Note 11 — THE FRIAR MEMORIAL OF 1898

They are persecuted because of their religious significance. What reason have the religious corporations of Filipinas given that they should be persecuted with so great passion? Ah! your Excellency, that reason is no other than because they are very Catholic, because they are very Spanish, because they are effective supporters of the good and sane doctrine, and because they have never shown weakness toward the enemies of God and of the fatherland.11 If we religious had not defended here with inviolable firmness the secular work which our fathers bequeathed us: if we had shrunk our shoulders in fear before the work of the lodges and before the propagation of politico-religious errors that have come to us from Europa; if we had given the most insignificant sign, not only if not of sympathy, yet even the least sign of mute passivity, to the advocates of the false modern liberties condemned by the Church; if the flame of patriotism had become lessened to us; and innovators had not met in each religious in Filipinas an unchangeable and terrible adversary to their plans, open or hidden: never, your Excellency, would we religious corporations have been the object of the cruel persecution now practiced on us; but on the contrary, we regulars would have been exalted to the clouds, and so much the more as our enemies are not unaware that, granting the influence that we enjoy in the archipelago, our support, even if passive and one of mere silence, would indisputably have given them the victory.