The War Upon Religion Part 30

4. Secret a.s.sociations.

5. Political and anti-republican activity.

6. Reactionary influence.

In this dark hour, when with sad hearts we are all compelled to quit our beloved Portugal, I owe to my country a categorical reply to these accusations of our persecutors.

_1. ARMAMENTS AND SUBTERRANEAN GALLERIES._

The answer is simple. We had no armaments whatever, nor in any of our houses were there subterranean pa.s.sages by which to escape or communicate with others.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ARRESTING A NUN.]

And yet, had it been otherwise, had we possessed such covered ways--what then? Had we not a right in view of what had occurred? Our conduct, though less frank and open, would have been at least more business-like, as was said a few weeks ago in the Spanish Parliament, by the Premier Ca.n.a.lejas, in regard of defensive works said to exist in some religious houses. How then, what happened at Campolide, where the mob broke in, flooding corridors and private rooms, bursting open everything, throwing about books and papers, and threatening to shoot the unfortunate inmates? Does not all this show that it would have been highly advantageous to have had some means of hindering the sack of the college until the public force could come to the rescue? In reality, however, there was nothing of the sort.

In the whole building of Campolide were only a couple of guns for purposes of sport, when our professors went for a fortnight's holiday to a country house at Val de Royal. Moreover, these guns were not employed when the a.s.sault took place.

What, then, of the shots fired from our residence at Quelhas? These shots were the occasion for bitter calumnies against us, in an official note which has as yet not been contradicted by the Provisional Government.

The general himself commanding at Lisbon, who was appointed by the republic, acknowledged to the representative of the Paris Ill.u.s.tration that, as was clearly proved, none of us had any hand in anything so done. Who it was that fired the shots, some being dressed in costumes found in our rooms, can easily be understood, especially when we know what occurred at Campolide, where one of these pseudo-Jesuits who fell to the shot of one of his comrades, was found under his ca.s.sock to be wearing his military uniform, betraying his true character.

It is certain, moreover, that two days prior to the a.s.sault on the Quelhas residence, all the fathers there had been arrested and imprisoned. As to the secret underground pa.s.sages and communications by which these mythical Jesuit riflemen made their escape, no one ever saw them to this moment.

Moreover, the general in command has likewise declared that there are no such subterranean works excepting narrow sewers.

So much for Quelhas. As to Campolide, I may add that beneath the surface were cut various water channels, amongst them a fine cistern constructed by one of my predecessors as director of the college. But although these channels had been inspected and their real character understood, the anti-clerical press did not hesitate to produce a sketch of one of them and to style it "entrance to a subterranean."

I confess that I had never thought I should one day be called upon to defend myself against the charge of such a.r.s.enals and ambushes. Such Arabian Night tales, so frequent in the Jacobin press, had often amused my brothers and myself, and when about a twelvemonth since terrible stories about an a.r.s.enal at Campolide were being circulated, and a friend of mine who had recently been a Minister of the Crown, warned me that we should at last be obliged to provide against an a.s.sault I answered plainly that we would rather have our lives taken than take the lives of others.

_2. WEALTH._

The belief in Jesuit wealth was so deeply rooted in Portugal as to be entertained not only by our enemies but even by our best friends.

Supposing this belief to be well-grounded, why should it make us criminals? It would be a strange measure to expel a man from his country merely because he possessed a large sum of money. But our reputed wealth was purely fabulous, without any foundation in fact. Would that the society had actually in Portugal abundant material resources, we should have no lack of good works on which to expend them for the good of our country.

But we had no such resources. Frequently after my appointment as superior I had a hard struggle against grievous difficulties to find means of supporting my subjects.

So many are the misconceptions regarding Jesuit property that with a view of dispelling them I long projected the course of lectures on the subject. I was, however, prevented from doing as I wished by the incognito in which I was placed by Hintese Ribeiro's decree. G.o.d knows what a mortification it was to me to have to a.s.sume a disguise imposed by law, but wholly repugnant to my own straightforwardness and natural ideas concerning truth as well as to the heartfelt love and admiration which I entertained for the Society of Jesus.

This matter will require but a few words.

If the government of the society is strictly monarchial, its administration is, on the contrary, extremely decentralized. Each house is separately administered, and nothing can be more imaginary than the bottomless common purse which has inspired so many falsehoods.

As a fact, if in Portugal, thanks to the careful administration of their superiors, the Jesuit houses have been free from debt, they have usually possessed few comforts, and have sometimes endured great hardships.

Residences subsisted merely upon stipends for ma.s.ses and preaching, or alms spontaneously offered. In the colleges the great expenses required to provide our boys with board and lodging, with the comforts and amus.e.m.e.nts they enjoyed, and still more with what was required to keep abreast of modern educational developments. All this, I say, obliged us to interrupt our building works till the number of pupils should be much increased.

It is remarkable that while by universal consent Campolide ranked first in respect to board, tuition and hygiene as well as physical training, and while other colleges charged 5 or 6 per month, Campolide never charged more than 4. In the provinces, at Beira, S. Fiel, giving the same education, long exacted only 1 10s.--only recently was the monthly fee raised to 2. Among the recreations provided for our boys must not be forgotten the scientific excursions initiated at Campolide two years ago by myself along with Father Luisier, for the benefit of the elder students who were about to finish their school course and proceed to the university, and were thus introduced to all branches of natural history.

The public schools which adopted the same plan later on did but imitate us, and not so thoroughly.

The anti-religious movement of 1901 having alarmed many families, so that the number of scholars decreased, it was found necessary to suspend operations. At a later period, when I myself was made rector of the college, I contrived to make considerable additions, but the troubles stirred up by the revolutionary press checked the work, which has been at a standstill for two years. Such is the truth of our wealth in Portugal.

What am I to say of our seminary fund, that, I mean, which is devoted to the education of young men in the society? How many of our opponents have expended their eloquence in vigorous denunciation of our wealth, without reflecting on the circ.u.mstances under which our recruits are enrolled and trained! The training in the society is very slow; one who goes through the entire course is occupied in it for fifteen or even seventeen years. There are included the ascetical training of the Novitiate, then the literary and philosophical and the theological, and as a rule there is introduced one of practical pedagogy for those who are to teach in the colleges.

On the other hand, the great majority of vocations to the order were from the middle or lower cla.s.ses, and the subjects had but little to obtain from their parents.

[Ill.u.s.tration: NUNS ARRESTED.]

It thus resulted that for the heavy expenses necessary for this lengthy training of some two hundred priests and scholastics, about a hundred of whom were engaged in study at home or abroad, the sole resource was the fund established by some of our own members who had devoted their own fortunes to this very purpose. I can here testify that the vast majority of ours in Portugal never gave aught to the society, either because they had nothing to give or because superiors would not permit them, on account of the poverty of their relatives. Hence it resulted that the funds destined for the training and instruction of our young men were wholly inadequate, and opulent benefactors whose generosity might supply the deficit were but rare in our country, where wealthy Catholics are few, and the fixed idea of Jesuit wealth hinders even our best friends from allowing us to benefit even by the large sums spent upon charitable purposes.

What, then, about our methods of acquiring inheritances? Against this slander I protest with all my energy. The fantastic pictures, frequently drawn in lurid colors by our enemies, are mere repet.i.tions of the time worn fables invented by pamphleteers. Seldom indeed have legacies been bequeathed to us in Portugal, and in two cases alone were they at all considerable. Had they been more frequent we should have notably extended our propaganda, religious, educational, literary and likewise patriotic--both in our own country and its dominions over sea. How often in conversation with my brethren, when speaking of generous bequests made to the Misericordias, and especially to that of O'Porto, have I not remarked on the terrible outcry which would be aroused were any portion of such wealth to be a.s.signed to works of the Society of Jesus.

_3. INVEIGLING YOUTHS TO JOIN THE ORDER._

Never has it been thought blame-worthy for anyone to invite others, by word or writing, to join the a.s.sociation which he himself esteems, and whose prosperity he accordingly desires; a religious man has a right to recommend any who possess the requisite qualities to join his order, and serve G.o.d therein. I must, however, make an exception in the case of our society, which will doubtless astonish many.

We have a special rule forbidding us to advise anyone definitely to join the society, or to do more than further what we believe to be a genuine vocation from G.o.d, without any particular determination.

Such I know was the conduct of all my brethren, and had they done otherwise they would not only have transgressed their rule, but, moreover, have acted foolishly. In fact, the first question put to a candidate for admission is whether he has been influenced by anyone in this way, it being certain that a youth so attracted would not persevere. In truth, life in the society demands such self-sacrifice, and obedience so perfect, that nothing but a genuine call from G.o.d can insure fidelity, no human influence will avail for perseverance.

The long training, too, prior to the taking of final vows, affords such a guarantee of human liberty as there is in no other state of life, for during all this period--extending, as I have said, to fifteen or seventeen years--each of us may be released from the society, as he surely will be if he have not a real vocation.

As a matter of fact, our enemies in Portugal provided us with abundant arguments to refute this charge. For some weeks before the republic was proclaimed the revolutionary newspapers published various letters of one of our fathers to a young man who had intended for some time to join the society. These letters are models of prudence, moderation and spiritual honor, and whoever without prejudice or heed of the malicious comments in which they were embedded, will but study these harmless epistles, so worthy of a good religious, will find in them a conclusive answer to the slander against us.

_4. OUR SECRET a.s.sOCIATIONS._

If there were any such amongst us would it not be somewhat curious to find that those who prosecute us on this account are amongst the most influential patrons of secret societies? However this may be, there is no accusation more utterly false than this. The inst.i.tute and rules of the society are today--more than ever--open to all the world in every public library. It is true that since 1901 the society has a.s.sumed a kind of pseudo character in the eyes of the public and the law. But this was imposed upon us by statesmen who, though at the head of a Catholic government, did not dare to grant to a religious order approved by the Holy See that liberty given us even in Protestant countries which have a true notion of freedom.

We had therefore to a.s.sume the pseudonym of "a.s.sociation for Faith and Fatherland" ("a.s.sociao Fe e Patria"). I must acknowledge that, threatened as we were with dispersion and banishment, we were but too glad to obtain this simulacrum of liberty, and to avail ourselves of any t.i.tle under which we might devote ourselves to the utmost for the benefit of religion and of Portugal. But, I repeat, it was unwillingly that we adopted this incognito, which moreover hoodwinked n.o.body.

The actual Republican Government took possession of our own official catalogues, in which were recorded all our names and occupations. They may thus see that we never thought there was any reason to make a mystery of our existence or to shrink from letting it be known to the full that we bear a t.i.tle which esteem next to that of Christian, namely of religious of the Society of Jesus.

_5. POLITICAL AND ANTI-REPUBLICAN ACTIVITY._

Opinions expressed in certain articles of the Mensageiro whispers of later years concerning our share in the polemics of the newspaper named Portugal, and innumerable fictions about the Jesuits, on occasions of the late elections; such were the causes of the accusation that we meddled with politics.

As for the Mensageiro, its articles are open to all who choose to read them, and the doctrines there expressed as to the responsibility of the electorate in regard of legislation and its execution, as to the solidarity of the members of our party, its traditions, programme and political life, are after all only those which are common amongst every people with whom the principles of civic culture and the social obligations of Catholics have not been so lamentably forgotten as with us. Only those who realize how utterly all is ignored which has been ventilated in these subjects outside Portugal, by episcopal pastorals, ecclesiastical instructions, and the zealous propaganda of the press, can explain the astonishment of many Portuguese, to whom conclusions concerning morals and conduct which elsewhere were familiar to all seemed altogether novel.

But however we may differ in regard of such matters, what kind of liberty would a country enjoy in which a theologian or moralist was not permitted to express the doctrines in which he believed or to write in periodicals on subjects of his special study?

As to the journal Portugal, a letter from its editor-in-chief published a few days ago may take the place of a reply. In it he declares that during the latest phase of the paper, precisely that in which it was most fiercely attacked for its polemical att.i.tude, the society had no share whatever.

In saying this I have no desire to shirk responsibility, or to express disapproval of the energy displayed by the Catholic press. Far from it.