OCR Text |
Show Friars Will Stay. Advices from Rome, says the Manila Times, state that Ihe Vatican regards the sale of tho friar lands in the Philippines as practically foreshadowing foreshad-owing the withdrawal of the friars from the islands. isl-ands. Dispatches say that the Franciscans will abandon the islands altogether; that a few of the Recollets will remain; that the Dominicans will devote themselves entirely to the interests of their university and that the Augustinians wil reoccupy their buildings in Iloilo. nov used as a barracks by United States troops, and confine themselves en- j tirely to building up a great school. which they pro- j pose to establish there. , i There arc upwards of 2,000 friars' now in the islands, says one dispatch, but it is believed that the withdrawal due to the settlement pf the land quesion will reduce ihe number to 1"0 or 200. The above" was shown to a prominent friar this morning by a representative of the Times, and he said: "The statement that there arc now 2,000 friars in the Philippines is inaccurate. The fact is that there are not more than 250 members of these orders or-ders in the whole archipelago. It is nut the intention inten-tion of the friars to abandon Ihe. field as, long as there is an opportunity to further the cause of religion re-ligion and the Church." . . |