156 THE CHURCH AND ITS CEREMONIES. 



and void which may he contracted, after promulgation of said Council, without the presence of 

 the curate and two witnesses ; and, as such promulgation has been made in Chile, and yours, 

 who are a Chilena, was effected in the territory of this diocess, without the required formality, 

 it follows that it labors under immediate nullity. In vain will it be told you that the gentle- 

 man whom you look upon as your spouse was the diplomatic agent of the United States ; and 

 that, in conformity with the laws of nations, his residence enjoys the privilege of being con- 

 sidered a part of the North American territory. These privileges extend only to temporal 

 matters, and not to those of religion. The power of legislating in matters touching religion 

 has been received by the Catholic church from its divine founder, and it is a point of Catholic 

 faith that its laws and discipline may not be altered by any other authority than that of the 

 church. Therefore, when nations accord privileges to the residences of diplomatic agents, they 

 concede temporal prerogatives only, and do not change the religious conditions of the places in 

 which those dwellings may be situated. To Catholics, the Council of Trent has as much force 

 within the houses of diplomatic ministers in Chile, as it has beyond them. Men cannot make 

 perfect, by their determinations, that which the church annuls. I refer to that which touches 

 the jurisdiction of conscience ; and though by North American law you may be reputed the 

 legitimate wife of the Charge d 5 Affaires, and enjoy the civil rights of a wife, in the presence of 

 God you are not. You live in prohibited union, and multiply the number of your sins every 

 time you avail yourself of the privileges of a spouse. ****** 



"The third injury which you have done to your soul has been communication with Protestants 

 in religious acts of their sects. I am assured you consented that a Protestant minister should 

 come here to perform the matrimonial service which you celebrated with the Charge d' Affaires 

 of the United States ; and as the rite of matrimony is an act of religion, you held communica- 

 tion in divine things, as theologians explain them, with those of a strange creed. The church 

 highly reproves this species of communication ; because he who renders to God* the tribute of a 

 worship that he knows to be false, sacrilegiously mocks at Divinity, and participates in foreign 

 impiety. The sacred canons impose the heaviest pains of excommunication on the person who 

 has committed it, and it is your misfortune to have rendered yourself liable to the gravest and 

 most fatal punishment a Catholic can suffer. Though it may overwhelm your sensitive heart, 

 I must not conceal from you whatever may hang over it. The public manner in which you 

 have acted, the open contempt with which you have treated your pastor, the incorporation 

 in a Protestant act of religion performed by a minister of that sect, and, finally, the air of 

 ostentation with which it has all been done, induce the most vehement suspicions that you have 

 apostatized from your religion ; because it would be very difficult to believe you can have 

 remained a Catholic after such cold-blooded proceedings." 



I did not think to follow the Right Reverend prelate so far, and must also apologize to him 

 should I have misconstrued his letter published in a " Memorio sobre las incidencias ocurridas en 



el matrimonio del , encargado de negocios de los Estados Unidos de America con Dona, 



, ciudadena Chilena, en que sejustifica la conducta del gobierno. Presentado al Congreso 



National, 1849." There should have been added to the title-page, " For Manuel Camilo Vial, 

 Ministro de Relaciones JEsteriores," whose name appears at the end of one hundred and three 

 octavo pages of defence. 



Thus, a foreigner brought up in the Protestant faith is tacitly obliged to abjure that faith at 

 marriage in Chile, consent that his wife shall follow the little better than image worship into 

 which the service of the church has degenerated, and his children also be brought up under its 

 discipline; or, if she so far overcome the prejudices of education and church prohibitions as to 4 

 consent to marriage with him by a Protestant clergyman, must make up his mind to have her 

 encounter persecution not unlikely to end in separation from him. 



At Valparaiso, as has been said, the presence of so many foreigners has secured to them some- 

 thing of toleration. Formerly the passage of the priest through a street conyeying the host, 

 with pomp of military guards, and bells, and lights, (even during the day,) and the custom of 



