THE SITUATION IN PORTUGAL 75 



sentatives of England, Germany and France. In other words, 

 Portugal for the past two hundred years has been a pawn on 

 the chessboard of her creditors, without revenues, without 

 energy and without any definite hope. Nearly all her defi- 

 ciences may be ascribed to lack of means and the lack of man- 

 hood arising from financial slavery. 



The Church in Portugal has been during the last two cen- 

 turies in a precarious condition. One hears much of the domi- 

 nation of the priesthood, but the fact is that the Church, viewed 

 merely as organism of the body politic, is completely domi- 

 nated by the State. This does not refer to the present provi- 

 sional government, but to the old monarchical regime. For in- 

 stance, the late Constitution (Chap. 2, Art. 75) empowers the 

 king and his ministers "to appoint bishops and bestow ecclesi- 

 astical benefices," and this power was always exercised as the 

 ministry saw fit. Whatever deficiences there may be among 

 the hierarchy or higher clergy who have the direction of eccle- 

 siastical affairs and who rule the parochial clergy, they may be 

 ascribed to the endeavor to make the Portuguese Church little 

 more than a bureau of the government. Nor would the gov- 

 ernment brook any rival. Religious teaching orders were ex- 

 pelled even under the late government ; the Jesuits were first 

 expelled in 1759, and all the remaining orders banished in 

 1834. Hampering restrictions were placed on ecclesiastical 

 seminaries and vocations to the priesthood. During the past 

 thirty years some few religious orders were allowed to return 

 in order to meet the dearth of schools, but even they have 

 usually been expelled whenever the authorities thought fit to 

 sign a decree. 



The clergy have always been excluded, under special laws, 

 from having anything to do with secondary or higher educa- 

 tion in any of the government institutions. Their religious 

 instruction in the primary schools where catechism, Christian 

 doctrine, and church history is provided by law and is in 

 theory taught, has been hampered by all sorts of vexatious 

 decrees. It must also be remembered that Jansenism made 

 great headway among the Portuguese and induced an indiffer- 

 ence to the frequent reception of the sacraments. Within the 

 past seventy years Freemasonry of the political continental 

 kind has been most powerful in Portugal, nearly every official 

 of State or officer of the army and navy belonging to it. Be- 



