes to rest in the bosom of the earth? To us, Who having no thirst for
dominion, seek to cultivate in man all the noble attributes given by
the Creator, to us who teach clearly and without sophistry and gross
superstitions the plan of salvation as it is found in the word of God;
or to this legion of corrupt and hypocritical parasites, corruptors of
youth, whose character they seek to debase and villify by means of the
confessional?
"The only object of the wolf in dressing himself as a sheep is to
devour the sheep. And these shaven heads know perfectly well why we
cite the chronicles of the convents; they know from personal knowledge
who are responsible for the greater part of the illegitimate children,
and they have no doubt about the permanency and progress of
prostitution.
"But they have effrontery, these priests!
"What has the priesthood done in Brazil in about 400 years? The answer
is found in facts that prove the absence of all initiative of will, of
strength, of energy and of activity. Brazil has only been a field for
torpid exploitation by these gain-hunting libertines. And what of the
attacks against private and public fortunes?
"Happily, for some years, the public conscience has been awakening and
the people are beginning to know that a priest, even the best of them,
is worthless.
"Freed from an official religion, the Brazilian people have really made
progress in spite of the hopelessness of Romanism that perverts all
things and resorts to ail sorts of schemes to preserve its former easy
position.
"We, pirates? Ah! deceivers. Then we, who present ourselves loyally
without subterfuge, proclaiming the divine truths, speaking logically,
without artifices or superstitions, are pirates? You noble priests are
noble specimens of Christian culture, I must confess! You are such good
things that France has already horsewhipped you out of the country, and
Spain, whose knightly race is regaining the noble attributes
obliterated by the iron yoke of Romanism, is about ready to apply to
you the same punishment.
"There is no doubt that the priest is losing ground every day. All
their manifestations of hate and satanic fury are easily explained.
"One easily recognizes the true value of the explosion of vicious
egotism found in the official organ of the diocese of Olinda. The
priest this time lost his calmness and let escape certain rude phrases
as if he were yet in the good old times when he could imprison and burn
at his pleasure. Console yourselves, reverend lord priests, everything
comes to an end, and the ancient period of darkness and obscurity
exists no more in Brazil."
What is the net result of such religious life as we have been
portraying? The common and more ignorant people accept without very
much questioning the teachings and practices which we have explained.
The better educated people, especially the men, have lost confidence in
the priesthood. Scarcely an educated man can be found who believes in
the moral uprightness of the priest. The chief hold the Church has upon
the better classes is a social and not a religious one. Births,
marriages, deaths, alike are great social events, and upon such
occasions, because it is custom to have a priest, the better classes of
people even call in the services of the priests, in whom they have no
confidence. The effect upon the beliefs of these better classes is most
distressing. Spiritism, materialism and atheism are rampant, and one
could well believe that these people set adrift without spiritual
guides are in a worse condition than if they were still devout
believers in the ancient practices of the Roman church. They are far
more difficult to reach because they have imbibed the philosophies of
spiritism, materialism and atheism. An atheist in South America is just
as difficult to approach as he is anywhere. The devout Catholics are
easier to reach with the gospel. The devout Catholic has at least one
element which must always be reckoned with in dealing helpfully with an
immortal soul. He has reverence, which thing many of those people who
have been swung away from their faith have not. I take no comfort in
the fact that the people in large numbers are deserting the Roman
Catholic church and are being set adrift without any form of religion.
One could wish that they might be held to their old beliefs until we
could reach them with the virile truths of the gospel of Jesus.
We come back to it--the gospel is not preached in Brazil except as it
is preached by the Protestant missionary. The need is just as great for
gospel preaching in this country as it is in China.
One day after I had finished speaking to a congregation in Castello,
back in the interior from Campos, an old English woman came up to me
and expressed her great pleasure over having the privilege of hearing
once more the gospel preached in English. I had spoken in English, and
the missionary had interpreted what I had to say into Portuguese. She
had heard the sermon twice. She had been in Brazil thirty-odd years.
She and her husband had lived in the far interior. They had recently
moved down to Castello that they might be near the little church where
they could have the opportunity of worshiping God. She told me that
back in the town in which they had lived they had left two sons who
were engaged in business for themselves. These two sons had been born
in Brazil, and yet in all their lives THEY HAD NEVER HEARD A GOSPEL
SERMON. Yes, these people are without the gospel and this is our
justification for carrying to them the message of life. For them Christ
died, and to them, because they have not heard, He has sent us that we
might bring His precious message of eternal salvation, for "How shall
they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they
hear without a preacher?"