THE PRIESTHOOD IN NICARAGUA—DECLINE IN THE INFLUENCE OF THE
CHURCH—BANISHMENT OF THE ARCHBISHOP—SUPPRESSION OF THE
CONVENTS—PROHIBITION OF PAPAL BULLS—LEGITIMIZATION OF THE CHILDREN
OF PRIESTS—THE THREE ABANDONED CONVENTS OF LEON—PADRE CARTINE, THE
LAST OF THE FRANCISCANS—RECEPTION, OR CLOCK ROOM—THE PADRE’S PETS;
HIS ORATORY; PRIVATE APARTMENTS; WORKSHOP—A SKULL AND ITS
HISTORY—THE EGLESIA DEL RECOLECCION—THE PADRE AS A LANDLORD; AS A
PAINTER; AS AN UNCLE; AND AS NEGOTIATOR IN MARRIAGE—AN AUSPICIOUS
OMEN—DEATH OF THE VICAR OF THE DIOCESS OF NICARAGUA—HIS OBSEQUIES—A
FUNERAL ORATION—PRIESTLY ELOQUENCE—AN EPITAPH—GENERAL FUNERAL
CEREMONIES—DEATH AS AN ANGEL OF MERCY—BURIAL PRACTICES—CAPELLANIAS;
THEIR EFFECTS, AND THE POLICY OF THE GOVERNMENT IN RESPECT TO
THEM—POPULAR BIGOTRY AND SUPERSTITION—AN ANCIENT INDULGENCE—THE
POTENCY OF AN EJACULATION—REMISSION OF SINS—PENETENCIAS—RATIONALE OF
THE PRACTICE—NOVEL PENANCES—TURNING SINS TO GOOD ACCOUNT—GOOD FROM
EVIL—SYSTEM OF THE PADRE CARTINE—THE DIOCESS OF NICARAGUA, AND ITS
BISHOP—GENERAL EDUCATION—PUBLIC SCHOOLS—THE UNIVERSITIES OF LEON AND
GRANADA—A SAD PICTURE.
Although there is probably less religious bigotry in Nicaragua and San
Salvador than in most of the Spanish American States, yet the priests
still exercise considerable influence amongst the popular masses. To
their credit, however, be it said, that many of them, although not
highly educated, are not only men of liberal sentiments, but amongst the
most active promoters of measures of general improvement. Previous to
the Independence, the Church in Central America was well endowed, and
quite as exacting as in any other part of the continent, or in Spain
itself. For some time subsequent to that event, it retained much of its
strength, and was active in the political affairs of the country.
Unfortunately, its influence was seldom felt in behalf of liberal
institutions, general or local.
It is not to be doubted that the men who were the promoters of the
Independence, and most active in the establishment of the Republic, were
very little under priestly influence; for one of the first acts of the
National Constituent Assembly was to prohibit the sale of Papal
indulgences, and to limit the exactions of the Church. This policy
arrayed the priestly influence against the new order of things, and it
was henceforth exercised in favor of the aristocratical, monarchical, or
Servile faction, against the Liberals and the Republic,—thus becoming
one of the causes of many of the disasters to which the country has
since been subjected. Yet the zeal of the Priests did not fail to react
upon themselves. They entered into the arena of politics, and were
treated as partisans in the civil contests. They espoused the cause of
an obnoxious faction, and came to share its odium as well as its
misfortunes. The Liberals, emancipated from the machinery of the Church,
soon began to look with incredulity on its doctrines, and with contempt
on its forms; and although the people of Central America are still
nominally Catholics, yet amongst those capable of reflection, or
possessed of education, there are more who are destitute of any fixed
creed, rationalists, or what are sometimes called free thinkers, than
Catholics, or adherents of any form of religion. Many of the priests
share in the general skepticism.
The first decided encounter between the Church and the Republic, was in
1825, when the people of San Salvador, the stronghold of Liberalism,
dissatisfied with the political tendencies of the Bishop of Guatemala,
under whose ecclesiastical jurisdiction they were, elected a Bishop of
their own, in defiance of the Archbishop and the Pope. This example was
soon after followed by Nicaragua. The ignorant priesthood, the friars of
Quesaltenango, siding with the Archbishop and the Serviles, infuriated
by this and other bold innovations, contrived to excite the Indians in
Los Altos, who in their fury cruelly slaughtered the vice-president of
the Republic; and for a time the Liberals were overwhelmed by the
coalition. They, however, afterwards rallied under Gen. Morazan. During
his enlightened and vigorous sway, in 1829, it was discovered that the
Archbishop was intriguing against the government; and it was then the
Church received a blow from which it can never recover. Morazan was not
a man to be trifled with; he boldly seized the Archbishop, and sent him
out of the country under a guard of soldiers, forbidding his return
under penalty of death. The monks and friars belonging to the various
convents and monasteries of Guatemala, who were deeply concerned with
the Archbishop, were expelled in an equally summary manner. But the
measures thus commenced did not stop here. The Legislature of Guatemala
decreed the suppression of all the male convents, prohibited females
from becoming nuns for the future, and appropriated the revenues of the
suppressed monasteries. This act was ratified by the General Congress,
which, catching the same spirit, within two months after the banishment
of the Archbishop declared all religious orders at an end throughout the
Republic. This decisive measure met with the almost unanimous sanction
of the people, and was at once carried into effect in the several
States. The Congress also decreed not only complete Religious Liberty,
but that the appointment to church dignities pertained to the nation,
and should be made by the President of the Republic; prohibited the
promulgation of all papal bulls, unless they had received the previous
sanction of the Federal Government, as also the sale or use of papal
dispensations, of whatever character. The State of Honduras shortly
afterwards passed a law, which, I believe, was also adopted by all the
other States, legalizing the marriage of the priests, and legitimatizing
their children, so as to permit of their succeeding to their fathers’
property.[22]
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Footnote 22:
In their zeal to educate the people, and to weaken their religious
prejudices, theatres were established, in which the arts and objects
of priestcraft were exposed to ridicule, contempt, and reprobation. A
play called “La Inquisicion por dentro,” or “A Peep into the
Inquisition,” had a great run, and brought that institution into
effectual and lasting odium.
“In Guatemala,” says Mr. Crowe, “Papal bulls of indulgence, which used
to be as much valued as paper currency in other countries, are now
used by the shopkeepers as waste paper for wrapping their goods. In
San Salvador, the Bishop, a few years since, offered first twenty and
afterwards forty days of plenary indulgence, to be deducted from the
period of purgatorial sufferings after death, to all who should aid in
removing an unsightly mound of earth which disgraced one of the
squares of the city, and injured the effect of the Cathedral; but the
mound remained, although the Bishop again doubled the promised
remission.”
-----
Subsequently to the dissolution of the confederacy, and under the
direction of the Serviles, the convents of Guatemala were
re-established, but the other States have persisted in the prohibitory
action of 1829, or rather no attempt has been made to revive the
monasteries suppressed under it. There were formerly, as I have already
said, three convents in Leon; that of San Juan de Dios has been
converted into a hospital; that of La Merced is only used by the
government in case of need as a cuartel, or barracks. The largest, the
Franciscan, although in a state of hopeless decay, is still watched over
faithfully by the Padre Cartine. He has thus far preserved its precincts
sacred from profane intrusion, and lingers silently amongst its
dilapidated corridors, and weed-infested courts, like the antiquary
amongst the tombs, the last of the powerful fraternity of San Francisco
in Leon.
The Padre Cartine is a learned man, in the continental acceptation of
the term of two centuries ago. That is to say, he reads Latin and the
Fathers, and is familiar with the Natural History of Pliny,—the latest
book on the subject with which he is acquainted, and which is his sole
authority. The Padre is withal a mathematician, has a Latin edition of
Euclid, and reads it once a year by way of amusement, and to refresh his
memory. He is an architect, and has made a plan for the restoration of
the convent, on a scale of splendor which would beggar a prince to carry
out, and feels as anxious about its accuracy as if the masons were to
commence to-morrow, and any defect in the plan would ruin the
architectural effect of the structure for ever.
I am not likely to forget my first visit to Padre Cartine. I found him
seated in a broad arm-chair, in the principal room of his house. He had
been a man of fine proportions, but was now a little corpulent, a defect
only to be observed when he was standing. His head was of fine outline,
large, and massive, and his face had an expression of intelligence,
dignity, and equanimity, at once pleasing and impressive. He wore a
dress of coarse, gray serge, bound at the waist by a rough pita cord,
for he still kept up many of the austere practices of his order. The
furniture of the house was plain and simple, and I believe all of the
Padre’s own manufacture. Upon a low bench extending around two sides of
the room, was a most incongruous assortment of clocks, of every date,
pattern, and country, from a tall cupboard contrivance of the last
century, dingy with age, in the corner, through every intermediate
variety, to a little German or French concern, which ticked spitefully
from the opposite wall. There were cases without clocks, and clocks
without cases; besides a wilderness of weights, cords, pulleys, wheels,
and springs; for the Padre was so passionately fond of clocks, that he
not only kept an extensive variety of his own to tinker, but borrowed
all of his neighbors’, and encouraged the distant villagers to bring him
theirs for gratuitous cleansing and repair. No Jew’s second-hand
furniture-shop in Chatham street could afford more than a very faint
counterpart of this curious collection. The Padre observed that they
attracted my attention, and commenced a philosophical lecture on
horology, which I hastily brought to a close by suggesting a walk
through the old convent and the church which had been attached to it. In
the first courtyard were half a dozen deer, tame as kittens, which came
bounding up at the sound of the Padre’s voice; they licked his extended
hand, and held down their heads to have them rubbed, but failing to
cajole the Padre out of a plantain or tortilla, butted him playfully,
and struck at him with well-feigned malice. Upon one side of this court
the Padre had fitted up a private chapel. It contained a marble altar, a
wax figure of Christ, and a great variety of valuable ornaments saved
from the wreck of the monastery, and with which no earthly consideration
could prevail upon the Padre to part. An expression, half of sorrow,
half of pride, passed over the Padre’s face as he held the door open
that we might see the precious contents of his oratory. From this he
took us to a large room, his own private apartment, in which was the
rough hide bed whereon he slept, and which contrasted strangely with a
rich set of travelling wine and liqueur bottles, which he complacently
displayed to us, (not badly filled, by the way), in a secure closet. In
another room the Padre had his workshop. In one corner was a foot-lathe
of his own construction, in which he turned beads from the arm-bones of
defunct Señoras, to be strung on consecrated rosaries, and sold for the
benefit of piety and the church—whose interests have always wonderfully
accorded. Here were kettles containing purified sulphur from the
volcanoes, nitre, and charcoal, to be compounded for the glorification
of the saints, the service of the Lord, and the utter desperation of
heretics, in the form of bombas. Here, too, was a machine, also of the
Padre’s invention and construction, for grinding and polishing the
glasses of spectacles, for the Padre, amongst his multifarious
accomplishments, was an optician, the only one, probably, in all Central
America. He had, in fact, constructed a telescope for the University of
Leon, and astounded the citizens by showing them the rings of Saturn!
“You are a most accomplished man, Padre,” said I, glancing at his
mechanical achievements. “_Juguetes_,” playthings, mere playthings,
responded the Padre, with a complacent smile, which was intended to be
depreciatory. In the third courtyard, next the church, grew a
magnificent mango tree. At its foot a mozo had been digging, to
extirpate some burrowing animal, and had thrown up a variety of human
bones, and amongst them a skull. Its delicate proportions attracted my
attention, and I stepped aside and picked it up.
“Ah, Padre, this is a woman’s skull, a girl’s skull, I am sure! Padre,
how came it here?”
The Padre took it quickly from my hand, looked at it, and then gazed in
an abstracted, reflecting manner upon the spot which it had occupied.
After a few moments’ silence, he spoke, deliberately removing the earth
from the eye sockets with his fore-finger;
“Ah, Señor! she was very beautiful, this girl. She was the youngest
daughter of Señora M——! Heaven rest her soul! She died of the cholera in
the year ’37. Five thousand of our people died in four short months,
Señor! The Señorita Inez! She was only sixteen years old, Señor; but yet
a woman, and beautiful, very beautiful!”
And the Padre held the delicate skull before him, as if it was clothed
with flesh again, and he gazed upon the smiling face once more.
“Very beautiful,” he soliloquized. “She was amongst the first; there are
five hundred buried in this very court, Señor,” said the Padre rapidly,
turning towards me, and crossing himself. “Five thousand in four months!
in four short months!”
The expression of the old man’s face, as the memory of those four months
came back upon him, showed how terrible and ineffaceable were the scenes
which they had witnessed. “She was very beautiful!” and the Padre placed
the skull gently in the earth again, laid the delicate bones carefully
around it, and with his naked hand scraped the loose earth above them.
The interior of the Eglesia del Recoleccion, which has a most elaborate
façade, covered with shields on which are exhibited all the prominent
devices of the church, was dark and gloomy. The altar was a fine one,
and the Padre kept a lamp burning constantly before an image of the
Virgin, which looked spectral enough beneath its feeble rays. A number
of pictures were suspended upon the walls, among which were a variety of
saints frying complacently upon gridirons, smiling from stakes of
impalement, or sailing smoothly away amongst a swarm of baby angels and
bodiless cherubs, to a most substantial looking heaven, elevated only a
few yards above the earth. We ascended into the tower by a series of
rickety stairs, with gaps here and there ranging from one to four steps,
up which the prudent Padre did not essay to go. From this tower we
obtained a fine view, second only to that to be had from the top of the
Cathedral. As we descended, a huge owl, which we had startled from his
roost in some dark corner of the tower, nearly knocked us over in his
flight. We returned through the Golgotha, to the grand reception or
clock room, where the Padre showed us his plan for restoring the
convent, in red and black ink, which required only a single thing to its
realization, and that was precisely what the Padre did not know how to
obtain, viz., money! We nevertheless made him happy before leaving, by
promising to write to the United States, on his behalf, to obtain a
grand clock for his church, which should exhibit three dials, and strike
the hours. “Con tres frentes!” repeated the Padre, calling after us as
we passed down the street, “with three dials!”
The Padre ultimately became my landlord. I hired a house of him, which
he had himself designed and built, opposite the old convento. It had a
grand sala and two rooms on the street, with quarters for the servants,
and a kitchen, arranged after the usual plan,—altogether one of the most
desirable buildings in Leon. It had before rented for six dollars per
month, but as I was a particular friend of the Padre, I got it for nine.
The Padre was really ashamed to ask that sum, but then he had written a
religious pamphlet, which he wanted to publish, and I told him that I
should be too happy to contribute to that laudable object, and that the
house was worth twice the money,—which was pretty good, considering that
the best house in Leon rented for but fourteen dollars per month. The
Padre had achieved a great triumph in painting the interior of this
house. It was done in fresco, in a style as novel as complicated, and
with as many colors as could conveniently be compounded. But the Padre’s
_chef d’œuvre_ was the _menagerie_, as we called it, upon the wall of
the servants’ corridor. His models had been the figures of animals and
objects represented in the Child’s First Primer, or illustrated
alphabet, a copy of which he must have obtained from the United States
or England, for there was the entire series commencing “A was an Ape
that ran after his tail,” down to “Z was a Zebra who came from the
Cape,” all depicted of large size, and in flaming colors. This fact will
perhaps sufficiently illustrate the state of decorative art in
Nicaragua.
The Padre had a niece (_de facto_, oh skeptic!) who, with her mother,
occupied a detached part of his own house, and over whom, as she was
exceedingly pretty, he kept most rigorous watch. He gave out, for the
benefit of gallants, that he would shoot the first who should be seen
around the premises, and really kept a loaded musket for the purpose.
The Padre was a man of his word, and the threat was effectual in its
object; the gallants kept away. The last time I heard from Leon, a young
American, from Boston, was diplomatizing with the Padre for the hand of
his sobrina; it went hard to resign her to a heretic, but the Padre’s
heart is soft, and even rocks yield to time. Boston and Leon;
Massachusetts and Nicaragua; the omen is auspicious and significant!
I have elsewhere mentioned the name of the Vicario of the Bishopric, Don
Desiderio de la Quadra, who was the first of the clergy to pay his
respects to me, upon my arrival in Leon. He was then ill, and died on
the 4th of October following. His funeral was conducted with great
ceremony and solemnity. On the morning of the 5th, circulars, of which
the following is a copy, were directed to all the principal inhabitants,
and left by a messenger bearing a silver cross shrouded in crape, from
the Cathedral.
“AL SEÑOR;——
“A las seis de la tarde de ayer ha muerto nuestro muy amado tio el Sr.
Vicario Capitular y Apostòlico, Presbitero Beneficiado Dr. Don José
Desiderio Quadra: su cadáver será sepultado en la Santa Catedral
Yglesia de esta Ciudad, saliendo el entierro á las cuatro de la tarde
de la casa de su morada. Si U. se dignase honrarle con su asistencia,
le serán muy reconocidos sus mas atentos servidores Q. B. S. M.
MATEO MAYORGA.
“TRINIDAD QUADRA.
_Leon, Octubre 5 de 1849._”
At the appointed hour we proceeded to the house which the Vicar had
occupied. It was a large building, furnished in the simplest manner, for
the Vicar was a practical as well as professed follower of Christ, and
was faithful to his vows of poverty. All of his income, except the small
sum necessary to supply his frugal wants, was devoted to charity. The
courtyard and the corridor were already filled with people; and the
clergy occupied the grand sala in which the corpse was lying. The
ceremonies of the funeral had already commenced, we could hear the
chants and prayers, and see the wax lights, but the place was
overcrowded, and we did not attempt to enter. After a while a passage
was opened through the assemblage for the bearers of the dead, preceded
and surrounded by priests, full robed and with uncovered heads. The
people in the courtyard knelt, as the remains were carried by. In the
street was a sort of car, covered with drapery, upon which the corpse,
dressed in the vicarial robes, was placed. Here another prayer was
chanted; and when it was concluded, the car, surrounded by the entire
body of the clergy, and preceded by the empty ecclesiastical carriage,
moved towards the Cathedral. All the officers of State, and a large
number of the principal citizens, bearing wax candles, followed; and
then came the mass of the people, without order, but silently and
decently. The cortege stopped at each corner, where a prayer was
repeated in low recitative by the priests, who walked slowly around the
car, and sprinkled the ground with holy water. The troops were drawn, up
with arms reversed, in the plaza, which the procession entered amidst
the tolling of the muffled bells of the Cathedral. The body was carried
up the main aisle, and placed upon an elevated platform, immediately in
front of the great altar, while the choir filled the vast building with
the solemn tones of the chant for the dead. The light fell from the dome
full upon the rigid face of the corpse, calm and cold as marble,
surrounded by earnest groups, standing silently in the shadows of the
lofty arches. An extempore funeral oration was pronounced by the SEÑOR
PRESBITERO DEAN D. REMIJIO SALAZAR, of the town of El Viejo. It was
founded on the passage in the eleventh chapter of Leviticus, “Sed
santos, porque yo soy santo.” “Be ye holy, for I am holy,” and was given
with good oratorical effect and much feeling, and was altogether
impressive and appropriate. Its tenor was to show that the deceased,
from his observance of the requisitions of God and the church, was
entitled to be regarded as a saint. The analysis of what constitutes
“the Israelite indeed,” was made with great clearness and eloquence, and
in more pretending countries than those of Nicaragua, would have stamped
its author as a man of no ordinary abilities.
“The true saint,” said the speaker, “walks apart from the glittering
road trodden by the proud and selfish world. His is the path in the
valley of humility. He pants not for the glory of the soldier, or the
fame of the statesman, the splendor of wealth, or the dignity of social
position. Has he talents? He consecrates them to our holy religion. Has
he wealth? It is a free offering at the feet of Charity. Has he a lofty
lineage, and illustrious name? He humbly surrenders them at the shrine
of the Church. All this did the venerated dead! He was a man who feared
God, and adhered steadfastly to his service; irreproachable in conduct,
a faithful son, a true friend, an obedient citizen, a man disinterested
in his views and actions, moderate in his desires, uncomplaining in
adversity, humble, in prosperity; purified in the fire, weighed in the
balance, by the loftiest standard of the Holy Law, he is proved a saint!
And now, amidst the glorious array of saints and martyrs, beyond the
clouded atmosphere of earth, in the eternal sunshine of Divinity, dwells
that pure and immortal spirit whose rejected tenement, cold and
motionless, we have assembled to consign to the silent house appointed
for all living. Our tears fall on the earth, but our smiles are
reflected in Heaven!”
Amongst the many epitaphs and fragmentary poetical tributes elicited by
the death of this Vicar, the subjoined may be taken as a very fair
example. With what has been presented elsewhere, it will no doubt
satisfy the reader that the tropical muse seldom rises to lofty flights.
EPITAFIO
_A la muerte del muy illustre y venerable Prelado, el Señor Presbitero
Dr. Don Desiderio de la Quadra, Vicario Capitular de esta Diócesis._
Despues de tantos años de virtud,
El feudo pagas cual mortal viviente,
Para acercaros al trono Omnipotente
De aquel Dios de eterna beatitud:
Allí, allí la inmensa multitud
De santos que te adoran reverentes,
Abriendo campo à tu espirítu inocente,
Ponen en tus manos sonoro laúd.
Goza esa vida inmortal que te deseo
Al mismo tiempo que tu muerte llóro;
Y mientras entre los justos yo te veo,
Disfruta cantando en alto coro
Safírica corona por troféo
De Opalo una palma, una Silla de oro.
Leon, Octubre 5 de 1849.
The funeral of the Vicar was far more solemn than any other which I
witnessed in the country. In most instances the funeral ceremony has few
of those gloomy accessories which our customs prescribe as no more than
decorous. Youth, innocence, and beauty, like ornaments on the brow of
age, or on the withered limbs of deformity, serve only to heighten the
terrors of our grim conception of death, the gloomy and remorseless
tyrant who gloats, fiend-like, over the victims of his skeleton arm.
Theirs is a happier conception. Death mercifully relieves the infant
from the sorrows and the dangers of life; and withers the rose on the
cheeks of youth, that it may retain its bloom and fragrance in the more
genial atmosphere of Heaven. The tear of grief falls only for those
whose long contact with the world has effaced the stamp of divinity,
whose matured passions have cankered the heart, and whose misdirected
ambitions have diverted the aspirations of the soul and the energies of
the mind from heaven to earth, from the grandeurs of Eternity to the
frivolities of Time.
The youngest daughter of the Licenciado D. died and was buried in the
latter part of October. She was young, scarce sixteen, and the idolized
child of her parents. Her funeral might have been her bridal, in its
total freedom from outward manifestations of grief. The procession
formed before my window. First were musicians playing a cheerful strain,
and next the priests chaunting a song of triumph. After them, on the
shoulders of young men, was borne a litter, covered with white satin and
loaded with orange branches, amidst which, dressed in white as for a
festival, her head wreathed with pure white flowers, and holding in her
hands a silver cross, was the marble form of the dead girl. The bereaved
parents, the sisters and relations of the deceased followed; their eyes
were tearless, and though the traces of sorrow were visible on their
faces, yet over all there was an expression of hope, and of faith in the
teachings of Him who has declared “Blessed are the pure in heart, for
they shall see God.”
The funerals of infants are much the same. The body is invariably
dressed in white, and covered with flowers. Men firing rockets, and
musicians playing lively airs, precede the corpse, and the parents and
relatives follow. The rationale of this apparent want of feeling is to
be found in the Romish doctrine of baptismal regeneration, according to
which the departed spirit being in heaven, there is more cause for
happiness than grief.
When an adult is dangerously ill, or dying, a priest is called, who goes
for the Viaticum. An altar is hastily erected in the sick chamber; a
crucifix is placed upon it, surrounded with lighted candles and flowers,
a place being left for the _Costodia_, a vessel generally of gold and
richly jewelled, containing the consecrated wafer. This is brought by a
priest in a litter or carriage, surrounded by soldiers and boys bearing
lighted candles, and preceded by music,—sometimes consisting only of a
single violin. The people kneel as the procession passes through the
streets. Arrived at the sick chamber, the sacrament and the last rites
of the church are administered to the dying one, whose friends,
gathering close around the bed, whisper “Jesus te ampara,” “Jesus te
auxilie,” “Maria te favoresca,”—Jesus protect thee, Jesus help thee,
Maria favor thee,—and then, when they suppose the final struggle
transpiring, they ejaculate, “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus!”
“Among the more refined inhabitants,” says Mr. Crowe, in his interesting
book on Guatemala, (and the same practice is followed throughout the
country,) “after the coffin, covered with black velvet, has been removed
from between the gigantic candles which cast a pale glare upon it in the
sombre apartment, it is followed by a long train of friends on foot,
bearing lighted candles, to the church, and then to the cemetery. When
the corpse has been finally deposited, the friends return slowly and in
groups to the house of mourning, where the chief mourner has remained,
and is now waiting to receive them in a large room or hall, hung with
black cloth, at one end of which he sits, supported on his left or right
by two near kinsmen or special friends. The visitors sit silently before
him for a few minutes, on seats which are placed for them on either side
of the room, and having thus manifested their participation in the grief
of the family, they rise, one after another, gently press the hand of
the chief mourner, and, if they are intimate friends, perhaps add a word
or two of condolence. They then retire, and are succeeded by others in
the same manner.”[23]
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Footnote 23:
Gospel in Central America, p. 373.
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There is, however, much that is repugnant in the burials, particularly
as practised in Leon. Near most of the towns is what is called the Campo
Santo, an enclosed consecrated cemetery, in which the dead are buried
upon the payment of a small sum, which is devoted to keeping the grounds
in order. But in Leon the practice of burying in the churches has always
prevailed, and is perpetuated through the influence of the priests, who
derive a considerable fee from each burial. The consequence is, that the
ground within and around the churches has become (if the term is
admissible) saturated with the dead. The burials are made according to
the amount paid to the church, for from ten to twenty-five years, at the
end of which time the bones, with the earth around them, are removed and
sold to the manufacturers of nitre! The government has opposed the
entire practice for many years, and during the period of the cholera
prohibited it. But the instability of affairs in the country has been
such, that the authorities have hesitated to provoke the hostility of
the entire priesthood by putting a peremptory end to the practice.
Coffins are rarely used. The corpse is placed at the bottom of the
grave, the earth rudely thrown in, and beaten hard with heavy rammers,
with a degree of indifference, not to say brutality, which is really
shocking, and which I never permitted myself to witness a second time.
Amongst the sources of revenue to which the priesthood has adhered with
greatest tenacity, and the gradual abolition of which is one of the
leading measures of the Government policy of Nicaragua, is what is
called the _capellania_, or lien on property, conveyed to the priests by
proprietors at their death, to secure certain masses or other priestly
interpositions on behalf of their souls, or conveyed to churches for the
same laudable objects. Thus Don Fulano finding his end approaching,
gives to his priest a lien of twenty dollars a year on his estate, in
consideration of which a certain number of masses shall be said for him
annually. Next year the Doña Fulano dies, and, not to be outdone in
piety, she secures to her favorite church another annual sum to be
invested in “villainous saltpetre” for the glorification of her
protecting Santa, and the benefit of her own “alma.” It will readily be
seen that the continuance of this process through a series of years
must, in the end, seriously embarrass the real estate of the country,
and prove an effectual check to the improvement of that species of
property. Thus the most desirable portions of Leon, once covered with
squares of palaces, are now waste and unoccupied, in consequence of the
accumulation of the capellanias, which exceed in amount the market value
of the ground.
During my stay in Leon, and in spite of the opposition of those
interested in maintaining them, the Legislative Chambers decreed the
abolition of ten per cent. of the capellanias, excepting those dedicated
to educational purposes. Previously, I believe, fifteen per cent. had
been appropriated by the Government, and offered for commutation at a
nominal sum. The entire extinction of the capellanias, and the release
of the property which they have so long burthened and rendered
valueless, will be the ultimate and happy result of these advances.
I have said that the masses of the people still cherish something of
their original religious bigotry. It is, nevertheless, fast giving way
to more liberal sentiments, and no objection is made to foreigners on
the score of religion, so long as they preserve a decent respect for the
ceremonies of the church, and do not outrage the prejudices which
education and custom have created, and which are no more numerous nor
stronger than with us, although they have a somewhat different
direction. That there is much of ignorance and superstition amongst the
people, is unfortunately true; nor is the fact at all surprising, in
consideration of their antecedents, and the circumstances under which
they have been placed.[24]
-----
Footnote 24:
An English Protestant Missionary, Mr. F. Crowe, who was established in
Guatemala for some years, until driven out by the servile Government,
has recently published a work entitled the “Gospel in Central
America,” in which he observes:
“Of the fact that infidelity has spread extensively in Central
America, and particularly so amongst the very classes upon which
Romanism had formerly the strongest hold, there can be no doubt. It is
proved by the almost total abandonment of the outward observances of
Popery by the better educated amongst the Ladinos, and, in spite of
their political tendencies, by the whites and pure Creoles also. With
the exception of the more weak amongst the women and children,
scarcely any of these classes are now to be seen attending mass or
confession, and other requirements are generally neglected by them.
Numbers of infidel books are to be found in the libraries, and in the
hands of all classes and sexes. So strongly are the minds of these
classes imbued with deistical and atheistical notions, that it becomes
apparent, and is unblushingly avowed in general conversation. Nay,
some of the more candid among the priests openly espouse these
notions.”—p. 257.
Some of the priests, this author adds, ridicule the pretended
authority of the Pope, and rejoice at the emancipation of the people
from the Church of Rome. Mr. Crowe rejoices also, at the success of
infidelity over Romanism, as likely to result in good. “The change
from Popery, or any other analogous system,” he writes, “to the entire
rejection of revealed religion, is one which believers in Divine
Revelation may hail with satisfaction, if they be prepared to take
advantage of it; for it breaks up prejudices of education, leads to
thought and inquiry, and sometimes to a sincere and earnest search
after truth!”
-----
It is somewhat difficult to ascertain how far the faith of the better
classes in papal infallibility, and other matters to which an apparent
entire deference is accorded, really extends. We can hardly conceive
that the following antiquated indulgence should be posted upon every
door in the houses of the most intelligent families, except in politic
conformity to prejudices, not shared by those families themselves, but
which they do not care to oppose. Yet it met my eye almost everywhere,
in the houses alike of the rich and the poor, of the Indian and the
Caballero:—
ALABADO SEA EL
SANTISIMO
SACRAMENTO
DEL ALTAR!
Nuestro Santìsimo Padre Paulo V. de felìz memoria, en su Bula de 17.
de Abril despachada en Roma del año del Señor de 1612, concediò
indulgencia plenaria, y remision de la tercera parte de los pecados, á
cualquiera persona que en su casa tuviere escrito donde su pueda lér ☞
LA ANTERIOR JACULATORIA; ☜ y la misma indulgencia plenaria, todas las
veces que lo leyéren, y el que no supiere lér, veneráre el escrito.
_Copiado del original de indulgencias._
PRAISE BE TO THE
MOST HOLY SACRAMENT OF THE ALTAR!
“Our most holy Father Paul V. of happy memory, in his Bull from Rome,
April 17, in the year of our Lord 1612, conceded plenary indulgence
and remission of the third part of his sins to whoever should write in
his house where it might be read ☞THE PRECEDING EJACULATION☜; and the
same plenary indulgence every time he should read it, or if he should
not be able to read, every time he should venerate the writing,” i.
e., look upon it with veneration.
“Bendito y alabado sea el Santo Sacramento del Altar,” Blessed and
praised be the holy Sacrament of the Altar, is the common ejaculation of
the servant who in the evening, first brings lighted candles into the
occupied rooms of the various houses. It is uttered mechanically, in a
drawling, nasal tone, and was formerly always responded to by the
members of the family; but like many other customs, the latter part of
the practice has now become obsolete. The recipient of a favor
acknowledges it by “Dios se lo pague,” God repay you; if an engagement
is made, it is with the qualification, “si Dios quiere,” if God wills;
and when a bond is entered into, it is always with the reservation,
“Primero Dios,” i. e., if my first duty to God will permit. The “higher
law” is always recognized, in form if not in spirit. “Dios sobre todos,”
God over all, is the commonest of proverbs.
The public Penitencias, or Penances, afford striking illustrations of
the strength of the popular superstitions, and of the priestly
influence. I witnessed one of these, shortly after my arrival in Leon.
It consisted of a long procession of men and boys, one or two hundred in
number, barefooted and stripped to the waist, their heads and faces
covered with veils so as to prevent recognition, who marched through the
public streets, from one church to another, flagellating themselves with
raw hide thongs. They were preceded by a life-size figure of Christ on
the cross, a score of musicians, and a crowd of priests and women, (all
of the latter barefooted and some bearing heavy crosses on their
shoulders,) who chanted prayers, while the penitents beat time with the
thongs over their own shoulders. Each one carried a little cross before
him in his hand, with his head bent forward as if in earnest
contemplation of the sacred symbol. It was a singular spectacle; for
there were black bodies, and brown, and white bodies, and yellow, and
the sharp strokes of the thongs in the pauses of the slow and mournful
music, fairly made the flesh of the spectator creep. There was, however,
no special occasion for sympathy, for each penitent had it in his power
to graduate the force of his own blows to his own notions of the
enormity of his moral offences. Some laid it on gently,—moderate
sinners!—merely as a matter of form; but there were others who punished
themselves lustily, and drew blood from their quivering flesh at every
blow, which ran down to their very heels, and purpled the ground where
they trod.
It seems almost incredible that these heathenish practices, only one
remove from human sacrifices, should yet be perpetuated amongst nations
claiming to be civilized. Still, when we reflect that fasts and other
mortifications of the body are prescribed by the rituals of our own
churches, and proclaimed from the executive chair of our own nation, we
ought not to be surprised at any manifestation of human folly, or wonder
that the popular conception of God is not yet purified from the horrible
and detestable features with which it was invested in the darkest ages
of the world, and in the most debased stages of the human mind. The
belief that the all-good and omnipotent Ruler of the Universe can be
pleased with the self-inflicted punishment of his creatures, whether it
be through fasting or flagellation, differs in no respect from that
which actuates the frantic Hindoo, who prostrates himself before the
crushing wheels of Jaggenath, or that inflamed the poor Mexican, who
offered his willing breast to the knife of the Aztec priest, that his
palpitating heart might bathe the lips of the idol which was the visible
representation of his sanguinary God!
There were other Penitencias, not public, but which were perhaps more
severe. A hundred or more of the penitents are sometimes locked within a
church, where they remain for nine days, sleeping but four hours out of
the twenty-four, and eating but once in that period. The rest of the
time is divided between the various ceremonies prescribed by the rigid
rules of the penitencia, upon their knees, or prone on the rough floor
of the dark church in which they are confined. While I resided near the
Eglesia de la Merced, one of these penitencias took place, and I was
several times awakened in the dead of night by the wailings of the
penitents, mingling harshly with the low and cheerful melodies of that
Nature which harmonizes with its great Author, and upon whose laws
kingcraft and priestcraft, the world over, and in every age, have waged
a constant and most unnatural and unholy war. The horrible doctrine of
original sin, and the efficacy of austerities, penances, and
immolations, parts of one system, find the best evidence of their truth
in the fact of their existence amongst men! I saw the enthusiasts when
they came out of the church, pale, haggard, and filthy; some, in fact,
so exhausted that they could not walk without assistance, and who
tottered from the scenes of their debasement to beds of sickness and
death.
Very novel penances are sometimes prescribed by the priests by way of
atonement for individual iniquities. The Padre Cartine was particularly
ingenious and happy in imposing them. Lazy fellows and _bon vivants_, to
whom he thought exercise and fasting would prove beneficial, he sent
bare-footed and alone to El Viejo, or some place at a distance, under
the restriction to speak to no human being on the way, nor to eat, nor
yet to sleep, until their return. A heavy stone, rough and angular, had
sometimes to be carried on the naked shoulders of the penitent, or a
cross of heavy wood, according to the more or less heinous nature of the
poor devil’s offences. Carpenters, masons, and all other valuable
sinners, whose labor could be turned to good account, the Padre set to
work in repairing or improving his church and the buildings attached to
it, and never failed to put the good workmen “well in for it.”
Occasionally he got hold of a stupid fellow who failed to perform a
profitable day’s labor. In such cases the Padre had a whip, made of the
skin of the _dante_, or tapir, which he scrupled not to apply to the
delinquent’s back, for the benefit of his soul, and the acceleration of
the particular job in hand. And it is reported that these applications
are sometimes accompanied with terms more forcible than complimentary;
but I don’t vouch for the truth of that.
For one or two months during my stay in Leon, the Padre had under his
surveillance a priest, suspended for licentious conduct, with whom he
was extremely rigorous. I was an accidental witness of his severity on
one occasion, when the Host was passing. The suspended Padre, in common
with all the people, came to the door, but instead of bending like the
rest on the hard threshold, he knelt comfortably in a soft-bottomed
chair. The indignant monk saw the dodge, and rising hastily, with a
vigorous blow of his foot knocked the chair from underneath the
delinquent, who came down with a force which must have jarred every bone
in his sinful body. The course of fasting and prayer through which that
priest was “put” by the Padre Cartine, if report speaks true,—midnight
vigils, and noonday masses,—would have reformed Silenus, and made a
saint of Bacchus.
Nicaragua and Costa Rica together constitute a Diocess of a very ancient
date. It was organized as early as 1526. For the period intervening
between 1832 and 1849, the Bishop’s chair was vacant; but in the latter
year Don GEORGE VITERI Y UNGO, once Secretary of State of Guatemala, and
subsequently Bishop of San Salvador, received the appointment, and is
now in discharge of its functions. I have already described him as a man
of great intelligence, and polished manners. He has travelled much, and
never fails to leave a favorable impression on the minds of foreigners.
Yet in the country he is accounted an _intrigante_, and does not seem to
enjoy the full confidence of the leading inhabitants, who nevertheless
treat him with all respect and courtesy. While Bishop of San Salvador,
he is said to have taken an undue interest in political affairs, and
this was the cause of his deposition from that diocess; for the people
of San Salvador are quite as liberal in religion as politics, and will
tolerate no interference in public affairs by the clergy, as such. They
nevertheless concede to them the utmost latitude as individuals, and
while making no distinctions in their favor, make none against them.
In respect to Education, both amongst the clergy and the people of
Nicaragua, little need be said, except that the standard is exceedingly
low. I spare myself the painful necessity of writing upon the subject,
by translating the following impartial passages from a private letter on
this point, addressed to me by one of the best informed and patriotic
citizens of Leon. A knowledge of their own deficiencies and wants, by
any people, is indispensable to secure a remedy; and the fact that some
of the best men in Nicaragua are looking the evils of ignorance full in
the face, is one of the best signs in the horoscope of the country.
“Education in Nicaragua,” says my correspondent, “is generally much
neglected; particularly in the departments of Chontales and Segovia,
where there are some towns without a single teacher of any grade. Here
the elements of education are only taught, if taught at all, by the
fathers of families to their children, in the evening before going to
bed; but this instruction seldom reaches beyond learning them to repeat
their catechism. In these places, as also in some others where there are
teachers, it is a common thing for parents to send their children to the
house of some poor neighbor, where they are taught the catechism, and to
make certain pot-hooks, called writing. These apologies for teachers
have no recompense beyond an occasional small present. The mode adopted
by them is to repeat the lesson once or twice _viva voce_, with the
children; and their principal occupation consists in permitting the
latter to do what they please, and in assisting them in doing it!
“In the towns where there are teachers, there are seldom more than one
or two public schools; in the larger places there are, perhaps, a few
more, but unfortunately all of pretty nearly the same character with
those above described. In these schools are taught only the fundamental
doctrines of Christianity, reading and writing; nor is this done in
accordance with any good system, but generally by a process which is
little better than a burlesque. The lesson is repeated after the master,
simultaneously by the whole school, and it is difficult to say which
shouts loudest, the master or the scholars; but it is always easy to
tell the proximity of a schoolhouse, from the noise. The localities of
these schools are generally bad and filthy, as is also the clothing of
the scholars, which often consists of nothing more than a shirt. In some
of the towns, as Masaya, Managua, and Chinandega, the public schools are
filled to overflowing, and as each one has no more than a single
teacher, he can only bestow a very superficial attention upon the
individual scholars. In these towns there are also some higher schools,
in which Latin is taught, after the old method, painful alike to teacher
and student, and generally with no result except the knowledge that
Señor Fulano has studied this language for so many years! There are
also, in these towns, phantom classes in what is called Philosophy, the
extent of whose acquirements consists in studying badly, and
understanding worse, some paragraphs in Lugdunensis.
“Besides their public schools, both Granada and Leon have each a
University. That of Leon is oldest, having been founded in the year
1675.
“In these Universities are taught the following branches: Latin and
Spanish Grammar, Philosophy, Civil and Canonical Law, and Theology.
Lately a class in English has been organized in that of Leon; and a
class in both English and French in that of Granada. Of Mathematics and
other cognate branches nothing is taught, nor scarcely anything known.
The authority in Spanish is Alemany; in Latin, Nebrisa; in Philosophy,
Lugdunensis; in Civil Law, Salas; in Canonical Law, Devoti; in Theology,
Larraga. The time devoted to these studies is, to Spanish, Grammar, and
Latin, two years and a half; to Philosophy, two years; Civil and
Canonical Law, and Theology, three years. But many have not the patience
to go through the prescribed time, and leaping over these various
branches of study, succeed in securing their titles. There are priests,
in orders, who have never so much as read the Padre Larraga!
“In order to obtain the degrees and secure the tassel, it is not
necessary to know much; it is enough to have a general idea or two, to
stand well with the professors, be able to pay the fees punctually, to
spread a good table of refreshments, and to have a blazing display of
fireworks. I have known instances in which the candidate did not answer
well more than a single question, and yet obtained unanimously the
degree which he sought. There are more Bachelors than men; Doctors swarm
everywhere; and there are families of wealth and influence in which the
tassel goes (practically) by descent!
“The professors of Languages and Civil Law in 1850, in Leon, were very
good; but the professor in the latter department, occupied with other
matters, has permitted his place to be very poorly filled by certain
Bachelors. In fact, all the professors do but little; principally
because their salaries are insignificant in amount, seldom exceeding
$200 per annum. Their lectures are got through with very rapidly, rarely
occupying more than an hour each, and are scarcely ever illustrated, or
enforced by examples in point.
“Concerning the University of Granada, I am not well informed, but it is
doubtless on about the same footing with that of Leon; or, if any
comparison may be instituted, something worse.
“To the defects in the system of Education in Nicaragua is to be
ascribed, in great part, the troubles with which the State has been
afflicted. There is nothing practical in the lessons which are taught in
the schools; the studies are all abstract, and the fixedness of
character and liberality of views which follow from a knowledge of the
present condition and relations of the world, an understanding of modern
sciences, Geography, Chemistry, Mineralogy, Mathematics, Engineering,
etc., etc., are never attained. The men of education, so called, are
therefore mere creatures of circumstances and impulses, in common with
the most ignorant portion of the population, and fully as vacillating in
their ideas. Their education is just sufficient to give them power to do
mischief, instead performing the legitimate office of truly
comprehensive acquirements, that of a balance-wheel. What may be called
the moral effect of an education, that which contributes to form the
character of the man and mould it upon a just model, is wanting in the
system, or rather no-system, not only of Nicaragua, but of all the other
Spanish American States.
“In Nicaragua, therefore, in the absence of teachers, methods, books,
instruments, and of nearly all the elements of teaching, there is
nothing which can properly be called education.[25] Not because there
are no latent capacities or dispositions for learning amongst the
people; nor do I mean to say that there is a total absence of really
cultivated and well-educated men. On the contrary, there are a number
who have had opportunities of acquiring education through the assistance
of private teachers, or who have perfected themselves abroad; but these
are lost in the mass of ignorance and shallow acquirements which
surround them.
-----
Footnote 25:
“The books employed,” says Mr. Crowe, “besides the gloomy character of
their contents, are in bulk sufficient to discourage the most
enterprising child. They are four or five in number, consisting of
heavy volumes, which make an antique collection, heavy and dry enough
to discourage adults. First ‘La Cartilla,’ containing the alphabet,
the forms of prayer, and the commandments of the Church, with no
attempt at gradation. The second, ‘El Canon,’ the third, ‘El
Catecismo,’ and fourth, ‘El Ramillete.’ All these, which are much
larger than the first, contain theological definitions, digests of
doctrines, creeds, holy legends, and devotional formulas, addressed to
the Virgin and the Saints. Through every one of these the unhappy
scholar is doomed to wade from beginning to end; and so deep is his
aversion to the task, and so great is the triumph when a child has
overcome one of these obstacles to his progress, that the event is
actually celebrated in his family by feasting.”—p. 287.
-----
. “In Leon, I may add, there are ten or a dozen schools, in some of
which there is an average daily attendance of two hundred scholars. The
highest pay of teachers is ten dollars per month.”
But notwithstanding the general deficiency in education, and the means
of acquiring it, there exists a most laudable bn p3820.png ambition to
secure its benefits. The States of Nicaragua, San Salvador, and Costa
Rica, offer the largest encouragement to the establishment of schools of
every grade. Under the old Confederation, during the dominance of the
Liberals, the most effective means were adopted to educate the people.
The officers of the army and the subordinates of the Government, when
not occupied with the immediate duties of their stations, opened free
schools in the barracks of the soldiery, in the offices of customs, and
the rooms of the general and local courts. The house of the National
Government, at the close of office hours, became an academy. But the
system of education, as all the other plans of improvement originating
with the Liberals, were suspended during the disturbances created by the
Serviles, and overthrown whenever and wherever the latter attained
ascendancy. In the new career now opening before Central America, the
subject of education claims and no doubt will receive the first
attention of the respective States. But nothing beneficial can be done
without a complete abandonment of the old systems of teaching—old
authorities and books, and the substitution of others adapted to the
age, and the state of general knowledge amongst civilized nations. If
creeds and catechisms are still required, let them be assigned their
proper time and place; they constitute no part of an education, and are
chilling and oppressing in their influences on the youthful mind. The
sooner this fact is not only understood, but acted upon, in Central
America, the better for its people.