Religion
No religion is tolerated but the Roman Catholic. Formerly the church was wealthy, authoritative and independent, and checked the civil and military power by an ecclesiastical power wielded also by the dominant nation. But the property of the church has been sequestrated and confiscated, and the government now owns all the property once ecclesiastical, including the church edifices, and appoints all the clergy, from the bishop to the humblest country curate. All are salaried officers. And so powerless is the church, that, however scandalous may be the life of a parish priest, the bishop cannot remove him. He can only institute proceedings against him before a tribunal over which the government has large control, with a certainty of long delays and entire uncertainty as to the result. The bishopric of Havana was formerly one of the wealthiest sees in Christendom. Now the salary is hardly sufficient to meet the demands which custom makes in respect of charity, hospitality and style of living. It may be said, I think with truth, that the Roman Catholic Church has now neither civil nor political power in Cuba.
That there was a long period of time during which the morals of the clergy were excessively corrupt, I think there can be no doubt. Make every allowance for theological bias, or for irreligious bias, in the writers and tourists in Cuba, still, the testimony from Roman Catholics themselves is irresistible. The details, it is not worthwhile to contend about. It is said that a family of children, with a recognized relation to its female head, which the rule of celibacy prevented ever becoming a marriage, was general with the country priesthood. A priest who was faithful to that relation and kept from cockfighting and gambling, was esteemed a respectable man by the common people. Cuba became a kind of Botany Bay for the Romish clergy. There they seem to have been concealed from the eye of discipline. With this state of things, there existed, naturally enough, a vast amount of practical infidelity among the people, and especially among the men, who, it is said, scarcely recognized religious obligations at all.
No one can observe the state of Europe now, without seeing that the rapidity of communication by steam and electricity has tended to add to the efficiency of the central power of the Roman Catholic Church, and to the efficacy and extent of its discipline. Cuba has begun to feel these effects. Whether they have yet reached the interior, or the towns generally, I do not know; but the concurrent testimony of all classes satisfied me that a considerable change has been effected in Havana. The instrumentalities which that church brings to bear in such cases, are in operation: frequent preaching, and stricter discipline of confession and communion. The most marked result is in the number of men, and men of character and weight, who have become earnest in the use of these means. Much of this must be attributed, no doubt, to the Jesuits; but how long they will be permitted to remain here, and what will be the permanent effects of the movement, I cannot, of course, conjecture.
I do not enter into the old field of contest. “We care not,” says one side, “which be cause and which effect;—whether the people are Papists, because they are what they are, or are as they are because they are Papists. It is enough that the two things coexist.” The other side replies that no Protestant institutions have ever yet been tried for any length of time, and to any large extent, with southern races, in a tropical climate; and the question—what would be their influence, and what the effect of surrounding causes upon them, lies altogether in the region of conjecture, or, at best, of faith.
Of the moral habits of the clergy, as of the people, at the present time, I am entirely unable to judge. I saw very little that indicated the existence of any vices whatever among the people. Five minutes of a street view of London by night, exhibits more vice, to the casual observer, than all Havana for a year. I do not mean to say that the social morals of the Cubans are good, or are bad; I only mean to say that I am not a judge of the question.
The most striking indication of the want of religious control, is the disregard of the Lord’s Day. All business seems to go on as usual, unless it be in the public offices. The chain gang works in the streets, under public officers. House-building and mechanic trades go on uninterrupted; and the shops are more active than ever. The churches, to be sure, are open and well filled in the morning; and I do not refer to amusements and recreations; I speak of public, secular labor. The Church must be held to some responsibility for this. Granted that Sunday is not the Sabbath. Yet, it is a day which, by the rule of the Roman Church, the English Church in England and America, the Greek Church and other Oriental Churches—all claiming to rest the rule on Apostolic authority, as well as by the usage of Protestants on the continent of Europe—whether Lutherans or Calvinists—is a day of rest from secular labor, and especially from enforced labor. Pressing this upon an intelligent ecclesiastic, his reply to me was that the Church could not enforce the observance;—that it must be enforced by the civil authorities; and the civil authorities fall in with the selfishness and gratifications of the ruling classes. And he appealed to the change lately wrought in Paris, in these respects, as evidence of the consistency of his Church. This is an answer, so far as concerns the Church’s direct authority; but it is an admission either of feeble moral power, or of neglect of duty in times past. An embarrassment in the way of more strictness as to secular labor, arises from the fact that slaves are entitled to their time on Sundays, beyond the necessary labor of providing for the day; and this time they may use in working out their freedom.
Another of the difficulties the church has to contend with, arises out of Negro slavery. The Church recognizes the unity of all races, and allows marriage between them. The civil law of Cuba, under the interpretations in force here, prohibits marriage between whites and persons who have any tinge of the black blood. In consequence of this rule, concubinage prevails, to a great extent, between whites and mulattoes or quadroons, often with recognition of the children. If either party to this arrangement comes under the influence of the Church’s discipline, the relation must terminate. The Church would allow and advise marriage; but the law prohibits it—and if there should be a separation, there may be no provision for the children. This state of things creates no small obstacle to the influence of the Church over the domestic relations.