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 VENEZUELA

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VENEZUELA

The average of oducaticiii i:~ imt low among the Vene- zuelans; they are naturally intelhgent and assimilate knowledge readily. The one drawback is a lax sys- tem in the various courses. Medical science, in its various branches, has many representatives who stand high in their profession; judges and lawyers of high reputation represent the law; in belles-lettres Vene- zuelan writers have produced works that bear compari- son with the best product of the other Spanish-speak- ing nations, and in the fine arts, such painters as Tovar y Tovar, .\rturo Michilena, and Crist6bal Rojas have produced works of which their country is justly proud. The Press in Venezuela has considerable merit: it is unfortunate that the influence of modern anti-religious ideas, for which no antidoteisprovided, should tinge with unbelief otherwise creditable work; notwithstanding this, it cannot be generaDy said that the Venezuelans are irrehgious.

Religious History. — The rehgion of Venezuela has always been the Catholic Faith. Missionary work was very efficaciously done in the early days: the Capuchins, in particular, carried that work very far forward, and many of the settlements of Vene- zuela were founded by them and reached a high degree of prosperity under their direction. Nevertheless, there have been undeniable shortcomings in public morahty, due to the interference of extrinsic causes. One of the greatest glories of the religious orders and of the Spanish nation is the record of their unselfish devotion to the social redemption of the American races. The religious always defended the aborigines against their cruel assailants, being the first to claim for them the rights of humanity, and the kings of Spain fostered these humane and Christian views, pro- mulgating a great body of laws— the leyes de las Indias — which wiU always be a monument of the noble principles which inspired those monarchs in their dealings with the aborigines. The Franciscans and Dominicans had the chief part in this civilizing work. In Venezuela they exercised their ministry with fruitful results; and when the conquest was com- pleted, they still continued their mission with the greatest zeal. According to Dr. Francisco Gonzdlez Guzmdn in his "Historia Contemporanea de Vene- zuela", vol. II, pp. 34, 3.5: —

"Before 1830 there were forty convents in Vene- zuela: at Caracas, those of San Francisco, San Jacinto, San Felipe, the Mercedes, and the Capuchins; at Barcelona, of San Francisco; at Pivitu, of San Fran- cisco; at Barquisimeto, of San Francisco; at Focuyo, of San Francisco and of San Domingo; at Carora, of San Francisco; at Valencia, of San Francisco; at Cumand, of San Francisco and of San Domingo; at Cumanacoa, of San Francisco; on the Gulf of Santa Fe, that of San Domingo; at Cabruta, the Jesuits; at .\ngostura (Ciudad Bolivar), the Jesuits; at San Francisco, that of the same name; at Caripe, of San Francisco; at M^rida, San Domingo, San Agu.stin, and Candelaria; at Asunci6n, of San Francisco and of Santo Domingo; at Guanare, of San Francisco; at San Crist6bal, of San .^gustln; at Trujillo, of San Francisco and of San Domingo; at Guasipati, of San Fran- cisco; at Upata, of San Francisco; at Caruachi, of San Francisco; at Gury, of San Francisco; at Tupu- quen, of San Francisco; at Santa Maria, of San Francisco; at Maracaibo, of San Felipe and the Jesuits.

"About the year 1830 there were in Venezuela the following communities of nuns: at Caracas, that of the Concepciones, founded in 1617 by Dona Juana Villela and her daughters, Spanish ladies, and author- ized by the King of Spain, 23 March, 1619; that of the Discalced Carmelites of Santa Teresa, founded by Doiia .Io,sefa Melchora de Ponte y Aguirre, Dona Mejias, and Don Miguel de Ponte, authorized by royal warrant of 1 October, 172.5, the building begun in 1726 and opened 19 May, 1732; and the Domini-

canesses, estabhshed in IS] 7. The convent of the Dominican nuns at Trujillo was begun in 1599 anil opened in 1617. That of the Clarissas of Merida was foimded in 1651 by Don Juan de Bedoya. The Beaterio of Valencia was founded by tlie Revs. Juan Jose Rodriguez Fehpe, Dr. Carlos Hernandez de Mon- agas, and Dr. Juan Antonio Hernandez de Monagas. The first idea of these charitable priests was to estab- lish a college for the education of young girls, and this object was contemplated in the authorization given by Archbishop I'rancisco de Ibarra, 28 January, 1806. Dr. Carlos Herndndez de Monagas having been assas- sinated, and the Rev. Rodriguez Fehpes being absent. Dr. Antonio Hernandez de Monagas, with the consent of Archbishop Coll y Prat, given 3 March, 1814, turned the college into a beaterio. In accordance with the archbishop's authorization, the girls were to be taught bj' Carmelite beatas (devout women), who were to observe the monastic vows so long as they wished to Uve in the Beaterio. Archbishop CoH y Prat received the vows of, and gave the veil to, the first beatas in 1S14."

The secular clergj' likewise contributed to the work of civilization. An illustrious phalanx of priests, con- spicuous by the austerity of their fives, their learning and piety, and comprising members of the most dis- tinguished families, maintained the dignity of the priesthood and the deep popular reverence for min- isters of religion. This deep and broad rooting of faith and piety, watered with the blood of martjTs, ex- plains their wonderful persistence among the Venezue- lan people of the present day, in spite of all the assaults of this present age. The influence for good which the bishops have had upon the civihzation of Venezuela has been brought out clearly by Pedro M. .Arcaj-a, a judge of the national courts in "El Episco- pado en la formaci6n de la sociedad venezolana", published on the occasion of the Centenarj' of Inde- pendence (5 July, 1905), in the special commemora- tive number issued by "La ReUgi6n", of Caracas. Recalling a number of facts, taken at random, illus- trative of the meritorious work of Bishops Gonzalo de Angulo, Antonio Gonzalez de Acuna, and Mauro de Tovar, Dr. Arcaya draws these conclusions: —

"In the sixteenth century, and almost as late as the middle of the seventeenth, the royal power was un- doubtedly less efficacious for order than was that of the Church. The former depended very much on the actual force which supported it: and that force was not in evidence to any great degree in the colony; European troops seldom appeared there, and indeed the territory' was too large for the armies and fleets at the Spanish king's disposal. It was, therefore, almost exclusively through the influence of the Church that the habits of civiUzed life could be implanted in the country — habits which, but for the Church, the con- querors would have lost, and which, as a matter of fact, they did lose to a great extent, by contact with aboriginal savagery. The conquest would probably have ended in ferocious civil wars, in which the Euro- peans would have lost ground, and would have sunk to the level of the tribes who were their adversaries, had not the Church spoken to their conscience, reviv- ing the sentiments of justice and duty, which, in the heat of the struggle, had been supplanted by b;ise passions. The retrogression had been terrible, and to restore the moral le\cl of these ijeople was a difficult undertaking. To this work, and to that of inculcat- ing into the Indians and the negro slaves the moral and rehgious principles which form the basis of civili- zation, the Venezuelan bishops applied tliemselves with extraordinary energy. They encountered great resistance, and, in order to accomplish their civifizing mission, they had not only to use persuasion and gen- tleness, but actually to as,sume a sort of dictatorship .so as to break up abuses, protect the weak, chastise iniquity, and finally lay the foundations of a society