Roman Catholicism in Spain

INTRODUCTION--Variableness of outward practice of 7 Christianity--The like as to that of Mahometanism--Roman Catholicism most subject to that modification--Excesses of Roman Catholicism in Spain accounted for by Spanish history--The Goths and Moors of Africa--Their conversion to Christianity--The aborigines of America--Traditional coincidences with scriptural truth--National character of the religion of Spaniards--Religion of the affections--Santa Teresa--Amatory propensities in connection with religion--Knight-errantry--Motto of Spanish nobility--The four primitive orders--Loyola--Religion the pretext for wars of Spain--Three distinct features of the national character of Spaniards, illustrated by Isabella the Catholic, Charles V., and Philip II.

CHAPTER I.

THE SPANISH CLERGY--Their primitive state--Their 31 subsequent organization--Barraganas--Immoral practices of the clergy--Their wealth, and its sources--Their territorial possessions--Their influence and incomes--Their opposition to the sciences--Their ultramontane principles--The "pass" of the Spanish sovereign necessary to the validity of the Pope's bulls--Doctrine of the Jansenists favoured by the ministers of Charles III.--Port-Royal and San Isidro--Parish priests--Sources of their income--Many of them good men, but deficient in scriptural knowledge and teaching--Their preaching--Abolition of tithes by the minister, Mendizabal--Effects of that measure--Poverty and present state of the clergy--Their degraded character and unpopularity--Their timidity in recent times of tumult--Ecclesiastical writers of the Peninsula--Power of the Inquisition curtailed by Charles III.

CHAPTER II.

MONACHISM--The superiority of the monastic over the 47 secular clergy--Reasons for it--Orders of Monks--The Carthusians--Their advancement in agriculture, and love of the fine arts--Their seclusion and mode of living--Only learned men admitted to their order--Their form of salutation--Curious adventure of a lady found in the cell of a Carthusian--The Hieronimites--The Mendicant orders--"Pious works"--The Questacion--Decline of Spain accounted for--Vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience--How vow of poverty eluded--La honesta--Vicar-general of the Franciscan orders--His immense income--Religious orders have produced many great and good men--Cardinal Ximenez de Cisneros--His celebrated Bible--Corruption of monastic orders--Insubordination of friars to the bishops--The Jesuits--Deplorable reputation of their literature--Pascal, Escobar, Sanchez, and Mariana--Suppression of the Jesuits by Charles III.--Their subsequent expulsion by Espartero under Isabella II.--Nunneries, though spared on suppression of religious houses, utterly useless--The Pope's attempt to perpetuate them by concordat--The lives of the nuns described--Their means of subsistence is now precarious--Convent de las Huelgas.