File No. 831.404/9.
Chargé Caffery to the Secretary of State.
Caracas, October 26, 1911.
Sir: I have the honor to enclose herewith duplicate copies,1 together with translations thereof, of a decree of the President of Venezuela, extending the provisions of the law of ecclesiastical patronage to foreign missionary societies.
The Minister of the Interior, in a letter to the Presidents of the States, Governor of the Federal District and Governors of the Territories, orders compliance with this decree. He directs them to exercise all diligence in the enforcement of the Law of Ecclesiastical Patronage, and in particular to the dispositions of that Law and of the Constitution of the Republic, which reserve to the National Congress the right to establish missions; to the Executive that of regulating them, of engaging missionaries and sending them to the points where there are natives to be civilized; and to the Chief Magistrate that of prohibiting the entry of strangers consecrated especially to the service of one cult.
This decree, together with its interpretation by the Minister of the Interior, subjects foreign missionary societies, with establishments in Venezuela, to direct supervision by the Government, which thus acquires the right of intermeddling in their affairs.
I have [etc.]
- Not printed.↩