Mexico, Religion in.

J. McCabe, Rationalists Encyclopaedia

anti-clerical laws of Mexico go back to the days of the Rationalist Presidents, Juarez and Diaz. The chief law is that, on account of intrigues to restore the country to the Spanish crown, no priests, monks, or nuns of Spanish birth are to be permitted to reside in it. Diaz's Catholic wife thwarted his efforts to apply the law, and after the war (1918) the very numerous Spanish clergy and nuns intrigued freely. On account of the spread of Socialism they began to work up a plan of annexation in the United States. In 1923 the Government had to expel the Pope's representative for "direct intervention in Mexican affairs" (Prof. Calcott, Liberalism in Mexico, 1931), and found that the Church had accumulated large funds for the purpose, and that the religious orders had opened schools in defiance of the law. In 1925 the Government, which had the solid support of the majority of educated Mexicans at the polls - the workers were particularly anti-clerical in the towns - began to close the schools and expel Spanish priests and nuns. The bishops defied it and radioed to the world a cry of persecution. The American Catholics issued a booklet with a significant appeal to Wall Street for funds - it is notorious that American enterprisers want their country to annex Mexico and its great mineral wealth - and a long list of priests who were said to have been executed by the Government. The present writer was in Mexico at the time, and can testify that none were then executed - many were later, for leading armed rebels - and that the expulsions (strictly legal) which he witnessed were conducted with courtesy, although the wives of the Catholic ambassadors tried to provoke riots. The latter fact was later learned in Cuba from articles in the Conservative chief Havana paper by a Mexican Catholic journalist who was disgusted with the lies told by his clergy. The worst phase of the struggle followed, the provincial Catholic bishops and priests organizing bands of armed rebels who committed appalling outrages. A Catholic article in Liberty (August 24, 1935), distorting the facts, was riddled by the Mexican Catholic Moreno in the Forum, who showed that all the brutality was on the side of the Cristeros (ignorant Catholic Indians led by priests). An American business man had a similar article in the World-Telegram of June 8,1935; yet, on June 16, 15,000 American Rotarians in Mexico City paraded the streets (with impunity) insulting the Mexicans and denouncing "persecution"; while the Pope repeatedly called upon the Governments of the world to "destroy Bolshevism in Russia, Spain, and Mexico." During all this time the electors solidly supported the Government, and even the peons, the vast majority of whom are illiterate Indians, quitted the Church in such numbers that governors of provinces (Chihuahua, Vera Cruz, etc.) safely reduced the number of priests to 1 to 50,000 people, or compelled them all to work. The artisans and town - workers generally are in the great majority Atheists, and cling to a Government of Atheists which has done more for the country (in education, reduction of crime, and social and economic betterment) in twenty years than had previously been done in 200. An article in the Protestant International Review of Missions (January, 1937) admitted all these facts, adding that "the attention of the Government continues to be directed to improving the well-being of the people" (p. 79).
     

 

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