It is written by an Irish Roman Catholic, Mr. Doran, who wisely chooses to dissociate his co-religionists in the United Kingdom severely and emphatically from the Roman Catholicism of Spain. “I can remember the time,” he says, “when I would have dropped the acquaintance of my best friend had he but said, or hinted, half the things I now know to be true in regard to the condition of the Church in Spain.” He states that on one occasion, when he was dining with a number of Spanish priests, he remarked, “without giving the least offence,” that “if some of them ventured to say Mass in Ireland they would be dragged off the altar.” They replied, genially, that they always confessed to a companion before Mass. He found a state of immorality among the clergy “which it takes an Irishman half a lifetime to understand and all eternity to forgive.” The sister of the gentleman at whose house he was staying was the mistress of a priest. He adds that the Spanish clergy will marry uncles to nieces readily, “given a sufficient amount of money,” and that “nine Spaniards out of ten will tell you that the desire to earn an easy living is the motive which induces so many to join the clergy.”[1]
After this Catholic testimony I need not linger over the morality of the Spanish clergy. As an ex-priest I have always refused to create prejudice against my late co-religionists by discussing this side of their affairs; but when a body of priests like those of the Spanish Church egg on the civic or military officials to murder in their corrupt interests it is time to speak. There is immorality enough even among the priests of this country. Sordid cases came to my personal knowledge. In Belgium the condition—a condition that any candid person will expect from their enforced celibacy and good living—is far worse. In Spain and the south of Italy it is flagrant, nor is it confined to the lower clergy and the monks. A writer in the Church Quarterly (October, 1902) relates how an Italian prelate calmly discussed with him the fact, which he neither resented nor denied, that one of the candidates for the papal throne, one of the most distinguished
- ↑ But even Mr. Doran is apparently ignorant of the infamous traffic in bulas, since he reproaches the priests with eating meat on Fridays. They had, of course, purchased bulas.
