Black Flag Boricuas: Anarchism, Antiauthoritarianism, and th eLeft in Puerto Rico, 1897-1921

4. Anarchists, Freethinkers, and Spiritists: The Progressive Alliance against the Catholic Church, 1909–1912

4. Anarchists, Freethinkers, and Spiritists The Progressive Alliance against the Catholic Church, 1909–1912 For almost two years,Belén de Sárraga had been traveling the hemisphere , speaking on freedom, freedom of speech, the need for women’s freedom for society to progress, and, above all, on the antihuman horrors perpetrated by the Roman Catholic Church. Cuba had been the latest stop on her triumphant anticlerical, free-thought speaking tour of the Americas. Now, in April 1912, she left Havana for Puerto Rico, where leftists were engaged in a continuous struggle against the church. Sárraga’s speeches were the talk of San Juan as word spread and interest grew. On Sunday, May 5, the crowds grew larger to hear her condemn the historic role of the Catholic Church in its acquisition of monopolies and “industrial riches” in Europe, warning the audience about the Puerto Rican church’s desire to dominate the island’s riches and its families. The audience went wild with applause. Exhilarated by her words, the crowd followed Sárraga to her hotel, chanting for her to make another appearance. When Sárraga stepped onto the hotel balcony, the crowd again cheered. A group of young men unfurled the flag of Spanish republicans and gave her a bouquet of flowers. She told the audience how much she appreciated their affections, urging Spaniards and Puerto Ricans to work together for progress and the future. With the triumphant talks, her promoters announced that Belén de Sárraga would immediately embark on an islandwide tour.1 Whetherinunionsorwithsocialistsandfreethinkersineducationalexperiments , political alliances were a fact of life and survival as anarchists fought back against the Puerto Rican and U.S. governments as well as capitalist penetration.Anarchists also engaged in cross-sectarian alliances against that third leg on the authoritarian stool: the Catholic Church. Juan Vilar, Luisa Anarchists, Freethinkers, and Spiritists 93 Capetillo,and others worked with the growing freethinkers movement on the island—a movement that welcomed Sárraga and organized her nearly twomonth -long speaking tour in 1912. However, freethinkers in Puerto Rico, as elsewhere,oftenlinkedtheir cause to the rational religious movement of espiritismo that rejected both Catholicism and pure materialism.Anarchists had a mixed relationship with the spiritists that reflected the dilemmas anarchists encountered when they linked their causes with the island’s nonanarchists. Anticlericalism and Antireligion on the Labor Left During four hundred years of Spanish colonial rule, the Catholic Church planted deep roots but also generated profound hatred. The emergence of freethinking organizations on the island built off a deep-seated anticlericalism within the Puerto Rican Left.Ramón Romero Rosa exemplified this hostility toward organized religion in general and Catholicism in particular. Writing underhisnomdeplumeR.delRomeral,heearlyandfrequentlyledorganized labor’s attack against the Catholic Church. For instance, in June 1899 he publishedafictional“conversation”betweenhimselfandapriest,layingforth the standard socialist attack against religion: “if there were no religions,then surely the poor would live happily.” Throughout the dialogue, del Romeral verbally assaults the priest. He charges that religions “were invented by the satisfied in order to lead the minds of the unhappy into submission, obedience ,and meekness”by believing in an afterlife.As a result,“the poor never rebel against the ‘fat ones’who commit great injustices and live by exploiting us.”The church had forsaken Jesus,who was a true rebel,he continues,and Jesus had been crucified for fighting the exploiters of his day. Such claims prompt the priest to accuse del Romeral of sacrilege, saying that if he had said such things during Spanish rule he would have found himself bound and gagged. Del Romeral concludes, “I wish that Puerto Rican humanity, like humanity everywhere, would be happy and fortunate. That everything that has been a hindrance to our progress would be burned and destroyed. That there would be no religion other than the religion of work. That the parasites and the holy processions would disappear. That there would be no other churches than the workshop and the factory.”2 Until his death in 1907, Romero Rosa continued his anticlerical assaults, including a full-scale attack in his 1904 La cuestión social y Puerto Rico.Most leftiststhroughoutLatinAmericabelievedthattheCatholicChurchremained not just a legacy of Spanish colonialism but also a backward, authoritarian institutionthatblockedscientificanddemocraticprogress.ForRomeroRosa, religion was one of the “lies” upon which capitalism rested and thus which 94 chapter 4 had to be refuted for social progress.As he explained,the church “constantly lies to the...