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About The Conservative (Nebraska City, Neb.) 1898-1902 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 25, 1900)
10 'Cbe Conservative * wore to be found throughout the Philip pine islands before oar recent war with Spain , and great care was bestowed upon elementary education , and the common schools for boys and girls , all well con ducted and organized , were all estab lished by the Spanish friars , Jesuits , priests and Catholic nuns. Notwithstanding the fact that we find these statements quoted above in the article signed by Mr. Evans in THE CON SERVATIVE , of October 11 , 1900 , which clearly tend to disprove the following slander on these orders , nevertheless , strange to relate , we find the following statement in this same article which only covers a little more than one page of THE CONSERVATIVE : "The real sovereigns of the archipelago were the Augnstines , ' Dominioians , Franciscans and Jesuits , who soon be came in many provinces the great land owners and reduced the natives to a state of vassalage and practical serfdom. They did nothing to promote and every thing to prevent , the education of the natives. Even the law prescribing that Spanish should be taught in the com mon schools was easily evaded because the persons who acted as school inspec tors belonged to the monastic orders. The ground of this strange opposition to instruction in Spanish was that the monks might keep the control of affairs in their own hands by acting as inter preters between the Filipinos and the civil and military authorities fresh from Madrid and frequently changed in con sequence of ministerial crises and shifts in the colonial office. With the collapse of Spanish supremacy , the detested friars fled from the country , but Arch bishop Ghappolle of Manila , is now en deavoring to have them recalled and re stored to their former privileges. " Not Familiar with Catholic Orders. Whether the statements which we quote here are those of Mr. Evans , or those of Yon Ferdinand Blnmentritt , in either case they show the utter recklessness - ness of the author ; he displays such ignorance of the very orders of priests which he condemns that he refers to the ancient and well-known orders of Aug- ustinians as " Augustines" and of Domin icans as "Dominicians. " As a matter of fact the Philippines were discovered by Megallen , as Gemelli notes in his history of the Ladrone islands , in 1521 , and such was the zeal of the Roman Catholio missionaries in pro pagating the Catholic faith that before the close of the sixteenth century , as Argensola tells us , more than 6,000 Cath olics had been martyred in a single prov ince ; and the very Augustinians , Dom inicans , Franciscans , and Jesuits which this article , containing its own refuta tion , chooses to gratuitously abuse , were among those very men who proved their zeal and sincerity in giving their lives for the faith which they held and finally established in the Philippines , to the ex tent that , as the article signed by Mr. Evans admits , at the present time 8,000- 000 out of the 9,000,000 people in the Philipines are Christians , educated and cultivated , and in every way fit for self- government. If Mr. Evans , or any of the readers of your valuable paper , many of whom , like myself , are Homan Catholics , choose to inform themselves about the facts concerning the various orders of Roman Catholic priests in the Philippines , I would recommend them to read an arti cle written by the Rev. Joseph M.'Algue , director of the observatory of Manila , which article is dated at Washington City , April 2 , 1900 , and is published on page 6 ( editorial page ) of the New York Sun of Wednesday , April 4 , 1900. I have a copy of the paper containing that article and will be happy to send yon or Mr. Evans a copy of the same should yon desire to have it. The Rev. Joseph M. Algne is a member of one of these very orders abused in the article written by Mr. Evans , and I have no doubt that any inquiry at Washington City will bring forth ail about the Rev. Joseph M. Algue , and then they will know , among other things , that he is not only a most zealous Catholio priest , but a most highly educated gentleman and one of the great scientists of this age. I would also recommend a little book published in 1899 entitled "The Friars in the Philippines , " written by Rev. Ambrose Coleman , O. P. , and pub lished at Boston by Marlier , Oallanan & Company. Rev. Ambrose Coleman , O. P. , the author of this book , is one of the very much abused friars referred to in the article signed by Mr. Evaus. I gave a copy of this little book of the Rev. Ambrose Coleman , O. P. , entitled "The Friars in the Philippines , " to Judge Taft before his departure for the Philippines , which he read with much interest and 1 believe , with great profit. Church Property Not Held Individually. To illustrate how unfair this charge in Mr. Evans' article is , I desire to state , as statistics will readily show , that the whole number of Augustinians ( "Au- gustines , " he calls them ) in the Philip pines in 1896 was 327 , and the Catholio population which this number of Augus tinians assisted in supplying with re ligious instruction and' education was 2,300,000 , about one priest to every 7,000 Catholics. That the so-called friars possessed , or now possess , large estates in the Philippine islands is not correct ; the individual friars possess nothing , and the only property held by the order is attached to hospitals or colleges , or other charitable institutions. It is not true that the real sovereigns of the archipelago ore now , or ever were , the Augustin ians , . Dominicans , Franciscans or Jesuits ; the three important depart ments of Government , the department of justice , the department of finance , and the department of military affairs , were always entirely out of the province of any orders of the clergy , as these were purely secular matters that they never touched. I desire to here quote from volume 1 of Marshall's Book of Missions , 4th. edition , published by D. and J. Sadler Company , my brief quotation being taken from pages 478 and 480 of that book. This work is particularly inter esting because the important statements made in this work by Mr. Marshall are all based upon the authority of Protes tant writers : "In the Philippines , the success of the missionaries was so complete that even at the close of the sixteenth century Mendoza could say : 'according unto the common opinion , at this day , there is converted and baptised more than four hundred thousand souls , ' In 1598 , as an ardent protestant observes , in his ac count of the voyage of Oliver Nort , and speaking of what he calls the 'Lus- son' islands , 'there are few Spaniards , and but one priest , which is of great esteem ; and had they priests enough all the neighbor nations would be subject to the Spaniards , ' for , he adds , 'the Jesuits are in reputation with their con verts as demi-gods. ' ( Purchas' Pilgrims , vol. I lib. II , ch v , pp. 75-76. ) "And this work continued , until , as later protestant writers will presently tell us , the four million inhabitants of these islands had embracedthat , Catho lic faith from which they have never since swerved. Such is the first chapter in the history of Polynesian missions. How far it resembles the same apostolic work in the lands which we have already visited , and especially in characteristic solidity and permanence , we shall now learn from Protestant witnesses , whom Providence seems to have employed to this end , that their co-religionists might the more readily accept their testimony. "The Rev. David Abeel , a protestant missionary , who seems to have wander ed over the lands beyond the Ganges , searching for something to do and find ing nothing , and whose book is simply a record of triumphs of Catholics and of the choleric disgust with which he wit nesses them , thus writes of the Philip pines : 'The church of Rome has here proselyted to itself the entire population. The natives have become bigoted papists. The influence of the priests is unbound ed. ' It is only fair , however , to this gentleman to add that he considers the conversion of the Philippines , accom plished by such men as Medina and Sanvitores , a remarkable example of 'the power of the beast. ' ( Journal of a resi dence in China , oh xvi. , p. 328. ) "In the year 1858 Mr. Ore wford , whose writings are well known in this country , and who was formerly governor of Sing apore , made the following declaration at a public missionary meeting : 'In the Philippine islands the Spaniards have converted several millions of people to the Roman Oatholio faith , and an im mense improvement in their social con dition has been ' the consequence. ' ( Times , 2nd December , 1858. ) " 'Much credit , ' says Sir Henry Ellis , in spite of incurable prejudice , 'is due
