The-papacy-its-history-dogmas-genius-and-prospects-wylie

SPANISH CONCORDAT WITH ROME. 117the exercises of education or of charity which should boestablished in them.The 35th article declares that the government shallprovide,by all suitable means, for the support of thereligioushouses, &c. for men ; and that, with respect to those forwomen, all the unsold convent property is at once to be returnedto the bishops in whose dioceses it is, as their representatives.*Here, then, is the supremacy, not as portrayed in theingenious theories of De Maistre and Gosselin, but as itexists at this moment in fact. Stript of the sanctimoniousphraseology with which it has always been the policy ofRome to veil her worst atrocities and her vilest tyrannies,the document just means that the Pope is the real sovereignof Spain, that his priests are to rule it as they list, and thatthe court at Madrid, and the other civil functionaries, arethere merely to assist them. The first article of this concordatdeclares freedom of conscience eternally proscribedin the realm of Spain ;the second decrees the extinction ofknowledge and the perpetual reign of ignorance ;the thirdtakes the civil authorities bound and astricted to aid theclergy in searching for Bibles, hunting out missionaries, andburning converts ; and the following articles grant licensefor the erection of sacerdotal stews, and the institution ofclubs all over the country, the better to enable the clergy tocoerce the citizens and beard the government. The concordatmeans this, and nothing else. It is as detestable andvillanous an instrument as ever emanated from the gang ofconspirators which has so long had its head- quarters on theRoman hill. It is meant to bind down the conscience andthe manhood of Spain in everlasting slavery ; and it showsthat, despite all the recent exposures of these men,—despiteall the disasters which have befallen them, and the yetmore terrible disasters that lower over them,—their heartsare fully set upon their wickedness, and that they are resolved* Gaceta de Madrid of May 12, 1851.