The Sun.
London, England, 1835-09-26 00:00:00

MONASTIC INSTITUTIONS.

There arc few Spaniards at the present 'day who do not
regard Monastic Institutions of every kind as the work of
other ages, and of another order of civilization. In few parts
of the Catholic world do they now exist, and their final
suppression cannot be long delayed..
But though disciplinary Institutions are subject to
change, religion continues ;or ever, because it is eternal. Its
influence is immutable, whatever variation may take place
by change of times, customs, and ideas, in the mode by
which that iotuence is exercised. • Nevertheless, the reli-
gious ow orations have been magnificently endowed by the
Piet`; of our forefathers, and although their estates may
tave been diminished
.by a variety, of causes, still. those
estates•are entitled to the consideration of Governments,
even though they should be regarded merely as common
property. _

The problem, then, which must be solved, in connexion
with this matter, is how to effect the suppression of those
bodies, without deteriorating the services which the Mem-
bers of them render to divine worship and to evangelical
morality ; and how to distribute a portion of their property
in a way most conformable with justice, and most useful to
the State.

The first object is easily effected, by consigning the re-
gular clergy, when secularized, to the different parishes,
where they will aid in giving spiritual food to the popula-
tion, as they have hitherto done in their convents, but in a
better way than has been afforded in many monasteries_
The question of property-, which appears the most diffi-
cult, is not so in reality, if we choose to abide by the eter-
nal principles of justice. Every man who has assumed the
religious habit has by that act contracted certain obliga-
tions towards society, and at the same time has acquired
certain rights—one of these, and not the least valuable,
being the right to be supported at the expense of the com-
munity into which he entered, so that in whatever way the
monks may regard their common property, it becomes a
Government attached to justice at all times to consider the
property belonging to converts as property from which their
inmates derive their siLsistence, and particularly when it
is recollected that, the families of those who enter into a re-
ligious order gave expended more or less money for admis-
sion to tte noviciate or to the privilege of wearirr, the habit.
t'uCh being the case, it is evidently required by a prin-
ciple of justice, that, whenever the religious communities
shall be suppressed, a portion of their estates should be
allotted to the monks ; so that a decent maintenance, and
nothing more, may be secured to them.
As whatever is just is, properly considered, useful to the
state and society, there exists no difficulty in perceiving
the advantages of this application of the property. No
one is ignorant that Government is a very unskilful
administrator of property. That. which belongs to the
convents and to the monasteries would in its hands be-
come a prey to individual avarice ; or if not, at least that
such would be its fate is to be expected from the history
of national property, at all times and in all countries.
If the allowance of four or five reals daily, which it has
been customary to give to monks, should continue any
longer, still the time is approaching when it must cease.
Nevertheless, to provide for their subsistence is an obliga-
tion of strict justice, from which it is impossible for the
Government to free itself. Leave, then, to the individuals
themselves the care of the property which is to support
them, as that care was previously shared by them in
common.

They will not be permitted to dispose of the property
assigned to them, but they may, on their death, leave it
among two or three heirs—a sure means of increasing the
number of proprietors.

Such an arrangement as this would dispel all those ap-
prehensions which might otherwise occupy the minds or the
monks on learning that the dissolution of their orders is de-
termined on. By constituting them proprietors they will
be made to feel, both with respect to themselves and their
families (who will probably be their heirs), a direct interest
in the prosperity of the state (for they will see that the
state protects them and acts towards them according to the
maxims of justice)—an interest which they have been de-
scribed, with sufficient vagueness, and consequently without
justice, as being incapable of feeling.
When we speak of the appropriation, we do not mean
precisely to say that the estates of each community should
be divided among its members ; for this would be produc-
tive of a very marked and unfair inequality, in consequence
of the different amount of wealth belonging to the various
communities, and of the different number of the monks
composing them. The essential principle is this—to capi-
talize in estates the revenue which may be necessary for
their suitable maintenance