Mexico and Liberal Opinion
March 24, 1926 THE COMMONWEAL 539 MEXICO AND LIBERAL OPINION ONE has only to pin together recent "liberal" pronouncements concerning affairs in Mexico to realize the "universal tepidity" of...
...We cannot quote more extensively from him than to reprint words which corroborate the liberal learning already cited: "Religion is in no way involved, it is merely a question of compelling the Church to keep her hand out of secular affairs...
...Who finances the Emergency Foreign Policy Conference, with which one of the editors of the New Republic is presumably associated...
...And they have seen the calculating hostility of Masonic lodges and other bodies which, for reasons which have their root in nineteenth-century revolutionism, have sought to carry ' "t the destructive mandate of Voltaire...
...Manning, thus halting the progress of a cathedral in whose upbuilding prominent New York has been glad to share...
...The revolutionary movements of the opening nineteenth century were of two kinds: one begun by the unbalanced ex-priest Hidalgo, who fomented anarchy and banditry by organizing a mystical crusade among the peons, and the other formulated in the carefully meditated Plan d'Iguala, which dates from 1821...
...readers: "As for the religious issue, we have already pointed out that the action recently taken by the Mexican government merely puts into effect a provision of the Constitution of 1917...
...even the humor latent in the fact that just before Seiior Calles launched his offensive against religious education, he removed His own two daughters from a convent school, and that the daughter of Secretary Tejada still abides in one of these proscribed and benighted institutions, escapes attention...
...So omnipresent is this kind of thing that citations might be multiplied indefinitely...
...It provides, as we have seen, for the complete disenfranchisement of the clergy...
...It can be assisted merely by the pressure of a public opinion which, formed in a country no Mexican government can ignore, insists that the formula for creating political capital is something far different from persecution and intolerance...
...It has been a national law imposed by triumphant juntas, generally with the aid of a foreign power...
...Everybody who knows anything about Mexican history realizes how generally sinister have been the southward marches of the United States, ever since the first ambitious plans of President Monroe prepared the road for the war of 1844...
...and the flavor of fanaticism is not changed by the Rio Grande...
...and it has been one of the supreme misfortunes of Mexico that the interference of the United States was usually so timed as to support a more or less anarchistic regime, rendering it necessary for whatever constructive forces were laboring for the national welfare to resort to evasion of unjust and recriminatory laws...
...We may suppose that the so-called Emergency Foreign Policy Conference, which whisked suddenly into view like a gnome and got nation-wide attention on the strength of apparently fraudulent use of prominent names, would not immediately be trusted by intelligentsia trained in research, were its little speech about anything else except religion in Mexico...
...But the honor of religion needs neither plutocracy nor bayonets...
...During the last nine years, Catholics have disregarded the Constitution for the same reason that has led them to disregard it for ninety years...
...Without a vote, with no power to dispose of money even when it is earned in the public service, with no right to express an opinion about public affairs, the priest is "separate" indeed—separate in a way which a journal that, like The Nation, opposed the Klan, finds it strangely, sweetly reasonable to approve I But if the reason for this action was to prevent the dangerous influence of foreign clergymen with "the superstitious masses," what becomes of the argument that the government in Mexico is an expression of the people's will...
...The deeper question—the only question which really matters—is that of the Mexican Constitution...
...The reactionary and alien-minded purpose of the clergy is taken for granted...
...And we feel that endorsement of those who enforce this constitution is endorsement of this constitution itself...
...Charles A. Frueauff, who appears as an attorney for the Calles government, with his dossier neatly prepared...
...Only occasionally has an effort been made to grasp the social, educational, and spiritual needs of the Mexican people, or to share the cultural burden which rests so heavily on the shoulders of those who must "carry on.3' And therefore, while the aberrations of liberal journalism are inexcusable, it must be admitted that they could hardly have been so gigantic if there had existed side by side with them an enlightened, charitable, Catholic mind about Mexico...
...Would Mr...
...But standards of taste and sanity are no different in Mexico than here...
...For its part, the Christian Century—quite optimistic about the position of Protestant churches in Mexico—finds that "President Calles turned aside for a moment from his troubles with oil men, labor unions, agraristos, rebels, and bandits, to investigate the Religious' situation...
...Nor will those who are not infinitely credulous make a grand salaam to the wisdom of Mr...
...We crave attention to the logical niceties of this dictum, to which we shall return later...
...March 24, 1926 THE COMMONWEAL 539 MEXICO AND LIBERAL OPINION ONE has only to pin together recent "liberal" pronouncements concerning affairs in Mexico to realize the "universal tepidity" of American intellectual comment...
...He will look at things as we ourselves would see them...
...Many a pulpit would be barren, indeed...
...To begin with, it knows nothing of the Catholic Church and nothing of the history of religion in Mexico...
...If the poor peon is led by his cure—and even yet history shows that he is so led—what is the role of the group which presumes to speak for the peon...
...The initial blow might well be aimed at the Episcopal bishop of New York, Dr...
...The always earnest Nation opines editorially that the "issue is really not over religion at all, but of persistent clerical interference in state matters which Mexico is trying to end once for all, after a hundred years of it...
...The formation of such an opinion will, we believe, be hastened by the happy choice of an American citizen as papal envoy to Mexico...
...Something of a hubbub has ensued...
...As a matter of fact, however, the origins of Mexican freedom have their own story to tell...
...He ordered all the state governors to see that these provisions of the Constitution are carried out...
...It will be impossible to ignore what he has to say...
...Archbishop Caruana, who served as chaplain in the United States army and who has been actively engaged in spiritual work in the cities of Brooklyn and Philadelphia, knows the American mind and its standards...
...It is appalling to find them reechoing sentiments expressed by hired representatives of a government which has been under international suspicion ever since its rise to power...
...and, finally, for whatever autocratic decision the authorities may take regarding an alleged offender, because the right of jury trial is denied...
...At the end of which may be inserted, if one is in tune with this Christian editor's mind, nine unctuous 'rahs for Saint Calles...
...Logic...
...A calm and reasoned comparison of the arguments advanced by both parties might seem in order...
...In order to guarantee "absolute separation between church and state," it has been deemed necessary in Mexico not merely to prohibit priests "from interfering in political affairs," but to disenfranchise and pauperize them completely...
...America can deal with the whole situation in ways far removed from "oil" and "intervention...
...That prohibition was even more completely justified in the case of foreign priests who were invested with a sacred character that dangerously influenced the superstitious masses...
...But the same phenomenon of opinion is visible in many other places...
...Even yet, the phenomenon has not ceased flashing into publicity...
...for the final confiscation of all ecclesiastical property...
...Ever since that time, the current of Mexican affairs has depended upon which of these two original forces obtained the upper hand...
...Notice, for instance, the Nation advertisement already quoted...
...Naturally the hypothesis is, at once, ridiculous and ghastly...
...and, "the Church must not be permitted to control knowledge...
...and that, instead of being hostile to religion as such, it prohibits merely the activities of alien clergymen, of every denomination...
...Far too little has been said in its name, by authoritative scholarship, concerning the history of the country about whose early days Prescott threw the glamor of romance...
...for the supervision of the Catholic cult and the limitation of the number of religious ministers...
...In short, this beneficent constitution is a flat repudiation of Magna Charta—of all principles termed American, of all liberty of conscience and free opinion...
...that instead of being sudden, it was preceded by ample and repeated warning...
...for the closing of all schools conducted by teaching orders or the secular clergy...
...These legitimate queries are not so important, however, as the wonder which arises from seeing how prone otherwise honest editorial bodies are before the voice of propaganda...
...The New Republic, with that reminiscent omniscience which characterizes its more lofty moments, reminds its...
...And it is this second plan which, endorsed as it was by all the clergy and celebrated with solemn Te Deums, first affirmed the right of Mexico to govern itself through its own parliamentary body and to deal with lawlessness by recourse to its own police power...
...It is comforting to hear that the government "is merely enforcing the law...
...Last, but not least, the synagogues might be deprived of their rabbis, for the delectation of a group which believed, above all, in having the law on its side...
...Indeed, these pronouncements —especially where they refer to the treatment of religion by order of Sefior Calles—testify to so complete an ignorance of facts that it is difficult to associate them with any kind of intellect whatever...
...But what shall we term this law, which perforce does not "interfere with religion as such...
...We believe that unless American liberal opinion, as quoted here, is utterly blind, it stands committed to a policy of suppression and government interference far more dictatorial than anything seen in this country since the notorious Alien and Sedition laws...
...What is the underlying cause ? To begin with, who pays for the species of advertising which disfigured The Nation...
...Suppose that Americans, not having enjoyed the benefits of Mexican enlightenment and reform, should suddenly awake to find that some canny minority had used their governmental machinery to ordain the immediate ousting of all clerics not native to the United States...
...And down the 540 THE COMMONWEAL March 24, 1926 line the agents of proscription might go, "merely enforcing the law," gathering Catholic and Protestant, British and Italian divines in their illuminated clutches, and preparing the way for an exodus of eligious servants comparable to nothing on record...
...One would have expected moments of deliberation, at least...
...It may be added in conclusion that the American Catholic body is itself largely responsible for the misapprehension of Mexican affairs that exisits roundabout...
...Villard have endorsed them, and have urged the government by all means to stamp out opposition ? But, of course, this liberalism is blind...
...Which chaotic statement merely echoes the paid advertisement in The Nation's same issue: "In line with the policy of an absolute separation between church and state, the reform laws prohibited the priests from interfering in political affairs...
...but without even so much as a reference to the Catholic case, with no preliminary study of historical fact, the bland dictatorialism goes on its way...
...for the halting of processions, so dear to simple people with an affection for their faith...
Vol. 3 • March 1926 • No. 20
