VENEZUELA
330
VENEZUELA
inspired by justice and not brute force. They made
great progress in this direction; and if the work was
not, after all, sohdiy accomplished, it was not through
the lack of any efforts of theirs, but because the con-
ditions were difficult in the extreme. In this way,
then, the quasi-diotatorship of our first bishops was
just and beneficial. Venezuelan society was in its
medievalstage; the same phenomenon was reproduced
which had occurred in Europe, when the bishops and
abbots were the only persons capable of protecting
the masses against the excesses of chieftains and
warrior bands."
The first episcopal see in Venezuela was that of Caro, founded pursuant to a Bull of Clement VII which was pubhshed 21 July, 1531. This see was transferred to Caracas in 1637, and elevated to archi- episcopal rank by a Bull of Pius VII 24 November, 1803. The Dioceses of Merida and Guayana were created at a much later period, while those of Bar- quisimeto, Calabozo, and Zuha came into existence in the course of the nineteenth century. The union of Church and State has always obtained in the Republic of Venezuela, though this union has suffered the trials incidental to modern political ideas, trials which with each repetition render the situation of the Church in its relations with the civil power more precarious. No sooner was the Colombian nationahty constituted than the State, by the Law of 28 July, 1824, assumed to the fullest extent tho.se prerogatives over the Churches of America which, under the name of Palronato, the popes had conferred upon the Catholic kings. Without any fresh ratification or negotiations with the Holy See with respect to this privilege, Vene- zuela, when it separated from the Colombian Union, incorporated the Palronato in its legislation (14 Octo- ber, 1830), in consequence of which a note, accom- panied by documents, was formulated, in which the Archbishop of Caracas and other Venezuelan prelates asked the Constituent Congress for the suspension of the law in question. On 21 March, 1833, an Act of Congress declared it to be once more in vigour, and this law, with po.ssible applications, the Government has continued to maintain as the principle of its relations with the Holy See. The steps taken to conclude a concordat, as prescribed by the Law of Palronato, "to prevent disputes and complaints in the future", have so far had no satisfactory re- sults, while the convention with the Holy See, concluded in 1862, was repudiated by the Constit- uent Assembly of 1864, which resolved: "That the national executive open fresh negotiations with His Holiness in order to establish a concordat in rela- tion with the laws of the Republic and in harmony with the -spirit and letter of the Constitution which has just been ratified ". The diplomatic mission sent to Rome for this purpose was not successful.
Conflicts between the ecclesiastical and civil author- ities occurred in the earliest period of the Republic's existence. The first of these arose out of the refusal of Ram6n Ignacio Mendez, Archbishop of Caracas, to swear allegiance, without qualification, fully, and in the form pn'scribcd by the Constituent Congress, to the (^onstitul i(jn rat ilied in 1830. This refu.sal, based chiefly on the ab.sen('e from the Constitution of any explicit recognition of Catholicism as the religion of the State, rcsidted, in spite of endeavours on the part of the Government to solve the difficulty amicably, in the exile of the archbishop, together with Mariano Talavera y Garc6s, titular Bishop of Tricala, Vicar Apo.stohc of Giiayana, and Buenaventura Arias, titular Bishop of Jericho, Vicar Apostolic of M<^rida, who associated them.selves with their metropolitan. The exile lasted seventeen months, the prelates (with the excej)tion of Mgr. .\ri.as, who died 21 November, 1831) returning in .\pril, 1832, after reaching an understanding with the Government. We may add, in passing, that Mgr. Arias left behind him a holy
memory, the populace even crediting him with
miracles. Another confUct, with Archbishop Men-
dez, arose in 1836. The prelate refused canonical
institution to the persons nominated as dean and arch-
deacon, and the matter was taken up to the Supreme
Court. To the same tribunal was afterwards referred
the complaint of the Government against a pastoral
letter in which Mgr. Mendez protested against the
abolition of tithes, declaring this legislative act to be
null. The result was another exile for the archbishop,
who embarked for Curasao, 30 November, 1830,
never to return, as he died on Colombian territory,
6 August, 1839.
The most lamentable quarrel between the Church in Venezuela and the Government was that in which Archbishop Silvestre Guevara y Lira and President Antonio Guzmdn Blanco were the principals. The latter having won the battle which definitively estabhshed his power, in 1870, his Government at Caracas requested of the archbishop the celebration of a Te Deum in thanksgiving for the bloody victory. The prelate replied that there would be no objection to complying with the request of the Government, but that it seemed to him more fitting to defer this religious function until the general amnesty, offered by the president during the campaign, had been put into effect, so that the public participation of the Church in the rejoicings of the victors might not be coincident with the mourning of families for the shedding of blood and for the many captives who lay in prison. This postponement was not satisfactory to the Government; Dr. Diego B. Urbaneja, its most influential member, seizing the opportunity to satisfy a private grudge, announced to ^Igr. Guevara that his banishment was decreed. In justice to Guzmdn Blanco it must be recorded that he received the news of this banishment with no expression of satisfaction, and that, after his return to Caracas, in the discharge of his official duties, he took steps to effect the prel- ate's recall and to re-establish the harmony which had been so rashly interrupted.
Unfortunately, no good understanding could be reached, as political passions helped to make the rupture more and more irremediable, and the dis- astrous results became lamentable in the extreme. Guzmdn kept no restraint on his anger; he visited it upon the whole Church and its most prized institu- tions, and, to destroy the influence of the priesthood completely, thenceforward set on foot a systematic persecution which, unhappily, met with complete success. He expelled with savage violence the last communities of religious women left in Venezuela, despoiling them of their possessions; he suppressed the seminaries, despoiling them also, and bringing ruin on that budding revival of ecclesiastical educa- tion which already constituted a fair hope for the country's progress in civilization; he destroyed churches, took possession of buildings, pious institu- tions, and sacred property of every kind, abolished revenues, secularized the cemeteries, defamed the clergy, and, eliminating every element of distinction in the sacred ministry that could hinder his plan for the ruin of the Church, opened the field to mediocrity and low intrigue, bringing in ecclesiastics incapable of any lofty social influences, whose indecorous char- acter reflected upon the Church itself — a course abundantly fruitful of misfortvme and innumerable evils, (^luznuin Blanco put the finishing touch to the legislation which, from the beginning of the republic, had been creating obstacles to the liberty of associa- tion, so far as religious communities are concerned, by decreeing the total suppression of convents in the country and prohibiting their restoration in future. He moreover aimed at setting up in Venezuela a national Church independent of Rome, but without the slightest success. Finally, he sought to bring about the relaxation of the clergy by recognizing, in
