(From the Catholic Standard and Times, Philadelphia, Penn.)

Ten Spanish priests, driven from the mission of the Philippines by the insurrectionary movement, arrived in San Francisco on the 5th of January by the Pacific Mail steamer Doric. They only remained a few days in California, as their destination was New Granada, to which they sailed the following week. A call on them while stopping at the Occidental Hotel obtained much interesting information about the disposition of the natives towards the clergy in the Philippine group. All ten had been employed as parish priests in country districts, where the population is almost wholly of native stock, without the admixture of Chinese blood which is prevalent in Manila. Two came from Luzon, where the Tagals are predominant; two more from Zebu, and six from Panay. In these last islands the population is of the Visaya race. Familiarity with the native language is required from every missionary before he is sent out of the seminary in Manila after his arrival in the Archipelago.

During their passage the exiled priests, by direction of their superiors, all wore the ordinary secular dress, and looked like a delegation of intelligent business men from some country district in the United States. In manner they were courteous and very intelligent; but they were somewhat shy of talking much in a strange land. After some time this shyness wore off, and cordial relations were established between the exiles and your correspondent. None of the former spoke English, though the president, Father Diaz, read it readily, and translated offhand articles in the San Francisco papers to his brethren. They were not familiar with the system of interviewing as practised in California, and asked that any questions to which their answers were desired should be put to them in Spanish and in writing. Later they conversed freely on subjects connected with their missions, though they declined to express themselves on political questions. They evidently regarded Aguinaldo as not a very remarkable personage, and the calmness with which they spoke of their own experiences was very remarkable.

The statement that the Friars possessed large estates in the country was declared by them to be a pure lie. The individual members possess nothing, and the only property held by the Orders is attached to hospitals or colleges. The missionaries are all Europeans, though there are many natives among the secular clergy. The Augustinians, Franciscans, Dominicans, and Capuchins have the right of presentation to certain parishes which were founded among the barbarous natives in older times. Each Order has a seminary in Europe specially devoted to training such of its members as have suitable vocations for the Philippine mission. After completing their studies, and receiving holy orders, the young priests are sent to the seminaries in the Philippines to perfect themselves in the native languages, and get familiar with the habits of the country. There are three principal languages spoken in the group,—Tagal, Visaya, and Pampanginano. No priest is sent on mission work until he is thoroughly acquainted with whichever of these he is destined to use in his ministry. These Philippine languages have, it must be remembered, books and literature, and are not mere dialects suitable to all. In answer to a question whether as missionaries they could accumulate private funds, Father Alvarez emphatically said no. “We are Friars and have taken a solemn vow of poverty,” he stated, “and it a simple falsehood to assert, as some have done, that any Philippine Friar possesses a rood of land or a peso that he can call his own, except temporarily and by permission of his superiors.” A couple of other questions brought out a clearly worded account of the relations of the Friars in the Philippines to Church and State. Some of the facts will be new to American readers.

The Catholic Church in the Archipelago is organized on the same basis as in other parts of the world, but the number of clergy is much less in proportion to the population than in any other Catholic country. There is one archbishop and four bishops for a population of over seven millions. The dioceses are divided into parishes, as in Spain or America, and the priests of each parish are subject to the bishop’s authority in the same manner. The only peculiarity, in a church point, is that more than three-quarters of the parishes are served by members of the different Religious Orders—Augustinians, Dominicans, Franciscans, and Jesuits. Each Order has the right of presenting the names of suitable priests for the districts in its charge to the bishop, who appoints them, if satisfactory to his own judgment, after which the Augustinian or Franciscan occupies the ordinary position of a parish priest—subject, however, to removal by his own superior. In practice this is rare, and the relations between the bishops and the Orders have been uniformly satisfactory.

The whole number of Augustinians in the islands in 1896 was three hundred and twenty-seven, and the Catholic population which this number supplied was two millions three hundred thousand, or about one priest to every seven thousand Catholics. It certainly is not a great number, and does not justify the common ideas of hordes of idle Friars. In districts of over ten thousand two or more Friars are stationed, but the great majority have only one, with a native assistant priest or deacon in some cases. The church property is simply the church and priest’s house, with a garden attached. The revenue is an allowance from the government, which varies from five hundred to eight hundred silver dollars a year, or somewhat less than ten cents a head for the population at large. That the three hundred Friars can lead idle lives is hardly compatible with the number of baptisms and marriages recorded within a year. There were a hundred and fifteen thousand baptisms, sixteen thousand marriages, and fifty-one thousand interments as the work of 1896 for the three hundred Friars.

Of the condition of the people in the islands Father Alvarez thought it compared fairly well with the rural population of his native Spain or other European countries. The bulk of the natives own and cultivate their own lands. There are schools for boys and girls in every parish, and the great majority can read and write. Of the religious spirit of the country people and their respect for the missionaries he spoke very favorably. The movement which drove them out was political, not religious. Father Alvarez attributed the chief share in it to the mestizos of Chinese and Philippine origin, who form the greater part of the population of Manila and the larger towns. Like the Tagals and the Visayas, these mestizos are Christians, but they possess the fondness for secret societies of their Chinese fathers. A certain number of the younger natives who have engaged in office seeking or business joined in the movement, to which the bulk of the country population is wholly indifferent.

The occupation of Cavite by Dewey and the destruction of the Spanish fleet was followed by the withdrawal of the Spanish soldiers from the remoter islands, where they had been almost the only police force. Popular disturbances followed in many places, and Aguinaldo at Cavite, through the mestizo agents, quickly put himself in touch with the local agitators. The latter had no definite purpose except to secure personal advancement in the change of government, and when Aguinaldo declared Spaniards the enemies of the Philippines, attacks were made on the isolated Spanish priests. Several were imprisoned, some were released by their parishioners, and others remained in the hands of the new insurgent soldiery. The heads of the Order directed a temporary retirement, and most of the priests did so, but returned again after some time. With the progress of Aguinaldo’s party more violent measures were adopted towards the Spanish priests. The jails were opened and criminals had free scope through the islands. In many places liquor was freely distributed by the leaders of the insurgents, and massacres and robberies were committed with impunity. In Illocos, in Luzon, the bishop and all the students of the seminary and all the Spanish priests were arrested and treated with savage brutality. More than fifty priests were murdered in different places, and over four hundred thrown into prison and subjected to all the brutalities that the fierce Malay spirit could suggest. The heads of the Orders in Manila finally gave the word, and the missionaries who were able to escape made their way to the different places which were protected by Spanish garrisons, or to Manila itself. In Manila, after its capture, it was impossible for the Orders to maintain long the number of fugitive priests thus driven from their homes. Their funds are limited, and, on consultation with the generals in Rome, it was decided to find employment for the exiles in other lands as far as possible. In South America such employment has been offered to a number of Augustinians.