SPAIN OF TO-DAY 13 



Methodist institution in Rome. That is what exasperates the 

 Catholic Spaniard ; for the present Liberal Government has 

 done this propria motn, without request from any large body 

 of citizens or any debate on the subject. 



The other measures are bills submitted to the two houses of 

 the Cortes — the so-called "lock-out'' legislation, using the 

 simile of the factory. One is said to propose the suppression 

 of the religious congregations which have entered Spain ille- 

 gally ; the other is said to be a measure to enable the bishops to 

 suppress unnecessary religious houses within their dioceses. 

 A great deal of nonsense has been written or telegraphed to 

 the American press upon this phase of the matter. For in- 

 stance, it is said that the Concordat limits the number of male 

 religious orders to three, and that there are now six hundred 

 male religious orders in Spain. This statement has been re- 

 peated in numbers of papers here. I have already given the 

 statistics of the religious orders in Spain, and need only say 

 that the six hundred can only refer to religious houses or 

 communities. If the correspondent's fertile imagination holds 

 out, he will soon reckon each monk as a "religious order." 



There is no law in Spain, nor does the Concordat itself use 

 any terms, restricting the male religious orders to three. I 

 quote from the Concordat of 1851, which was ratified and put 

 into execution in Spain by the law of October 17, 185 1 : 



Article XXIX. In order that the whole Peninsula may have 

 a sufficient number of ministers and evangelical laborers for 

 the prelates to avail themselves by giving missions in the 

 localities of their dioceses, helping the parish clergy, assisting 

 the sick, and for other works of charity and public utility, 

 the Government of her Majesty, which proposes to assist 

 Colleges for Missions beyond the seas, will henceforth take 

 suitable steps to establish wherever necessary, after previous 

 consultation with the diocesans, religious houses and con- 

 gregations of St. Vincent de Paul, St. Philip Neri, and another 

 order among those approved by the Holy See, which also 

 will serve at the proper times as places of retreat for 

 ecclesiastics, in which to make their spiritual exercises, or for 

 other pious uses. 



There is no restriction in this language, but on the con- 

 trary these three orders or congregations are made a part of 

 the State Church. This will be seen from a later article in 

 the Concordat, where the State is bound to maintain them: 



