The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1903-03-14

the Catholic church.
2. The appointment to governorship
of former insurrecto generals, some o
whom had been inimical to the friar
land perhaps to the church,. confirmed
this false impression. In reality it wa
part of policy of Cancellation adopted
by Governor Taft, who appointed onl!
such of them as had proved themselve!
trustworthy and more intelligent thar
the average insurrecto leaders.
8. The undisturbed activity of the
Protestant missionaries has created the
impression among the natives that they
were expected to change their faith
They could, of course, see no reason
for this change, and regarded the
Protestant preachers with curiosity
rather than with reverence, and the
lightning creed changes of the schem-
ing Buencamino with distrustful
amazement. CAT last accounts he had
just resigned the deaconship in a Pres
byterian church.)
4. The consistent American policy of
non-interference in church affairs is
looked upon by Filipinos as an encour-
agement of the Aglipay independent
Catholic church movement. Aglipay
himself expected a nod. of approval
from the government building, but in
this he was disappointed.
These are the conditions that have
caused all the church troubles in the
Philippines. These are trivial in view
of the we'll established fact that the
success of the revolution against Spain
would have been followed by general
confscation of Church property.
There have been some instances
where perfidious native priests, imbued
with the absurd idea of American hos
tility to the Church, Joined the Agli-
pay movement. For the time being
they held possession of their churches.
Under Spanish rule they would have
been thrown out without ceremony,
either by the governor or some other
official. To their delight the American
governor remained inactive and appar
emily Indifferent, and this they ignor-
antly interpreted as tacit approval.
They had not learned as yet that their
case would be attended to by the !
Under the circumstances it is readily
seen how the first successful church |
seizure has led to others.
Governor Taft decided that all such 7
questions should be left to the courts, /
especially since congress had not acted |
on the suggestion he made before the
senate committee as follows:
81 think that congress might very
well vest in the commission, with the
supervision of the president and secre-
tary of war, power to make legal con-
veyances of the land which in equity
belongs to the Catholic church,
Judge Taft has been severely criti-
cized in the Catholic press, and there is
no doubt that he has made some mis-
and, among a people that speak many
strange languages, and with hundreds
If knotty problems arising almost sim
and requiring prompt ac-
ion, a Catholic would probably not
lave done better. AS to the purity of (
lis motives and the accuracy of his ;
Judgment as a lawyer, there can be no
question These qualities were amply
in his statements before
he senate committee On the title of [
hurch property he expressed himself /
n part, as follows:
when 1 say the churches and con- :
entos stand upon public property, 1 f
ught to explain that under the Span il
5h rule the connection between the a
hurch and the state was so close that c
was not thought important to take Z,
he title out of the state and put it into O
lie church before church covenento "a
onvento being priests house or rec
ory) was erected. Therefore, it will h
e found that in many of the parishes =
he title of record to the churches and G
is in the public G.
MY own judgment as lawyer about G.
lie title is that the purpose in erecting
iese buildings was that they should be - -
avoted to the uses of the church, and D
lerefore that whatever the title is in
W, in equity they belong to the church
II the benefit of the Catholic people II
the parish. In every parish nearly -
lere is a church, and there is a con- Ii
ento, and they are very considerable C
lildi1gs. They are. the largest build
gs in all the islands, and I think that =,
Ich conveyance would show that the ~ ~
nited States has no desire to deprive fl
e church of properties that belong to to
for it's purposes. What we all wish t
do, of course, is justice, and what the
.ople of those islands have had the .
asst of is impartial Justice" ez
Speaking on the subject of titles to lii
e friar lands he was even more en- sf
latic. In answer to Senator Hale's OF
quiry as to his opinion on this point, ", W.
said: ar
II think it may be said generally, as sa
: said in our first report, that the title m
the friars to those lands is, as legal so so
OPPOSITION, indisputable" III
In the same way the statement of
neral Hughes on education differs gu
dely from what lot of small-fry ic'
dagogs had reported on the subject as
three short sentences he says what y 70
, really want to know, and says it wi
thout qualification: CHI
They all have schools. wi
The Spanish government had schools WI WI
all the pueblos, and the children IN IN
re taught to read and write in those tn,
lage schools.
I suppose you will find very few of {
I'm who cannot read and write their ~!
n dialect" cn ~