neighbour the obligation of paying them. She is paid for the repairs
to churches, for episcopal libraries, for the colonisation of
Fernando Po, for unforeseen occurrences, and I do not know how many
supplemental items besides! And you must take into account what the
Spanish people pay the Church voluntarily apart from what the State
gives. The Bull of the Holy Crusade produces two and a half million
pesetas annually; besides this you must consider what the parochial
clergy draw from their congregations, the annual gifts to the
religious orders for their ministry and offices (and this is
the fattest portion), and the ecclesiastical revenue from the
Ayuntamientos and deputations. In short, this Church, which is
continually speaking of its poverty, draws from the State and the
country more than three hundred million pesetas annually--nearly
double what the army costs; although they are always complaining
in the sacristies of these modern times, saying that everything is
devoured by the military, and that the fault of everything that has
happened is theirs, as they threw themselves on to the side of that
cursed liberty. Three hundred millions, Gabriel! I have calculated it
carefully! And I, who form part of this great establishment, receive
seven duros a month; the greater part of the vicars in Spain are paid
less than an excise officer, and thousands of clergy live from hand to
mouth, wandering from sacristy to sacristy trying to obtain a mass to
put the stew on the fire; and if bands of clergy do not go into the
highways to rob, it is only from fear of the civil guard, and because
after a couple of days of hunger a third may come in which they may
beg some scraps to eat; there is always a crumb to allay hunger, and
no cassock ever falls in the street dying of want, but there are a
great many clerics who spend their existence deceiving their stomachs,
trying to imagine they nourish themselves, till some sudden illness
comes which hurries them out of the world. Where, then, does all this
money go? To the aristocracy of the Church, to the true sacerdotal
caste; but we who are in religion are people of the backstairs. What a
terrible mistake, Gabriel! To renounce love and family affection, to
fly all worldly pleasures, the theatre, concerts, the cafe; to be
looked upon by people, even by those who think themselves religious,
as a strange being, a sort of intermediate, neither a man nor a woman;
to wear petticoats and to be dr