DUPL B 451265 BX 1428 ·M54 ...... Menendez Mena. The work of the clergy. ..... U) Mexico: བཙ MAZZASADILISHMALLOY NA GENERAL UNIVERSI REBELONELY TEE 1317 L Cathery AR RY TY OF MICHI Lov.. The Work of the Clergy and the Mixico Religious Persecution in Mexico By ATTORNEY RODOLFO MENENDEZ MENA Merida, Yucatán, Mexico JANIS TW UNM. OF MICH LVERARY Published by LATIN-AMERICAN NEWS ASSOCIATION 1400 Broadway, New York City BX 1428 M54 ނ · Does Mexico Interest You? Then you should read the following pamphlets: What the Catholic Church Has Done for Mexico, by Doctor Paganel The Agrarian Law of Yucatán The Labor Law of Yucatán. International Labor Forum.. Intervene in Mexico, Not to Make, but to End War, urges Mr. Hearst, with reply by Rolland. The President's Mexican Policy, by F. K. Lane. ↓ The Religious Question in Mexico.. A Reconstructive Policy in Mexico. Manifest Destiny. What of Mexico.. Speech of General Alvarado. Many Mexican Problems. Minister of the Catholic Cult. -Star of Hope for Mexico.. Land Question in Mexico.. Charges Against the Diaz Administration. Carranza Stupenduous Issues " • 0.10 Address all communications to LATIN-AMERICAN NEWS ASSOCIATION 1400 Broadway, New York City 0.15 0.10 0.10 0.10 0.10 Open Letter to the Editor of the Chicago Tribune, Chicago, Ill. Į How We Robbed Mexico in 1848, by Robert H. Howe.. What the Mexican Conference Really Means.. The Economic Future of Mexico...... We also mail any of these pamphlets upon receipt of 5c each. 0.10 VOD/6/6 THE WORK OF THE CLERGY AND THE RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION IN MEXICO. go Perhaps the principal argument employed by the reac- tionary party of Mexico before the government and in the press of the United States to attack and lower the prestige of the Constitutionalist Revolution, is the one which re- lates to the religious question. Constitutionalism, especially since the rupture between the Convention party and Mr. Carranza-has been presented by its enemies before the American people, as an implacable and systematic persecutor of religion in all its forms and manifestations; as the vandalic destroyer of temples and images; as the insatiable and cruel executioner of timid and innocent priests; in one word, as an atheist and implanter and propagator of atheism in Mexico. They have even tried to demonstrate that this and several other dissolvent theories constitute the fundamental basis and the reason for existence of the constitutionalist policy, at least in that part which refers to the internal government of the Re- public. It is necessary to acknowledge that the infamous cam- paign carried on by the enemies of the Revolution must have impressed, and in fact has impressed, in a painful and profound manner, a nation so eminently religious as is the American people, a nation so zealous of freedom of thought and so respectful of another's beliefs; a nation where such freedom and such respect are considered, and justly so, as the most precious and glorious conquest of contemporaneous civilization and the most sacred property of human spirit. The acknowledgment of this truth makes it imperative to expose in detail before the American people, the facts which constitute the religious persecution of which the Mexican reactionaries complain, and the role which the clergy has had and still seeks to have in the history of the country; because the struggle which Constitutionalism has waged and continues waging, is not and cannot be a struggle against religion in general and much less against the re- ligious idea in abstract, an idea which is imminent in man; but it is a struggle exclusively against the clergy, against the catholic clergy in Mexico, since catholicism is, or at- tempts to be, almost to the exclusion of any other, the dominant religion in the Republic. 3 The people of the United States, protestant in its majority, and educated in a spirit of liberalism and democracy with- in that religion, cannot, without an exact and deep knowl- edge of the Mexican question, decide on it, and much less understand it. Our object is to furnish the American reader with the necessary data so that he become fully acquainted with the subject and judge it, not from the American point of view, from the point of view of a pro- testant, liberal, democratic, cultured, educated nation, a lover of freedom and of the free examination of things, but from the Mexican point of view; that is to say, from the point of view of a nation consisting of a small minority of wealthy individuals, fanatical, accustomed to despotism and tyranny, systematically opposed to all that aims to deprive it of its odious liberties and unjust privileges, a bitter enemy of all that spells freedom and education of the real people; and by a numberless majority of analphabet Indians, brought up in servitude, superstition and idolatry, slaves of routine and tradition, opposed to all innovation, on ac- count of the inherent distrust and fear of subjugated races. Somber extremes among which sparkles as a bright sun- beam in a tempestuous sky, the so-called middle class, the only social element capable of strengthening the nation, of teaching and guiding it to progress. To this class belongs the intellectual and thinking class of Mexico, and this is the one which has produced, from the time of the viceroys, to date, the men who have been an honor to the country in the liberal political field, in literature, in sciences and arts, in the militia, in commerce and the industries. From it surged the illustrious men who undertook and carried out the tremendous work of independence and those who, for about a century, have continued struggling in an unequal fight, tenacious and terrible, with the aim of liberating the peo- ple from fanaticism and with the aim of democratizing it, helping it out of the abyss of oppression and ignorance where it has been kept by the clergy and the potentates, the so-called white aristrocrats of Mexico, who still attempt to keep the people in subjugation. They are the elements which since the time of the emancipation are known in our national history under the fatidic name of Reactionary Party. W The territory which at present constitutes the Mexican Republic, was conquered and colonized about four cen- turies ago by the Spaniards of the times of Charles V and Philip II, that is to say, by the subjects of the most back- ward, absolutist and fanatical of all the monarchies which existed in Europe. The Papate was at the height of its power at that time. The Roman Pontiff was considered as the king of kings and the unappallable and supreme authority in the world. The power of the Church was unlimited, and the Inquisi- 4. M Hum tion did not allow even a peep into the possibility of the day dawning in which the catholic nations might enjoy what is now called freedom of conscience. The friars and the priests were considered as envoys and representatives of the Divine Power, and as the only distributors of all spiritual grace and welfare. They, with the kings and the nobility, had part in the temporal power, and with them were the masters and absolute and indisputable owners of the masses, which were in a condition of stupor through the darkness of the Middle Ages. More than any other nation, the Spanish people adapted and moulded itself to the ideas of stupid fanaticism which it suited the royalty and the clergy to maintain, because the nefast influence of Rome was at work in spirits already accustomed to the fatalism which the domination of the Arabs had fostered in Spain. This nation, fanatical and somber, despotic and frown- ing, accustomed to tradition and to religious and political tyranny, guided by audacious adventurers, sanguinary and filled with the lust of gold, and by lazy friars, ignorant and full of cupidity, was appointed by the hand of destiny to conquer and colonize America, at present unduly calling itself Latin, and to carry the light of European culture and Christianity to the Aztec people whose civilization, really advanced in many ways, was being wrecked on the breakers of the most ferocious despotism and the most ignoble idolatry. This meant the assured failure of the Spanish work in America, as regards its political and sociological aspect which constitute the fundamental principles of all human organization, since History teaches that when the conqueror has the same capital defects that mark the conquered, these defects are added, while the good qualities characteristic of each, are deducted and slowly degenerate and finally disappear. Closely united in ideas and interests, co-participants in public power in the colony, so much so that frequently bishops and arch-bishops were viceroys or governors of provinces, the conquerors and the clergy helped to establish what, to the shame of Spain and of mankind, is known in history under the name of Spanish colonial system, a system unique in the world, which consists simply in the division amongst the Spaniards, of the lands, mines and even persons of the Indians who were forced to work as beasts in the terrible "encomiendas" of the conquerors, to the exclusive benefit of the Crown and the Church. a za ucha The clergy, therefore, had a direct, personal interest in keeping the natives in a perpetual state of blind ignorance and absolute servitude, since these were essential condi- tions for the colonial domination. 5 Savage The Spanish clergy not only did nothing to raise the in- tellectual and moral level of the Indian, about whom they had long and heated discussions as to his being endowed with a soul, a fact which many of them denied-but they made him sink deeper into the ignominious abyss into which he had been pushed. Not dictyst کرا # “ The civilization work by means of the conquest, such as was understood and practised by the other people of Europe, did not exist in Spanish America. The disgusting abso- lutism of the aborigine monarchs and chieftains was re- placed by the repugnant and brutal despotism of the Span- Vish government. The barbarous lords of the land, cruel, sanguinary, ferocious, gave way to conquerors and "en- comenderos," no less ferocious, sanguinary and cruel. The Mexican priests were replaced by the Spanish friars, as fanatic as the former, and perhaps more ignorant. The monstrous Aztec paganism gave way to the fetichist Catho- lic polyteism. The Indian temples were destroyed in order to erect on their ruins other temples which often were built with the materials, still bloody, of the former. The idols of the natives were replaced by the foreign idols. The terrible Hitzilopochfli, the ferocious god of war of the Az- tecs, merely was lowered from its rank, and became any Lord of Battles. The famous god of water was thereafter some vulgar St. Isidro, of Spanish manufacture, who has charge of irrigating the fields and protecting the crops. Each and every one of the Mexican gods was transformed into innumerable Christs, virgins and saints, disposed to grant the same favors under the same threats through the supplications of similar priests, but requiring richer offer- ings. If there was any difference, this consisted in the fact that, for the greater facility of the vile exploitation, instead of having one sanctuary for each god, almost all the gods were gathered in each temple. If any improve- ment was attempted, it was merely to replace the hard strong Mexican stone, difficult to cut and to chisel, by the easily handled paper and cotton goods, the clay and the pastes and the soft woods of the Spaniards. If any pro- gress was made, it was to spread among the Indians the idea of the Catholic hell, the eternal suffering in punishing crimes committed on or by perishable beings, and the mon- strous and blasphemous conception of the devil, that is to say, a spirit of eternal and infinite evil, created and tolerated by a God of infinite goodness and inexhaustible love, to tempt and cause the spiritual loss of man. It is true that they suppressed the bloody holocausts of the Indian divini- tie, but it was merely to inaugurate their own persecutions, their own burnings, their atrocious torments and the hor- rible cells of the Holy Inquisition. ANNÝMENANG C -- M - * 6 As to the social state, the low classes gained nothing, and lost much under the Spanish conquerors. The Indians status grew worse, for to personal slavery was added the political slavery of the whole race. The Indian had practically no home, and was considered as a domestic beast and not as an individual, being deprived even of that little personality which, according to natural principles, cor- responds to man by the mere fact of existing. The Indian could not leave the "encomienda" where he belonged nor work at the labor he preferred or felt inclined to. He was not permitted to acquire instruction, even if he so desired, much less to learn an art, a profession or even a trade of those exercised by the Spaniards. He was forbidden to educate his children because these, and the wife he had taken, were merely the miserable companions of his hate- ful servitude. Instruction, if we dare call it by this name, was entirely in the hands of the clergy, and as regards the Indian, he was taught the catechism, not Christian, but catholic, and this one in the native tongues, which missionaries and priests learned for that purpose; for the clergy had a particular care not to spread the Spanish language among the Indians in order to keep them more easily and securely in their condition of absolute ignorance, a system which had been continued until now, in several regions of the Republic. In Yucatan, for example, which is one of our richest states but also one of the most reactionary, the old colonial ways. were religiously preserved and the frightful "encomiendas" of the old conquerors were maintained in fact until the establishment of the Constitutional government there. Out of a population of 300,000 more than half are pure Indians. who are absolutely ignorant of the Spanish language and in regard to whom all effort for immediate civilization meets with immense difficulties. The natives speak a language which has become reduced to the minimum of words, abso- lutely lacking all literature and consisting only of the words most indispensable to carry on the business of the limited and mechanical life which they have carried on for four centuries, using only spoken words and employing in- terpreters, who were men often sold to reaction. Indians, therefore, are unable to become acquainted with the liberating steps taken with regard to themselves, and it is an impossible task, until they learn to read, write and speak Spanish in which they are being instructed at present to express to them in an exact and simple manner, with the corresponding explanations and advices, the knowledge of the law and their rights under it. Their language, how- ever rich it may have been in ancient times, at present, due to degeneration and the slavery of the race, lacks all technical and scientific terms, and the dictions necessary 7 новинка ས་སམས བས -$45 mike, to translate modern ideas and even to represent the most usual things of our epoch. The creoles and the few mestizos who obtained grace were taught to read and write in a very deficient way; gen- erally, only the creoles were taught to write. Of these classes, the individuals who desired to follow a profession, could choose only that of arms or the Church. In the former, they were admitted as a special concession, while in the latter they had to endure the humiliations to which the high Spanish clergy submitted them, and which they, in their turn, inflicted on others. The white woman was maintained in a condition of mediaeval restriction, in a state of ignorance and fanaticism which is still reflected in the modern Mexican woman. As a reminiscence of the Moorish customs implanted in Spain and maintained throughout seven centuries of Arab dom- ination, the woman remained at home, guarded by the formidable iron gratings which still call the attention of the foreigner who visits Mexican cities, and her society was reduced to intercourse with her husband and her children, her immediate servants and naturally, her confessor and favorite friars. The Spanish saying: "the married woman, must be broken-legged and stay at home" contains a com- plete historical comment and paints a social condition; this proverb was pitilessly practiced, so that the home had no opening door except into the convent or the vestry. Sim- ilar to the Aztecs and the gentile of Greece and Rome, each family had its own house gods and in each house was a real temple more or less spacious according to the resources of the dwellers. The long idle hours of the woman and the children were consumed in the worship of a great variety of images, representing virgins and Christs and saints, and even the animals supposed to have been the companions of the latter. These images were placed on rich altars magnificently ornamented and constantly lighted by means of small oil lamps (another relic of paganism) which were considered sacred. This barbarous and anti- Christian custom was introduced and favored by the Church in order to affirm and maintain its domination; and we must acknowledge with shame that it is still prev- alent in Mexico where it flourishes. Thus the colony vegetated for almost three centuries, and during this time the labor and suffering of the Indi- ans enriched the Crown, the Clergy and the upper class which was constituted of the Spaniards and the sons of Spaniards. Archbishops and bishops, canons, friars and monks of all known orders who participated, directly or indirectly in the government of the colony, were supported by public funds created by means of special taxes, and they exercised the highest offices in audiences, councils and 8 - "the once the wet wet. boards, having exclusive charge of the moral and intellectual direction of the whole country. Spaniards and creoles, mestizos and Indians, they all bowed to the friars and from the viceroy down, they all trembled with fright under the threat of excommunication and shuddered at the idea of being persecuted by the Inquisition. The weak and iso- lated efforts which almost always were made with interested ideas, both in Europe and in America to improve the condition of the natives, failed signal- ly, and served served only to to provoke terrible reprisals on the part of the clergy. The few and inefficient dispositions which favored the Indians, and which were issued by some of the Spanish monarchs upon the recom- mendation of the celebrated "Council of Indies," invariably met with a firm opposition from the clergy, and even in the metropol itself gave rise to bitter intrigues wherefrom the Church always emerged triumphant and stronger than ever. } Thus the New Spain was surprised by the war of Inde- pendence in the United States and that bloody and glorious dawn of Liberty called the French Revolution. These two colossal events naturally had to produce a commotion in the Spanish colonies in America. The desire to become freed from the mother-country was favored by the state. of debility to which the Napoleonic campaign had reduced Spain, and also on account of the internal strife which rent the Peninsula, and the tremendous administrative cor- ruption which marked the fatal reign of the fanatical and imbecile Ferdinand VII. In Mexico as well as in the other colonies, therefore, there started the long and bloody struggle for independence which, by a very particular coincidence, which later had a great influence in favor of the clergy, was headed by two un- known Mexican priests who belonged to the low clergy, so rebutted and mistreated by the high Spanish clergy. As was to be expected, the latter opposed with all its strength and all its influence the accomplishment of emanci- pation; disowned and excommunicated the insurgent priests, and when they at last fell in the struggle, degraded them pub- licly and ignominiously, ordering prayers of thanks when the chiefs of the revolt were finally sent to the scaffold. The war of independence which lasted eleven years, would have lasted many years more if the Spaniards and the Clergy itself had not finally understood that the cause. of Spain in the New World was definitely lost; when they decided to take part in the revolt against the government of the metropoli and ke advantage of the benefits they could derive by assuming such an attitude and carefully watching, the trend of the new order of things. This is how that transcendental work was accomplished. 9 منے Thus were realized the daring dreams of the immortal Hidalgo and the great Morelos. But we must acknowledge that the movement started in 1810 was more of a political uprise than a social revolution. The essential object of the enterprise was the emancipa- tion of the colony from the rule of the Spanish crown, as is sufficiently evidenced by the circumstances that at first it was not considered indispensable, to abolish the mon- archical form or to put an end to the supremacy of the Spanish element. In the treaty of Cordoba which was celebrated to end the war and was expressly acknowledged in the Act of Independence, it was stipulated that Mexico would become an independent sovereign kingdom, and that its government would be placed in the hands of that same King Ferdinand VII; or if he did not accept or resigned, it would be left in the hands of his brother, the clerical and sanguinary Charles of Bourbon or any other of the infants of the same house. ▾ The insurgents revolted neither against the influence nor privileges of the clergy; on the contrary, they supported that class in the most determined manner. Their glorious flag bore the image of the Indian virgin, the famous Virgin of Guadalupe. In 1813, the Congress of Chilpancingo had declared that "the Mexican nation would profess and recog- nize no other religion but the catholic one, and would never permit or tolerate the practice, public or secret of any other. Also that it would protect with all its energy the profession of faith, guard the preservation of its purity and dogmas and would keep the regular bodies (the secu- lars and the clergy). "In the constitution called Apant- zingan," issued in 1814 by the Sovereign Congress of the Insurgents and subscribed by the priest Morelos and other prominent men of the Independence period, the Catholic religion was acknowledged and recognized as the only one to be practised in the nation; foreigners who did not pro- fess the Catholic religion were not permitted to become citizens, and it was resolved that citizenship was forfeited by the crimes of apostasy and heresy; travellers, in order to enjoy the protection of the law on their persons and properties were bound to respect Catholicism; free speech and thought was forbidden in what referred to attacks on the Dogma, and an ordinance was set for the opening and closing of the polls by the celebration of masses to the Holy Spirit and for Tedeums; it was ordered that all ec- clesiastical judges be maintained in their respective offices; and finally it was ordered that all members of the Supreme Government, before taking the oath relative to their re- solve to maintain the constitution and the cause of Inde- pendence, should be sworn to defend even at the cost of their blood, the Catholic Apostolic Roman religion. The first 10 article of the Plan de Iguala, which assured the triumph of the insurgents, also established religious intolerance in favor of Catholicism, expressly declaring, in case any one dared doubt it, that the clergy, both regular and secular, would be maintained in the possession of its properties and privileges. Lastly, the same fierce intolerance was stamped in the Republican Constitution of 1824, and in the Constitutional Bases and Laws issued in the years 1835 and 1836. The Bases, indeed, state that the Mexican Na- tion would profess or protect no other religion but the Catholic, Apostolic Roman religion, nor would it permit the profession of any other. And the Constitution of the year '36, when enumerating the obligations of Nationals, mentions in the first place, that of "professing the religion of his country," and expressly preserved ecclesiastic privi- leges. During several years, counting from the fall of the ephe- mere empire of Agustin de Iturbide, one of the most at- tractive and troublesome figures in our history, and doubt- less the most difficult on which to pass judgment, Mexico was merely a wide field for sterile political struggles ag- gravated by the several attempts which Spain made to reconquer her lost possessions. The clergy took advantage of this situation in order to develop its resources and extend its influence. Its brazenness reached such extremes that a certain priest applied to the government for authorization which was denied him-to have recourse to whipping in order to compel his parishioners to obey and serve him! But the good seed which the North-American and the French revolutions had planted in the conscience of peo- ple had begun to sprout. The Mexican Liberal Party, which was the work of chosen spirits who desired to obtain the development of new ideals for their country began to crys- tallize, slowly but surely. It became understood that the real obstacle for the progress and development of the Na- tion and the education of the peoples was to be found in the reactionary party, the one constituted of the clergy and the so-called aristocracy; and the struggle between the the retrogrades and the men who aspired to secure great- ness for their country began in earnest and the country was divided into two camps: the reactionaries-at the be- ginning opposed to emancipation, then imperialists with Iturbide, afterwards centralists, the same who later sup- ported dictatorship with Santa-Anna-always clericals and natural protectors of the clergy; and the liberal party, which wanted to establish a Federal Republic similar to the North-American one, to spread education among the people, to give it ample political and social liberty, and diminish the power of the Church by depriving it of its privileges and forbidding its participation. A 11 No true Mexican is desirous of remembering the extremes of empoverishment and degradation reached by the coun- try under Antonio Lopez de Santa-Anna the most hateful of tyrants, a tragic clown who in his speeches and mani- festos compared himself to Cincinnatus and Washington while he called himself "Alteza Serenisima" and plunged a knife into the breast of the mother-country. None of us desires to bring to mind the fact that the vanity, ambition, cupidity and fanaticism of this fatidic man, the powerful chief of the reactionaries, was the cause, first of the re- bellion in Texas, and then of the unjust and unequal war with the United States by which Mexico lost almost one half of its territory. This terrible disaster occasioned by the dictatorship and the clergy, opened many eyes, until then closed, and neces- sarily caused the downfall of Santa-Anna and the loss of prestige of his perverse politics. The revolution started. Sword in hand, the liberal party succeeded in taking pos- session of the power, and the bitter and bloody struggle against clericalism began with the dispossession of property and the issuance of the celebrated Constitution of '57, copied from the American constitution, and by means of which the Federal Republic was instituted, consecrating freedom of thought, of press, of work and of instruction; proclaiming all the other rights of man, suppressing privileges, declaring all men equal before the law, and repressing the ambition and rapacity of the clergy by the declaration that ecclesiastical corporations are incapable to administer or acquire real estate, except those buildings directly and immediately destined to the service and object of their institutions. སྙ The reactionary party turned against these laws furious- ly and at the cry of "religion y fueros" (religion and privi- leges) began the terrible civil struggle called Reform War, which for years steeped the soil of the republic in blood and almost caused the loss of the Mexican nationality. The clericals, overcome on the battlefield, did not hesitate to search Europe for a scepter to hold sway over the catholic empire they had planned to establish in Mexico. All the world knows how that incomparable and glorious epoch ended, in which the liberal party and the genius of Juarez saved the mother country against the united efforts of the Mexican traitors and the troops of Napoleon the Small. During this struggle, Juarez, Ocampo and the brothers Lerdo de Tejada dealt to clericalism the tremendous blows which were embodied in the laws which are known in Mexi- can history under the significant name of Laws of Reform; the separation of the Church and the State was decreed, as well as the nationalization of the clerical property; that is to say, it was ordered that all the property owned-in the republic by the regular and secular clergy, reverted to the 12 nation; all religious orders were suppressed and the erec- tion or institution of new convents was forbidden; a law was decreed relative to the civil status of persons, depriving the Church of the faculty it had usurped, of carrying the registers of births, marriages and death, since this work evidently belonged to the State. All intervention of the Church ceased in the cemeteries and churchyards, where burial was often denied to those who had fought against the abuses of the clergy; one specific case was when this denial was applied to the bodies of the men who had signed the Constitution of 1857. The liens between the national and pontifical governments were broken; it was settled that marriage was only a civil contract and that only the unions performed according to law and before those officials specially designed for it by the republic, would be valid before the law and create legal rights and obliga- tions; religious holidays ceased to be national or state holi- days; and an ordinance was adopted forbidding the civil authorities as such and the troops in formation, to attend temples or religious ceremonies; freedom of cults was pro- claimed; the authority of religion and of priests was de- clared to be merely spiritual and that in the civil order there could be no obligation, no coercion or penalties for acts, misdemeanors or crimes of a purely religious order. Warning was given that bulls, rescripts, pastoral letters, ser-. mons, etc., on no account would be tolerated; no attack against order or peace, morality, private life or the rights of a third party would be tolerated on any account in any clerical decree, bulls, rescripts, pastoral letters, sermons, etc. The right of enforcement was denied to the Church and also the right to give refuge within temples. It was also declared that oath and its retraction were not of the incumbence of the law nor could have any legal effect; and oath was substituted with the promise to tell the truth and comply with the law; it was ordered that religious acts be confined to the interior of churches and that out- side of them the priests were not authorized to wear special clothes nor any distinctive signs of their ministry. It was no longer permitted that spiritual directors be appointed heirs; neither was it permitted to collect alms for religious objects unless duly authorized by the civil authorities, and with the understanding that contributions should always be voluntary and not extorted by coercion. All special treat- ment of priests and religious corporations was suppressed; the ringing of bells was regulated by the police; hospitals and beneficence houses were placed under civil authority instead of allowing the clergy to have absolute command of them; the nuns were ordered out of the convents and all women convents were definitely closed and all religious teaching as well as all religious ceremonies were banished . پر 13 from official schools; all these decrees were, during the years 1873 and 1874, when Sebastian Lerdo de Tejada was president of the republic, the successor of Juarez-con- densed into a law and sanctioned as supreme laws of the republic by the Congress of the Union, and it was added in them that the churches would be under the direct con- trol of the Nation which would permit the priests to make use of them, but this, only until such time as the govern- ment should see fit to decree the final consolidation of the property. But the task of the great Mexican liberals was too gigantic to be consummated in one generation. It was an attack against ignorance and secular fanaticism of a whole nation, and against a power which for centuries had absolutely dominated the country, a power which is still alive; for although the Constitution of '57 and the Laws of Reform signified terrible blows against the monster who reacted, they were not sufficient to overturn it, much less to annihilate it. The very spirit of liberalism which animated these laws was their worst enemy, for although they deprived the Church of official power and placed serious difficulties of form in the way of the Church, still, they allowed it, under constitutional guaranties, to pursue its somber labor of ob- scurantism and retrogradation. However, if the Laws of Reform had been issued for an educated, cultured people, one respecting the law, conscious of its rights and acts; or if at least, the laws would have been applied strictly by honest authorities, zealous of ful- filling their duty, the slow work of years would have ac- customed the people to such beautiful practices and would have insured for the Mexicans the realization of the glori- ous dreams of those high thinkers, who endowed their mother-country, more than fifty years ago, with a legisla- tion which in a very incomplete manner, was recently copied by France, and which is still to be copied by other people such as Spain, Italy and the Central and South American republics which still moan under the heavy yoke of cleri- calism. But history, which at all times and in all countries teaches us invariably that the best legislations when they are placed very high above the intellectual and moral level of the multi- tudes and does not care, either, to raise such a level, ac- tively and strenuously, they stumble, when carried into practice, against insuperable difficulties. If nature does not go in jumps and leaps when it is a question of the physi- cal evolution of beings, it does act so either when it is a question of the social or psychological evolution of peoples. Its work, its great work is carried on slowly in all fields, 14 line by line, step by step, drop by drop. The only thing which will resist the lash of the tempest and the weight of his ideas, is to follow the earth, weed it unceasingly, culti- vate it carefully, and resign himself, without losing faith or enthusiasm, to wait until the small sprout becomes a plant and finally develops into a budding bush, and to en- tertain the hope that the latter will become a strong big tree which will resist the lash of the tempest and the weight of the centuries. This is what should have been done in Mexico. For de-a re spite the declamations of newspapers and demagogues, so abundant in Spanish America, the Mexican people was not prepared to understand nor ready to take advantage of all those conquests which are almost at the summit of social evolution, in so far as can be observed from the depths of the dark valley in which we are still groping. It was necessary to prepare the people, to modify it, it was neces- sary to reiterate the new truths to it. It was necessary to guide each of its steps, lighting them incessantly with the light of reason; it was indispensable to drag it away with facts and not by mere words, from the claws of fanaticism and ignorance. If a man's behavior would be considered absurd if he voluntarily exposed his young child to deathly perils claim- ing that he had instructed him fully and given him valuable and wise advice, in the same way it is absurd to expect the mass of the people to free itself of fanaticism while still being under the influence of the clergy, while the govern- ment of the republic merely disowned and despised that institution. It was impossible to close the eyes of the Mexi- can so that he would not see any idols, watch any soutans, read any clerical literature; it was impossible to plug his ears so that he would not hear any more sermons, salves, rogatives, bells; nor was it possible to stiffen his lips so that he place no more kisses on the feet of saints, or the dirty hands of sinners or on the contaminated ornaments of priests and images; no one could nail his legs so that he should not bend the knee before the so-called ministers of the Divine Power or the evil representations of the Supreme Being; no one could snatch his pocket-book to prevent him from delivering his money to priests. But it was possible to silence bells, burn books, stop sermons, place idols out of the sight and the lips of the Mexican, forbid that venera- tion of one man for another, prevent those undue worship- pings, and those spoliations. Unhappily, that is not what was done. Outside of the principal centres (and not in all of them) where liberal agrupations existed ready to de- mand the fulfillment of the Reform Laws, the authorities did not exact compliance with them, and tolerated and con- sented to hundreds of daily transgressions on the part of · Se Re 11429 mole 15 : the clergy. Proof of this slackness may be had in the numerous and frequent circulars issued by the Federal Government, wherein, invoking patriotism, it requested and exhorted the State governors not to permit that the prize won at the cost of so much blood and suffering, be snatched from their hands and to have the Laws of Reform obeyed in full. Yes; the Federal Government had to make this request, for unfortunately, as it usually happens in the hour of triumph, many reactionaries, many traitors glided into the republican liberal ranks, and secured civil employ- ment, and under mental restriction, protested the fulfillment of the laws of the Republic, while they were the first to disregard and violate them, in person and through their families. - When the gigantic work had just started, when the labor of reconstructing a country, ruined and devastated by sixty- six years of bloody struggle, sixty-six years during which the Independence War, the second war against Spain, the war with the United States, the war of Reform, the war against France and the Empire had succeeded each other, mixed with innumerable civil struggles; when the govern- ment toiled to solve the serious economic problems, as the inevitable corollary of such deep and lengthy perturbations, there appeared on the bloody stage of national politics the somber figure of the sinister man in whose hands the des- tiny of Mexico was nearly reversed, and who almost made useless the incessant and mortal struggle which had been carried on for almost two-thirds of a century: that man was Porfirio Diaz. By his infidelities and by his treasons, he had impeded the great work of Juarez and embittered the last years of the noble old man; his ambition, his hypocrisy and his secret alliance with the men of the reactionary party caused the fall of Sebastian Lerdo de Tejada, that eminent statician, worthy successor of the Benemerito de las Americas, the last representative of the great Mexican liberals, he who went to hide his shame and that of all his race, until he died, in the ample bosom of the free American nation. → Once porfirio Diaz became enthroned in power by means of violence and deceit, and thanks to the traditional "cuartelazo" which in Spanish American substituted the “por gracia de Dois" (by the grace of God) of the European monarchs, he knew how to keep himself in by means of the paid bayonets of a corrupted federal army, ready to draw in blood, as he often did, all start of protest, all at- tempt at liberation. We are not going to make here the history or the criticism of the dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz, for we would then be outside our subject, which is merely to point out through the history of Mexico, the work of the clerical party and 16 the motives for the serious campaign started against it by the Constitutionalism. We will say no more about the man who is now a corpse, the man who had his days of glory, who also shed his blood for liberty, but who was blinded by ambition and dared to place his own interest before that of the Mother-country. His long journey through our at least served national history has to show the capabilities of the Mexican people: how easily it adapts itself to civilization, how, even in the middle of the asphyxiating moral atmosphere in which it breathed, it developed material capabilites and faculties really surprising; how rapidly it became disciplined even under the dictatorship, and how easily it could have been led through the path of real progress and true freedom. Diaz was well aware of the power of capital and of the clergy, and all his policy in order to perpetuate himself in power, aimed to obtain, first the sympathy, and afterwards the frank, decided, manifest co-operation of the clergy and the "aristocracy," the two reactionary elements in Mex- ico. Despite all assertions to the contrary, he comes from the lowest ranks of the middle class, and by means of alliances, he became a member of the most opulent and reactionary families of the metropolis, and forgetting his countrymen, the indomitable Oaxaca Indians, at whose head he had gone to triumph, he employed years and years in trying to be- come an "aristocrat" to divine the secret of good manners, in the sumptuous functions, in the palatial homes of the rich- est families or in the beautiful halls of Chapultepec, or in the superb Hall of Embassadors or in the magnificent halls of the Jockey Club. In the pursuit of an odious "caciquismo," with which he substituted the federal republican regime, proclaimed by a constitution which existed in name only, he reserved all the high posts for his adherents, the rich, fanatical Mexi- cans, and systematically and implacably drove from the administration all the middle class, the liberal class of Mex- ico which had contributed with the endeavour of its intel- ligence and with its blood to the restoration of the Republic; the class which invariably had marched at the front in all the enterprises of progress and liberty which have been enacted in Mexico. ་ Porfirio Diaz' work of conquest of the clergy was more rapid and easier because he was working on a class which has always been a faithful partisan of dicatorships; it was enough for him to begin what is known by the name of Policy of Conciliation, and which at the bottom was merely the violent revocation of almost all the Laws of Reform, all the measures conquered and sanctified by the blood of so many Mexicans, laws enacted in order to re- 17 *ATIONS strict the power of the clergy and to prevent any enterprise of a reactionary nature. Traitors who, sword in hand, had supported the empire of Maximillian and the banner of Religion and Privileges, were called to the highest offices in the government of the Republic, either in the army, in the government of the States, the Congress and the Senate or in the diplomatic service, and even in the cabinet itself. The Laws of Reform only lived the solitary life of files and libraries, and nobody wanted to remember when or why or wherefore or by whom they had been issued, unless it was to ask that they be revoked. Despite the ordinances which prohibit the establishment of monastic orders in the Republic, the country again be- came ridden with monks' and nuns' convents, which under pretext of founding schools and establishing charity insti- tutions, abounded in every city. On streets and squares one could see the black soutanos of the clergy; public pro- cessions and all kinds of religious ceremonies were held everywhere, especially in small cities, where more than any- where else it would have been necessary to repress them. The clergy took deliberate hold of instruction, not only the primary grades, but high and professional schools, while public government schools closed day by day or were poorly attended on account the scarcity of teachers due to the miserable salaries, and the want of books and other school material, or merely on account of the absence of pupils who were not compelled by the authorities to attend official schools; the clergy multiplied its schools, seminaries and colleges, spreading its pernicious doctrines everywhere, especially amongst the children of the higher classes, and counting among their pupils the children of the highest official authorities. In regard to the children of the mes- tizos and Indians, of whom the Church could expect noth- ing, it was convenient to maintain them in ignorance, there- fore, schools were closed for them, or at best, they were instructed only in the catechism, in separate halls, where they entered through special doors, because on earth as in heaven, the clergy has thus understood equality and de- mocracy. In its text books, in the pulpit, in its publications, the clergy brazenly attacked, not only the ideas contrary to them, but also the liberal laws the revocation of which it demanded insistently, and even went so far as to insult and ridicule our national heroes, and denaturing or omitting historical facts in our history. Supported and served by the servile advocates of the conciliating "cientifcismo," and counting upon the indif- ference, complacency and help of reactionary and venal 18 - > authorities and judges, the clericals distorted and misin- terpreted laws and prohibitions, thus killing the spirit of the Reform. By means of all kinds of subterfuges, and notwithstand- ing the prohibition imposed on religious corporations to possess and administer real estate or revenue capital, they began to monopolize a number of valuable rural and city properties, and large amounts of money which appeared to be the personal property of archbishops and bishops or fanatical wealthy individuals, the latter making a will in favor of the former; properties and capitals which by means of their parties, and with the complacent knowl- edge of the authorities, were leased or rented usuriously, or employed in shameful banking or bursatile combina- tions. Temples, sanctuaries and oratories multiplied, and at- tached to the national churches, sumptuous chapels and magnificent residences were erected, many times paid for with public funds; the higher clergy living like princes, with carriages, automobiles and lackeys. The authorities, from the President down boasted of the good terms on which they lived with the clergy, and the clergy boasted of its friendship with the authorities, and an interchange of calls was established between vestries and official palaces. As if the diocesi already existant were not sufficient, new ones were created, thus ridding the republic with arch- bishops and bishops; and the number of brotherhoods, fraternities, congregations and religious societies, pious work boards, and other associations of which the clergy makes use to carry on its propaganda, were prodigiously increased. Sensing a remote peril in the natives of the country, and following in this the past experience they had had, the Church excluded the Mexicans from seminaries and all ec- clesiastical employments, offices and dignities. The greater majority of the alumni in the seminaries, was composed of boys brought from Spain to Mexico in order to "instruct or educate" them and convert them in some future day into princes of the Mexican church. All the clergy, high and low, with very few exceptions, (in which there were but few mestizos and Indians) was in the hands of the Span- iards, many of them absolutely illiterate, and whom pub- lic opinion pointed out as jail-birds, ex-grocers or ex-bull- fighters, in one word, members of the pestiferous clerical rabble which the catholic Spain itself had driven from its soil. The bishops called and gave hearty welcome to friars and priests expelled not only from Spain but also from 19 ! Un ..... ...... DP The France, who under the name of Marists and other suspicious names swarmed into Mexico, the new land of promise, wherein they could idle in luxury and steal under the name of religion, and in that name also corrupt men, women and children. The numerous crimes of the soutane people went unpun- ished; for while in the United States it is easy to send to the electric chair any reverend who is a criminal, in the History of Mexico no case is registered wherein a priest has been condemned even to life imprisonment. When and wherever they pleased they could kill, steal and abuse. If the misdemeanor was of small importance or executed in azima vili, the matter was forgotten; but if it was an enor- mous crime either in its nature or on account of the vic- tim, then the criminal was sent out of the diocesis or out of the national territory, in accordance with the authorities and with money which sometimes the parishioners them- selves, occasionally even the offended parties themselves, furnished, in order that the good name of the Church should not suffer. The tithes were re-established in fact, by means of direct petitions which under the pretext of pious works to be made were addressed in writing to rich individuals, or by means of almoners who went from house to house, asking financial help for the reconstruction of such and such a temple, or for this or that novain; and those who refused were ostracized. Under pretext of exerting the rights guaranteed by the Constitution, which they never respected, the reactionaries employed the authorities for preventing, forbidding, dis- solving and punishing officially any campaign, any propa- ganda, any manifestation, any writing against clericalism; while they, in their large diaries, of which they had also taken possession, printed insults, attacks against the "en- emies of the faith," and defamed and publicly calumniated the liberals, attacking them in their honor, and asking that bread and salt be denied to them, which really occurred, for to express anti-catholic ideas was enough to be placed outside of society. The non-catholic professionals starved, deprived of clients and help. Those who had the courage of not having baptism administered to their children or of omitting the religious ceremony of marriage, were looked upon with public contempt, considered as if they lived in concubinage and condemned to perpetual isolation. ་ - The clergy ratified its hateful pact with the large land- holders, successors in spirit if not in race, of the heartless "encomenderos" of the time of the conquest, in order to rivet the chains which held the people and continue hold-