THE LATEST TACTICS AS TO SPAIN 



Letter to "America" 



THE defamers of the Church in Spain have devised cer- 

 tain new tactics, of which the readers of "America" 

 should be informed, for they are sure to appear in 

 some shape in our daily press. A writer, who signs himself as 

 "Gerundio, a former monk," has just published a book in Bar- 

 celona, entitled "El tormento en los Conventos" (Torture in 

 the Convents), and the press agencies there are kindly sup- 

 plying the Spanish radical papers and the entire European 

 press with copious extracts from the book. In it are given 

 alleged statistics of the clergy, religious orders, and the wild- 

 est stories of confinement and torture in the convents and re- 

 ligious houses, the kind with which we used to be regaled in 

 this country in the flourishing A. P. A. times of not so long 

 ago. Doubtless after they have been repeated in the European 

 press of different countries, they will be solemnly copied into 

 our papers, as showing how Spain is wholly under the domina- 

 tion of the monk and the clerical to a far greater degree than 

 was ever known in any other country in the world. 



It is hardly worth while to go over the entire work, which 

 starts out with an assumption of historical learning, and pur- 

 ports to give the history of monasticism and religious orders 

 in Spain from the Napoleonic years of 1808-14 down to the 

 present time. Scattered all through the book are statistics of 

 the various periods, showing the growth of the monastic orders 

 or congregations, and if the figures given there are no more 

 correct than the ones I shall presently mention, the whole book 

 is little more than a mass of misinformation. No doubt we 

 shall later hear of these things from the eminent gentlemen, 

 who do not read Spanish and who do not examine the Spanish 

 official reports, in their narration of things they have found 

 out regarding the religious situation in Spain. For this reason 

 I have deemed it proper to communicate to you in advance 

 some of the information contained in this book and in the 

 press excerpts from it. 



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