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1. Always extremely dear to Us has been the noble Spanish Nation for its
exemplary benevolence toward the Catholic Faith and Christian civilization, for
its traditional and ardent devotion to this Holy Apostolic See, for its great
institutions and apostolic works, being the fecund mother of Saints,
missionaries and founders of illustrious religious Orders, the pride and
support of the House of God. It is precisely because the glory of Spain is so intimately connected with the
Catholic Religion that We feel doubly afflicted in
witnessing the deplorable endeavors that for some
time have been continually repeated to deprive this beloved nation, with her
traditional faith, of her most beautiful titles of civil grandeur. We did not
fail - as Our paternal heart dictated - to point out often to the present
Government of Spain how false was the way they followed, and to remind them how
it is not by wounding the soul of a people in their most profound and dearest
sentiments that they can reach that harmony of spirits which is indispensable
for the prosperity of the nation. This We did through
Our representative every time a new danger appeared of some new law or measure
prejudicial to the sacrosanct rights of God and of souls. Nor did We fail to add also the publication of Our paternal words to
Our beloved children the clergy and laity of Spain, so that they might know Our heart
was nearer to them in these grievous moments.
2. But We cannot fail to raise Our
voice against the laws lately approved, "Relating to religious Confessions
and Congregations," which constitute a new and graver offense
not only to Religion and the Church, but also to those declared principles of
civil liberty on which the new Spanish regime declares it bases itself.
3. Nor can it be believed that Our words are inspired by sentiments of aversion to the new
form of government or other purely political changes which recently have
transpired in Spain. Universally known is the fact that
the Catholic Church is never bound to one form of government more than to
another, provided the Divine rights of God and of Christian consciences are
safe. She does not find any difficulty in adapting herself to various civil
institutions, be they monarchic or republican, aristocratic or democratic. Speaking
only of recent facts, evident proof of this lies in the numerous Concordats and
agreements concluded in later years, and in the diplomatic relations the Holy
See has established with different States in which, following the Great War,
monarchic governments were succeeded by republican forms. Nor have these new
republics ever had to suffer in their institutions and just aspirations toward
national grandeur and welfare through their friendly relations with the Holy
See, or through their disposition, in a spirit of reciprocal confidence, to
conclude conventions on subjects relating to Church and State, in conformity
with changed conditions and times. Nay, We can with certainty affirm that from
these trustful understandings with the Church the States themselves have
derived remarkable advantages, since it is known no more effective dyke can be
opposed to an inundation of social disorders than the Church, which is the
greatest educator of the people and always knows how to unite, in fecund
agreement, the principle of legitimate liberty with that of authority, the
exigencies of justice with welfare and peace.
4. The Government of the new Republic
could not be ignorant of all this. Nay, it knew well Our
good disposition, and that of the Spanish Episcopate, to concur in maintaining
order and social tranquillity. With Us was in harmony the immense multitude not
only of the clergy both secular and regular, but likewise of the Catholic
laity, or, rather, the great majority of the Spanish people, who,
notwithstanding their personal opinions and provocations and vexations by
adversaries of the Church, kept themselves aloof from acts of violence and
reprisals, in tranquil subjection to the constituted power, without having to
resort to disorder and much less to civil war.
5. Certainly to no other causes than
to this discipline and subjection inspired by Catholic teachings and spirit
have we the right to attribute the possibility of maintaining some peace and public
tranquillity while the turbulence of parties and the passions of
revolutionaries worked to propel the nation toward the abyss of anarchy. It has
therefore caused Us great amazement and profound
anguish to learn that some, as if it were to justify the iniquitous proceedings
against the Church, publicly alleged a necessity of defending the new Republic.
From the foregoing, it appears so evident that the alleged motive was
nonexistent, that we can only conclude the struggle against the Church in Spain
is not so much due to a misunderstanding of the Catholic Faith and its
beneficial institutions, as of a hatred against the Lord and His Christ
nourished by groups subversive to any religious and social order, as alas we
have seen in Mexico and Russia.
6. But, returning to the deplorable
laws regarding religious confessions and Congregations, We learned with great
sorrow that therein, at the beginning, it is openly declared that the State has
no official religion, thus reaffirming that separation of State from Church
which was, alas, decreed in the new Spanish Constitution. We shall not delay
here to repeat that it is a serious error to affirm that this separation is
licit and good in itself, especially in a nation almost totally Catholic.
Separation, well considered, is only the baneful consequence - as We often have
declared, especially in the Encyclical Quas
Primas - of laicism, or rather the apostasy of
society that today feigns to alienate itself from God and therefore from the Church.
7. But if the pretension of excluding
from public life God the Creator and Provident Ruler of that same society is
impious and absurd for any people whatsoever, it is particularly repugnant to
find this exclusion of God and Church from the life of the Spanish Nation,
where the Church always and rightly has held the most important and most
beneficially active part in legislation, in schools, and in all other private
and public institutions. If such an attempt results in irreparable harm to the
Christian conscience of the country, especially to its youth, whom they would
educate without religion, and to families, profaned in the most sacred
principles, no less harm befalls that same civil authority. When this loses the
support that recommends it, nay sustains it, in the conscience of the people,
namely the persuasion of its Divine origin, dependence and sanction,
it loses at the same time its greatest power to obligate, and its highest title
to be respected. That this inevitable damage follows a regime of separation is
attested by not a few among the very nations that, after having introduced it
in their regulations, very soon realized the necessity of remedying the error,
either modifying, at least in their interpretation and application, the laws
persecuting the Church, or endeavoring, in spite of
separation, to come to a pacific plan of coexistence and cooperation with the
Church.
8. The new Spanish legislators,
indifferent to these lessons of history, wanted a form of separation hostile to
the Faith professed by the great majority of citizens, - a separation so much
more painful and unjust especially since it was advanced in the name of that
liberty promised and assured to all without distinction. Thus they wished to
subject the Church and her ministers to measures by which they sought to put
her at the mercy of the civil power. Infact, while
under the Constitution and successive laws all opinions, even the most
erroneous, have wide fields in which to manifest themselves, the Catholic
Religion alone, that of almost all of the citizens, see its teaching odiously
watched, its schools and other institutions, so helpful for science and Spanish
culture, restrained.
9. The very exercise of Catholic
worship, in its most essential and traditional manifestations, is not exempt
from limitations, since religious assistance in institutes is made dependent on
the State, and religious processions are placed under the necessity of obtaining
special authorization granted by the Government. Special clauses and
restrictions apply even to administration of the Sacraments to the dying and
funerals for the dead. Even more manifest is the contradiction regarding
property. The Constitution recognizes in all citizens the legitimate faculty of
possession and, as is proper in all legislation of civilized countries,
guarantees safeguards for the exercise of such important rights arising from
nature itself. Nevertheless, even on this point, an exception was created to
the detriment of the Catholic Church, depriving her, with open injustice, of
all property. No regard is paid to the wishes of those making donations in
wills; no account is taken of the spiritual and holy ends connected with such properties,
and no respect is shown in any way to rights long ago acquired and founded on
indisputable juridical titles. All buildings, episcopal
residences, parish houses, seminaries and monasteries no longer are recognized
as the free property of the Catholic Church, but are declared - with words that
badly hide the nature of the usurpation - public and national property.
10. Moreover, while these buildings,
the legitimate property of the various ecclesiastical bodies, are by law left
only to the use of the Catholic Church and her ministers in accordance with
their purpose of worship, they even go so far as to subject these same
buildings to taxes for their use. Thus the Catholic Church is compelled to pay
taxes on what was violently wrenched from her.
11. In this manner the civil power
prepared the way to render even the precarious use of her property impossible
to the Catholic Church. Since she is deprived of everything - deprived of every
subsidy, and hindered in all her activities - how can she pay these taxes? Nor
can one say that under the law the Catholic Church has the faculty to own at
least some private property, because even the reduced right is almost nullified
by a principle soon afterward enunciated, that those properties may only be
held in the quantity necessary for religious services. In this way the Church
is compelled to submit to examination by the civil power for the fulfillment of her divine mission, and the State has
constituted itself judge of what is necessary for purely spiritual functions.
Therefore, there is reason to fear such judgment as being in accordance with
the laic intentions of the laws and their authors.
12. The usurpation does not stop at
property. Chattles, also, are declared public
property and are catalogued so that nothing may escape, even vestments,
statues, pictures, vases, gems and similar objects expressly and permanently
destined to Catholic worship, to its splendor and to
necessities directly connected with such worship. While the Church is denied
the right to dispose freely of what is hers by reason of having been
legitimately purchased or donated by the pious faithful, to the State only is
given to the power of disposing, for another purpose and without any
limitation, of sacred objects - even those which with special consecration have
been withdrawn from every profane use - removing every duty of the State to
compensate the Church for such deplorable waste.
13. Nor was all this sufficient to
appease the anti-religious whims of the present legislators. Not even the
churches were spared. Temples - splendors of art,
rare monuments of glorious history and decorum which have been the pride of the
nation throughout centuries - Houses of God and prayer over which the Catholic
Church always had enjoyed the full right of ownership and which the Church by
her magnificent title of particular merit had always preserved, embellished and
adorned with loving care - even temples not a few of which were destroyed (and
again We deplore it) by the impious mania of burning - were declared to
property of the nation and placed under the control of the civil authorities
who today rule the public destinies without any respect for the religious
sentiments of the good people of Spain.
14. The condition created for the
Catholic Church in Spain is, therefore, very sad. The clergy
already were deprived, by an action totally foreign to the generous character
of the chivalrous Spanish nation, of their incomes, thus violating a promise
given in a concordatory pact and violating the
strictest justice since the State, in fixing these allowances, had not done it
through gratuitous concession but as indemnity for goods already taken from the
Church.
15. Even Religious Congregations are
now stricken in an inhuman manner by these deplorable laws. The unjust
suspicion was fomented that they might exercise political activity dangerous to
the safety of the State, thus stimulating a passion hostile to them with every
kind of denunciation and persecution to provide an open and easy way to arrive
at more serious measures. They were subjected to many inquiries, registrations
and inspections which constituted troublesome forms of fiscal oppression and
finally, after they were deprived of the right of teaching and exercising any
other activity from which they could obtain honest sustenance, they were placed
under tributary laws, though it was well-known that, deprived of everything,
they will not be able to pay taxes, which is another veiled manner of rendering
their existence impossible. Actually, with such legislation, not only the
Religious but the whole Spanish people have been stricken, because there have
been rendered impossible those great works of charity and of beneficence for
the aid of the poor which always formed the magnificent glory of the Religious
Congregations and the Catholic Spain.
16. Nevertheless, in the painful and
straightened circumstances in which the secular and regular clergy find
themselves in Spain, the thought comforts Us that the generous Spanish people,
even in the present economic crisis, will worthily know how to repair such a
pitiful situation, lessening the burden of real poverty which has overwhelmed
their priests, so that, with renewed energy, they can provide for Divine
Worship and pastoral ministry.
17. But if these grave injustices
sadden Us, and with Us, you, Venerable Brothers, Beloved Sons, We feel even
more strongly the offense committed against Divine
Majesty. It was an expression of a soul deeply hostile to God and the Catholic
Religion, to have disbanded the Religious Orders that had taken a vow of
obedience to an authority different from the legitimate authority of the State.
In this way means was ought to do away with the Society of Jesus - which can
well glory in being one of the soundest auxiliaries of the Chair of Peter -
with the hope, perhaps, of then being able with less difficulty to overthrow in
the near future, the Christian Faith and morale in the heart of the Spanish
Nation, which gave to the Church of God the grand and glorious figure of
Ignatius Loyola.
18. In this manner they wished to
strike fully, as We already have publicly declared, at the very Supreme
Authority of the Catholic Church. They did not dare name explicitly the person
of the Roman Pontiff, but, in fact, they have defined as extraneous to the
Spanish Nation the authority of the Vicar of Christ, as if the authority of the
Roman Pontiff, conferred by Jesus, Himself, could be called extraneous to any
part of the world whatsoever; as if the recognition of the Divine Authority of
Christ can minimize legitimate human authority; as if the spiritual and
supernatural power could be in contrast with that of the State - a contrast
that cannot exist except through the malice of those who desire and want it
because they know that without the Shepherd little sheep would go astray and
more easily become the prey of false shepherds.
19. If the offense
inflicted on the authority of the Vicar of Christ deeply wounds Our paternal
heart, never did We think for a moment it could even in the smallest way shake
the traditional devotion of the Spanish people to the Chair of Peter. Rather,
as has always been taught by experience and history, the more the enemies of
the Church seek to alienate people from the Vicar of Christ, the more
affectionately the latter, through the providential disposition of God, Who
knows how to bring good out of evil, draw closer to him, proclaiming that from
him alone is radiated that light which illuminates the way darkened by so many
perturbations, and that from him alone, as from Christ, resounds the words of
eternal life.
20. Nor were they satisfied when with
the recent law they so much raged against the great and meritorious Society of
Jesus; they wished to give another and very serious blow to all Religious
Orders and Congregations by forbidding them to teach. Thus was accomplished a
work of deplorable ingratitude and clear injustice. In fact, the liberty which
is granted to all to exercise the right to teach is taken from one class of
citizens guilty only of having embraced a life of renunciation and perfection.
Did they perhaps wish to inflict upon the Religious, who have left and
sacrificed everything to dedicate themselves only to teaching and the education
of the young as an apostolic mission, the stigma of incapacity or inferiority
in the teaching field? Nevertheless, experience has demonstrated with what
care, with what competence, the Religious always have fulfilled their duty,
with what magnificent results for the instruction of intellect as well as the
education of heart they have crowned their patient labor.
It is luminously proved by the number of persons, truly famous in all fields of
human science and at the same time exemplary Catholics, who came forth from the
schools of the Religious. It is shown by the great advances made in Spain by such schools, and by the record
of students. Finally, it is confirmed by the confidence which they have enjoyed
from parents, who, having received from God the right and duty of educating
their own children, have also the sacrosanct liberty
of choosing those who must efficaciously cooperate in their education.
21. But this very serious act with
regard to Religious Orders and Congregations was not enough. Indisputable
rights of property also were oppressed. The free will of founders and
benefactors was openly violated through the seizure of buildings with the
object of creating lay schools that are Godless, although the generous donors
had stipulated that strictly Catholic education should be imparted.
22. From all this, alas, appears too
clearly the purpose they intend to achieve with such regulations, namely that
of educating new generations in a spirit of religious indifference if not
anticlericalism, tearing from the young souls the traditional Catholic
sentiments so deeply rooted in the good people of Spain. Thus it is sought to
make laic all teaching which hitherto was inspired by religion and Christian
morality.
23. In the face of a law so injurious
to ecclesiastical rights and liberties, rights that We must defend and preserve
integrally, We believe that it is precisely the duty of Our Apostolic Ministry
to reprove and condemn it. Therefore, We solemnly
protest with all Our strength against the law itself, declaring that it cannot
be invoked against the inalienable rights of the Church. And We wish here to
reaffirm Our lively confidence that Our beloved children of Spain,
understanding the injustice and harm of these provisions will bring to bear all
legitimate means which, in view of the nature of the law and of its
interpretation, rest in their power to induce these same legislators to reform
these dispositions which are so contrary to the rights of every citizen and so
hostile to the Church, substituting other laws reconcilable with Catholic
conscience.
24. Meanwhile, however, with all the
soul and heart of a father and shepherd, We emphatically exhort Bishops,
priests, and all those who in any way intend to dedicate themselves to the
education of the young to promote more intensely, with all their strength and
by every means, religious teaching and the practice of Christian life. And this
is so much more necessary since the new Spanish legislation, with the
deleterious introduction of divorce, dares to profane the sanctuary of the
family, thus implanting, with the attempted dissolution of domestic society,
the germs of saddest ruin for civil well-being. Faced by a menace of such
enormous damage, We again recommend to all Catholic Spain that laments and
recriminations be put aside, and subordinating to the common welfare of Country
and Religion every other ideal, all unite, disciplined for the defense of the Faith and to remove the dangers that
threaten the civil welfare.
25. In a special way, We invite all
the Faithful to unite in Catholic Action, which We so often have recommended
and which, though not constituting a party but rather having set itself above
and beyond all political parties, will serve to form the conscience of
Catholics, illuminating and corroborating it in defense
of the Faith against every snare.
26. Now, Venerable Brothers and Beloved
Sons, We cannot conclude Our letter better than by repeating that more than the
help of men We must have confidence in the indefectible assistance promised by
God to His Church and in the immense goodness of the Lord toward those who love
Him. Therefore, considering what has happened near you and saddened above
everything else by serious offenses committed against
the Divine Majesty, with the numerous violations of His sacrosanct rights and
with so many transgressions of His laws, We have sent to heaven fervent prayers
asking God to pardon the offenses against Him. He, Who can, may fully illumine the minds, rectify the wills,
and turn the hearts of the rulers to better advice.
27. Sweet hope is entertained by Us
that the supplicating voice of so many good children united to Us in prayer,
above all in this Holy Year of the Redemption, will be benignly accepted by the
clemency of Our Heavenly Father. In this faith, We
impart with all Our heart the Apostolic Blessing and invoke on you, Venerable
Brothers and Beloved Sons, and on all the Spanish Nation so dear to Us the
abundance of heavenly favors.
Given at Rome, at St. Peter's, on the third day
of June, 1933, in the twelfth year of Our Pontificate.
PIUS X
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