The Second Freedom
Religious Liberty: An Inquiry.
By M. Searle Bates.
New York and London, International Missionary Council, 1945. 604 pp. $3.50.
Recently the New York Times reported that the Franco regime has granted permission to the Jews in Spain to reopen a synagogue in Barcelona and to worship there. Until then the Franco government had not permitted Jews to conduct public services anywhere in Spain. Jews had to resort to the subterfuges we associate with the Inquisition: they gathered in the home of a Jewish citizen, where the table would be spread as if for a party; services would be conducted in whispers. If the police came, the participants were found seated around the table as if they had come to the house only to celebrate a birthday.
While the public of democratic countries has been kept in ignorance of the state of affairs typified by the above, some persons have known for a long time that there are large areas of the world where religious liberty came to an end in our own day with the eclipse of political liberalism. The Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America and the Foreign Missions Conference of North America, aware of the problem and the need it created, together set up a Joint Committee on Religious Liberty. This committee persuaded Dr. M. Searle Bates, former Rhodes scholar, now professor of history at Nanking University, to undertake the preparation of a basic factual study of the subject of religious liberty.
The result is this book of six hundred pages, of which the author and his sponsors may well be proud. The book is, as its foreword states, “ a monument to the indefatigable research, tenacious zeal, well-balanced judgment, and loving devotion” of Dr. Bates. The work is encyclopedic in scope and definitive in its conclusions, proposals, and theoretic considerations.
In about 60 pages the author summarizes the problems of religious liberty in the history of mankind—not only in Western Europe and the United States, but also in Latin America, Russia, the Moslem countries, India, China, and Japan. In another 30 pages the present day problems of religious liberty are carefully analyzed. Facts are stated with courage and scientific objectivity. It is impossible in this review to summarize them all in their extreme complexity; let me touch only on Spain and Russia, two focal points of the problem.
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Dr. Bates’ survey shows that religious liberty for other than Roman Catholics scarcely exists in Spain today. Had the revolution of 1931–1939 been successful, the situation would be, of course, quite different. Even before 1931, the Catholic bishops of Spain had called upon Catholics to forget their political differences and fight for the perpetuation of clericalism, which Alvaro de Albornez described as “ nearly omnipotent in public, social and economic life.” The Republican government was accused of being anti-religious, though its program called only for the sort of religious liberty we Americans have long taken for granted. They asked to abolish the official subsidy to cults, break the church monopoly of cemeteries, authorize divorce, and dissolve the Jesuit order. The Republicans wanted to separate church from state, for the benefit of both. It was hoped that disestablishment would spiritualize and liberalize the Church.
But the Pope appealed to Catholic Action to join the “ spiritual war” between Spain and the Holy See. He termed separation of church and state “ a most serious error.” The Bishop of Barcelona said that an anti-Republican vote was “ a vote for Christ.” In 1936, radical elements among the Republicans decided to fight fire with fire: they burned churches. The story of murders, executions, and massacres need not be retold here. Franco and the Fascists won; but as Alvarez del Vayo has pointed out, “ when the Spanish people rise up once more, the Catholic Church, which is now looked upon as the chief ally of Spanish fascism, will suffer the consequences of a strong national reaction against all that the Franco regime represents.”
In 1939, Franco restored the old order: there may not be a plurality of religious confessions in Spain; the Church baptizes all children; the catechism is obligatory in all state schools. The accord between Franco and the Holy See provides that Catholicism shall be the sole religion of the Spanish nation; that the bishops shall have full and free supervision over the purity of faith and customs, and over the religious education of children, even in public schools. But Franco participates in the selection of the hierarchy. The Falange and the Church both seek and struggle for power. Between the two, religious liberty has been thoroughly crushed. The Jews have not been the only ones whose religious liberty has been eliminated. In 1944 only twenty (out of two hundred) Protestant churches remained open. All Protestant schools have been closed. Non-Catholics are barred from the civil service. In the rural districts, individuals may not own a Bible; not long ago the police confiscated 100,000 copies of the Bible and similar religious books in Madrid; and Bibles are stopped at the frontier.
The defeat of Hitler and Mussolini has not changed the situation in Spain in any essential respect. An occasional concession, such as the one granted to the Barcelona Jews, serves only to bring the dark despotism into sharper relief. While General MacArthur in Japan has taken effective steps to separate Shintoism from the state and to guarantee religious freedom to all people, a conspiracy of silence still shrouds the Spanish tyranny. Military considerations no longer can be offered as an excuse. Apparently, while fascist Japan has lost the war, fascist Spain has not.
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Without the common liberties of speech, the press, assembly, property, freedom from arbitrary domination and interference, says Professor Bates, religious liberty can scarcely exist. No better proof of this principle can be found than in the example of Soviet Russia. While the 1936 constitution of the USSR purported to give religious freedom, in 1937 clergymen were liquidated as Trotskyists and traitors, and a publicity campaign was conducted to smear clergymen. In 1938, over fifty bishops were imprisoned and a number of higher dignitaries were shot. In 1937, a prohibitively heavy rent charge was imposed on church buildings. While before the revolution, Moscow had 351 Orthodox parishes, besides 10 collegiate churches, in 1939, under the protection of the constitution, there flourished 10 parishes. Freedom of confession was guaranteed by the constitution; but the guarantee was nullified in practice by the government, which construed the provision to mean that one person was free to convey religious ideas to another religious person—but not to anyone else, for that would be propaganda. A religious pamphlet (assuming that one was able to get a press, paper, permission from the censor, and permission to distribute) given to a nonreligious person meant criminal propaganda.
The war brought a new line. In 1942, ostensibly because of the paper shortage, the League of Militant Atheists ceased its work under orders. The patriarchate of the Russian church has been restored. A government council assists the Orthodox Church in the repair and opening of churches. When Alexei was enthroned in January of 1945, an official representative of the Soviet Union thanked the Church for its loyalty and sacrifices, and the Patriarch reciprocated by sending his blessing to Stalin. (In czarist days, Jews were compelled to offer prayers for the life and health of the Czar, the Czarina, the Czar’s mother, and the Crown Prince!) Recently, Stalin bestowed a high decoration and a new automobile on the Gregorian Patriarch of Armenia.
The first official document issued by Alexei contained a strong attack on the Vatican and an appeal for unity addressed to all Orthodox Churches. In this document we see the underlying purpose of the new line: as Professor La Piana of Harvard has recently pointed out, the pan-Orthodox program of Alexei coincides with the Stalinist program for expanding Russian political influence. The struggle is now between Roman Catholicism and Russian Orthodoxy, between the church of the West and the church of the East; Stalin’s interest, however, is not in saving souls, but in spreading and consolidating Soviet influence and power. Stalin has decided he can get further with the gospel of Orthodoxy than with propaganda for atheism. Marx said: “ Religion is the opium of the people.” Lenin said: “ Religion is one of the aspects of spiritual oppression.” Stalin said: “ All religion is contrary to science.” But there is an old saying: “ When you need the thief, you take him down from the gallows.” Now Stalin needs the Gregorian Patriarch, so the Patriarch has an automobile in which he can ride from town to town, province to province, to bless the name of the great leader of the Russian people and the great benefactor and defender of the one and only true faith.
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Dr. Bates devotes nearly two hundred pages to an analysis of the theoretical aspects of religious liberty; he discusses religious liberty in terms of natural rights, ethics, philosophy, and social utility; in terms of Protestant and Catholic theology; in terms of the problem of educational policy. There is also a discussion of religious liberty in terms of the law, and a forty-page statement of conclusions and proposals.
In his classification of countries according to the conditions of religious liberty as found in 1945, the author lists thirty countries where there was a high degree of freedom from religious preferences and discriminations; seven countries where there were relatively minor preferences and discriminations; eleven countries where there were preferences and discriminations that were important but not generally acute. In Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, Burma, Ethiopia, and India, freedom of religion was limited in certain regions, with important social pressures exerted against it. In Austria, Belgian Congo, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Poland, Portugal, the Portuguese colonies, and Siam, freedom of religion was limited, with weighty preferences and discriminations. In Afghanistan, Arabia, and Tibet, there was found repressive uniformity, with death or utter ostracism for apostasy. In twelve countries—Albania, Egypt, Greece, Iran, Iraq, Palestine, Rumania, Russia, Spain, Syria, Transjordan, and Turkey—freedom of religion was severely limited, with state restrictions or heavy socio-religious pressures.
How does it happen that Palestine is found in the uncomplimentary company of Russia and Spain? While the mandate guarantees complete freedom and equality with respect to religion, language, and race, the order in council made in 1922 provides for autonomy in the internal affairs of each religious community recognized by the government, subject to general ordinance by the high commissioner; it also provides for the continuance of the law and custom of the Near East by entrusting to the courts of the religious communities (Moslem, Jewish, and Christian of various denominations) jurisdiction in marriage, divorce, guardianship, legitimation, adoption, legal incompetence, succession, wills, and legacies. The judgments of the religious courts are executed by the process and offices of the government or civil courts.
In the light of these provisions, the author is quite correct in concluding that in Palestine freedom of religion is limited. Certainly there is no total separation there of church and state. As far as the Jewish community is concerned, as Professor M. M. Kaplan has recently pointed out, legal status is accorded only the Orthodox or traditional law and rabbinical courts. Unfortunately the problem of religious freedom in Palestine, which may become acute in time, has been generally neglected. It calls for more impartiality and objectivity than, apparently, interested persons (Jews and non-Jews) are able to give to it today. But it cannot be kept on a high shelf indefinitely. The book by Dr. Bates shows that such issues cannot be suppressed without the community paying a high price for the suppression.
While there are degrees of repression or tyranny, there are no degrees of freedom. A people either has it or does not have it. As long as they do not have it, the struggle for it must go on. Having been persecuted for two thousand years, sometimes for their religious stiff-neckedness, and sometimes only ostensibly for this reason, the Jews have a great stake in religious feedom. It is a pity that a representative Jewish group did not participate in the selection of Professor Bates and in the sponsorship of the project. Why is it that we had to wait for a Herford for a commendable statement on the Pharisees? For a Danby for a translation of the Mishnah? For a George Foote Moore for a notable work on the development of Judaism in the early centuries of the Christian era? For a Goodenough for the best treatises on Philo?—And now for a Bates for the most notable inquiry into the subject of religious liberty?
