Minister Collier to the Secretary of State .
Madrid , February 17, 1906 .
Sir: Replying to department’s request No. 34, of January 30 last, for a statement of the status of non-Catholic Christians in Spain, I have the honor to report that the existing constitution of Spain provides:
Articulo II. La Religion catolica, apostolica, romana, es la del Estado. La nacion se obliga a mantener el culto y sus ministros.
Nadie sera molestado en el territorio español por sus opiniones religiosas ni por el ejercicio de su respectivo culto, salvo el respeto debido á la moral cristiana.
No se permitinán, sin embargo, otras cerenonias ni manifestaciones publicas que las de la religion del Estado.
This is to be translated as follows:
Article II. The Catholic religion, apostolic, Roman, is the religion of the State. The nation obligates itself to maintain its worship and its ministers.
No one will be interfered with (literally, “troubled”) in Spanish territory because of his religious opinions nor for the exercise of his respective form of worship, saving only the respect due to Christian morals. However, no other ceremonies nor manifestations in public except those of the religion of the State will be permitted.
I am unable, after search and inquiry, to find any statutes upon the subject of religious worship nor any written decrees or orders defining the constitutional provision quoted or providing for its enforcement. I have received from Rev. Mr. Gulick, a Protestant minister, [Page 1352] who for about thirty years has been engaged in religious and educational work in Spain, under the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, information as to the number of Protestants and also as to the religious privileges claimed by them and those accorded to them by the officers charged with the duty of enforcing the law. Among these officers there has been, not unnaturally, a difference of opinion as to what is a public manifestation. Generally, I am told, there has been greater freedom of worship in large cities than in provincial villages, and there is more toleration, it is said, now than there was fifteen or twenty years ago.
The following generalization may be made:
- I.
- Funeral services are never interfered with, even when the Protestant minister, more or less conspicuously, appears in his clerical capacity in the funeral procession passing through the public streets.
- II.
- Churches and chapels may be built, when building regulations are complied with, but distinctively ecclesiastical architecture, calculated to proclaim the building as the seat of a form of worship, is not allowed; at least, the Protestants have refrained from such form of architecture.
- III.
- A cross or other emblem of religion is never permitted to be erected upon a Protestant edifice. About a year ago an attempt to do this at Barcelona resulted in the ecclesiastical authorities of that city making an appeal to the Crown for the enforcement of the law, as construed by them, and in the King’s sending a letter in reply in which he assured them of his intention to enforce the laws of Catholic Spain against outward manifestations of other forms of religion. The cross in the case mentioned was taken clown. Generally, the Protestants of Spain concede that the erection of a cross is a “public manifestation,” and, therefore, a violation of the constitution.
- IV.
- Generally the door of the Protestant church edifice is permitted to open upon the public street, although it is not allowed, during service, to remain open so as to attract attention to the worship. It is, however, not universal to allow the door to open upon the public street. For about ten years the front door of the Protestant church in the Calle Beneficiencia, in Madrid—that is, from its erection until last spring—was never opened. Worshipers entered by a back or side door, first passing through the house of the Protestant bishop, which adjoined the church. This closing appears to have been not so much an admission by the Protestants that they had no right to open this door, but a course of action adopted by the Protestant bishop in order to avoid irritating Roman Catholics. After the Barcelona incident of last spring, hereinbefore mentioned, as an assertion of what they deemed their legal rights, the authorities of the church in Calle Beneficiencia opened its door upon the street, and since that time the members of the church, I am informed, have entered through it for worship and have not been hindered in so doing.
- V.
- Preaching and music, both vocal and instrumental, are allowed in the churches. Generally the doors of the church are closed so as not to publicly attract attention to the service. I am told that a dozen years or more ago, in a village remote from Madrid, a local authority forbade the holding of services unless the doors were so constructed as to prevent the sound of worship coming out to the public, but that this was considered by the Government at Madrid [Page 1353] as a wholly unwarranted construction of the law, and the action of the village authority was not upheld.
- VI.
- In regard to missionary efforts, proselyting etc., I am informed that there is no interference if public order is not disturbed. A general law, however, prohibits gatherings of more than 20 persons without previous notification of the constituted civil authorities. This applies to gatherings of all kinds. It is in no sense limited to meetings for religious purposes. After the notification mentioned religious bodies may meet in such number as they choose.
- VII.
- The study of the statutes which I have made and the advice of counsel lead me to the opinion that non-Catholics who are Spanish subjects may, by complying with the provisions of law, form legal associations vested with a legal personality, subject, of course, in their ceremonies and religious manifestations to the restrictions of the constitutional provision above quoted.
- VIII.
- Number of Protestants. In answer to my question as to the number of Protestants, Mr. Gulick informed me that it was a matter most difficult to tell, but that the best information obtainable was that there were about 3,000 communicants and regular attendants, and about 10,000 adherents, or persons who, though attending services only occasionally, were more in sympathy and accord with the Protestant church than with the Catholic.
I have, etc.,