Page:Mexico (1829) Volumes 1 and 2.djvu/288

 248 MEXICO. expect to derive no benefit ; and the Clergy have been com- pelled, at last, to yield, by a threat of interference on the part of the Legislature. Of the tithes, nothing certain is yet known : they vary, of course, every year, as the agriculture of the country revives ; but they do not yet produce any thing like their former amount', nor is it probable that they will. In the Bishoprics upon the Western coast, (Durango, Guadalajara, and Valla- dolid,) I found a general falling off in the amount of the tithes complained of ; and this not proceeding from the ruin of the great Haciendas alone, but from the dissemination of ideas unfavourable to the rights of the Church. In the ex- tensive Diocese of Michoacan, (Valladolid,) the tithes, during the two last years, have not exceeded 200,000 dollars, in lieu of 500,000 dollars, which they averaged before 1808. This may be partly owing to the administration of the Church re- venues having been long in the hands of the Cathedral Chap- ter, which can never possess an influence over the common people, equal to that exercised by a resident Bishop, support- ed by all the pomp, with which the great dignitaries of the church are surrounded ; but it cannot be denied that there is a spirit abroad in Mexico, which will render it difficult for the higher Clergy to retain that affluence which they formerly enjoyed. A more equal distribution, at least, of the wealth now en- grossed by a few, will be one of the first consequences of the interference of the Congress in Ecclesiastical affairs ; and it is highly to be desired that, in this respect, some reform should take place ; for in many Diocesses, where the revenues of the Bishop amounted to 100,000 or 120,000 dollars, there were Cur as (parish priests) who vegetated upon a pittance of 100, or 120 dollars in the year. The sources from which the incomes of the parish priests are derived likewise require investigation and reform. No provision being made for them by the State, their sub-