Rafael Shaw

Something must now be said about the way in which the people refer to the confessional, and this I will endeavour to do in their own words, premising that I offer no opinion as to the truth or falsehood of their stories, most of which have been told me by women. The abuse of the confessional is such a heinous sin that Catholics of other nations will not believe what is currently said as to its prevalence in Spain; they hold that such things are impossible, and it is to be hoped, for the sake of the Church, that prejudice distorts the popular view, and that what the working classes in town and country assert to be of frequent occurrence does not in fact take place. But whatever be the actual truth, it is impossible to doubt that the people are convinced that the confessional is habitually abused, and this conviction—which nothing can shake—constitutes a peril which must ultimately endanger the very existence of the Church in this country.

When first I was told, several years ago, that the secrets of the confessional were betrayed, as a matter of course, in the interests of the rich as against the poor, I flatly said that I did not believe it. The thing was unthinkable to one brought up in the belief that such secrets were inviolate. I was given actual instances of domestic servants sent to confession “so that the mistress might learn from the priest what the maid had been doing wrong.” As my informant was a young foreigner, born and bred a Catholic, in the employment of a family of title, and with a somewhat limited knowledge of Spanish, I found it easier to assume that he had misunderstood what was said in his presence than to believe that he had accurately repeated his employer’s words, although he declared that the above remark had been made in his hearing on several occasions. It should be said that he was in a house noted for its clerical leanings.

A similar assertion was made to a member of my family by the daughter of a professional man, better educated than most of her class, and touched with the superficial scepticism prevalent among clever young Spaniards, whose hatred of the priests and the Religious Orders tends to alienate them altogether from the religion in which they were brought up. In this instance I attributed the accusation to prejudice, and attached no more importance to it than to the young man’s story. And as it is not a matter that can be discussed with practising Catholics, the two mentioned, and one other, who confirmed their statements, are the only educated persons whose opinions I can quote.

But among the poor this offence is spoken of freely, and they accuse the priests, not only of betraying their trust by repeating what is told them under the seal of the confessional, but also of using the opportunities it offers to ruin young and foolish women who obey the Church’s order to confess with frequency. Indeed, many working men have gravely assured me that such is their distrust of the priests that nothing would induce them to allow their women-folk to go to confession on any pretence whatever.

The following are some among many stories of this kind, which I give as they were told me, only omitting the expressions of anger with which some of them were punctuated:

“I was laundress in a priest’s house for several years. His sister lived with him, and she really was his sister, for a wonder; not the sort they generally call their ‘sisters.’ They also kept a young girl to help in the house, for the priest was well off. One day my fellow-servant committed a sin, for the devil tempted her to steal a ring belonging to the SeÑora. But she could not rest happy with it, and at last she went to a priest and confessed that she had stolen it, and asked what she should do. He told her to put it back, and gave her a penance. So she put it back. And the priest went and told her mistress, and she sent the girl to prison.”

“There are several maidservants in the house of DoÑa Dolores, and one of them goes to confession frequently. The others all have to be very careful what they say before her, for the priest repeats it all to DoÑa Dolores, and then it is ‘into the street’ with those who have done anything silly or wrong in the kitchen or elsewhere.”

A friend of mine—a foreigner—was begged by her servants not to engage an attractive-looking housemaid from one of the convent training schools who applied for a situation. “She will repeat everything that is done in the house to her priest, and he will make unpleasantness for you and us too. That is done every day here. We who have not had the misfortune to be brought up in a convent never, if we can help it, take a situation where a convent-trained girl lives.”

“Juan Cabrito was hung through the priest telling the authorities that he had confessed that he was a murderer. The priest went straight to the Governor and told him everything Cabrito had said. He well deserved hanging, and no one thought anything of the priest betraying his confession. We are quite used to that in Spain.”

“I often used to be called in to help to wait in the evening in the house of a priest who had a tertulia for priests every week. His niece kept house for him. I have often heard the priests laughing and joking about the confessions of the nuns. They would imitate their voices, speaking high up and whining: ‘Father, I lost my temper and spoke harshly to the dog or the cat to-day.’ ‘How tedious they are with their dogs and their cats and their tempers!’ the priest who confessed the nuns would say, and then they all laughed together, very much amused. But it was wrong, for the priest is forbidden to repeat a confession. I am not very fond of the nuns myself, but I did not like to hear those coarse men [nombres brutos] making jokes about their penitence.”

“It is many years since I have confessed. When I went to confess before my wedding the priest asked me a question which no man should put to a decent woman, so I never went again.”

“In my last situation my mistress made me go to Mass with her every Sunday. I had to get up at five in the morning, so as to be back in time to do my work in the house. Every Sunday she asked me if I had confessed so that I might take the Communion, but I always told her I had not had time and would confess next time. I will not go to confession. I would rather lose my place.”

“It is true that I am over seventy, and it is very hard to earn my bread and pay a penny a day for rent by picking up rags and rubbish for sale. I am ill too: I have never been well since my daughter ran away from me to live with a priest. But I do not wish to go into the Asylum of the —— Sisters. They not only make the poor people there confess and communicate every day, but they make them work quite as hard as I am working now. And in my own place, though I may be hungry, at least I am not obliged to get up at six in the morning to go to Mass, and then carry firewood for the convent, as my poor old brother was.”

In another town in the diocese where the rag-picker lived, an old acquaintance of mine thankfully accepted an opportunity I was able to obtain for her, through friends, of entering an asylum for aged paupers, managed by nuns under the supervision of the municipality. That town has long been markedly Liberal in its politics, and possibly this may have something to do with the more humane administration of the asylum. With this instance in my mind I was surprised at the rag-picker’s rejection of a similar refuge for her old age, but further inquiries convinced me that the rule of the one convent was in truth very different from that of the other.

These are a few out of hundreds of such stories told. And the people believe they are true.

Certain scandals, relating to the disappearance of valuable paintings from one Spanish cathedral or another, are familiar to all who travel in Spain. One such incident has always been a mystery to the outside world, owing to the seeming impossibility of a thief getting access to the picture in question, which was in a chapel in the cathedral, protected by a heavy grille extending from floor to ceiling, the door of which was always kept locked.

The following explanation was given by the widow of a former cathedral servant:

A scandal which gave rise to a question in the Cortes was the disappearance of two valuable pictures from the Cathedral of Toledo. It appears that these pictures were in a chapel which had been built and endowed in the seventeenth century by a certain family. Two or three years ago their descendants claimed these pictures as their private property, and entered into treaty to sell them to a “foreigner.” The State intervened, declaring the whole contents of the cathedral to be inviolate. Soon afterwards “it was found necessary to repair” the chapel in question, and the pictures were taken down “for safe custody” meanwhile. What happened after that has never been cleared up, but a “foreigner” and a motor figure in the story, and the chapel is now without the pictures. No steps were ever taken, so far as the public could learn, to bring the matter home to any one.

That quantities of valuable old laces and embroideries have disappeared from the cathedrals and parish churches of Spain there is no doubt. I know of one case myself in which an antique chasuble was exchanged for one of cheap jute imitating brocade. The explanation given was that the old one was worn out, but as it now figures in a private museum it is difficult not to believe, as the people say, that some money changed hands with the chasuble.

In the cathedrals each canon had, until quite lately, entire control of the chapel he served, and was responsible to no one for its contents. The temptation to sell old lace and vestments and altar fittings, and to replace them by new, was no doubt great, especially if there is any truth in the popular belief that the priests in many cases maintain a home and bring up families like men to whom marriage is not forbidden. And no one could bring him to book for any change made in the appointments of his chapel or (in the case of a parish priest) his church, because, as a rule, no one in authority over him knew what it contained when he took possession. Even after his death it would generally be impossible to prove peculation, did the superior officers of the Church desire to do so, for it is a rare thing for any cathedral or church to keep an inventory of the valuables it is supposed to possess.

It is said that the priests in many cathedrals and parish churches allow their linen vestments and altar fittings to be taken away from the precincts for laundry purposes. The facility with which valuable old laces can be exchanged for modern machine-made stuff in these cases need not be dwelt on.

Another opportunity for those who wished to profit by the sale of church treasures was said to be afforded by the fact that fabrics, sometimes several centuries old, stand in occasional need of repair. I have heard the “store-room” or “workshop” laughed at by employees of the church.

“Once anything worth money goes into the store-room for repairs we never expect to see it again.”

“And where is this store-room?”

“Don’t you know? The dealers in antiques can tell you.”

The hostility of the people towards the priests doubtless colours their views in these as in all other matters relating to them. But it is a fact that a distinguished Spanish archÆologist a few years ago was refused further access to the archives of a certain cathedral after he had asked the Chapter to permit him to publish an inventory of the treasures under their charge. Now, I am glad to say there are at any rate some dioceses in which all this has been changed. The archbishops have had the contents of the churches examined and catalogued, to the annoyance of certain persons, but to the satisfaction of the parishioners, who obtained no benefit from the sale of the Church treasures under the old system.

The following incident was reported to the Press at the end of the year 1909. I have not seen any contradiction published, and I give the story for what it is worth.

In one of the great cities a certain church was condemned as unsafe, and the congregation were told that ere long they would have to attend other churches in the neighbourhood. One of the Religious Orders entered into treaty for the purchase of the condemned building, in order to build on the site. But nothing was settled, and as the danger of collapse was not immediate the services continued to be conducted as usual. When the time came to collect money for Masses to be said on All Souls’ Day, the parish priest found his usual request for alms refused, on the ground that the —— Brothers had already been round to say that the church was given up and its congregation attached to the Brothers’ Church in such a street, and this being so they had come to collect the payment for the All Souls’ Masses, which was usually given to the parish priest. He indignantly reported the affair to his superiors, and so it got into the papers.

It was added that the priest declined to say the Masses for the dead, as he had not been paid for them, and the —— Brothers, although they got the money, provided no special service for the congregation who had paid for it. So that the souls for whom these poor folk had given their alms will—in their belief—remain so much longer in purgatory. That the alms were given by the poor, not by the rich of the parish, is evident from the donors not knowing that their parish church still existed. The whole affair throws an instructive light on the relations of the poor with their Church or their parish priest. Had he been in the habit of visiting them, or did they make a practice of attending Mass even occasionally, the mistake could never have arisen. But, as the story shows, the priest had no intercourse with his people save when he went to beg from them. The incident, even allowing a wide margin for journalistic exaggeration, goes a long way to support the assertion of the woman who gave as her reason for not going to confession, that “the priest would only ask her for money, which she wanted more than he did.”

One more case, and I have done with this unattractive subject.

Some twenty years ago a large dole to the poor, which had been given annually for about four centuries in a certain chapel, was suddenly cut off, and has never been renewed. It came out that the priest in charge had sold the bonds in which the capital was invested, with the connivance of a Government official in the Finance Department, and the two between them spent the money. The priest was convicted and imprisoned for a twelvemonth. Then he was released and appointed to another church in the same diocese. My informant said he had been a witness at the trial. “And to-day,” said he, “that bad man holds the sacred Elements in his hands, and gives the people his blessing. Such things ought not to be allowed.”