Darkness in Mexico
THE COMMONWEAL A Weekly Review of Literature, The...
...schools have been closed be made up on the matter if once he is convinced that and teachers scattered abroad...
...Now what is the record of the Church...
...In that the junta in power had suddenly decided to abro- the face of it no one need wonder that the existing gate the practices of Catholicism...
...Volume IV New York, Wednesday, August 4, 1926 Number 13 CONTENTS Darkness in Mexico 315 At Winpenie Abbey (verse) Dorothy Una Ratcliffe 327 Week by Week 317 Pictures and Politics 328 A Happy Anomaly 320 Evening Walk in Springtime (verse) Kwei Chen 328 Plain Truth About Mexico Communications 329 Right Reverend Francis C. Kelley, D.D...
...But we think the average American's mind will interrupted and suppressed...
...The mandates tagonists...
...No need exists to prememorated, we should be hopelessly forgetful of our dict the ultimate victory of the Faith which has been birthright if we viewed with languid detachment this the happiness of centuries...
...for instance in the pastoral letter of His Eminence, The Christian world has been called to prayer "on the Cardinal Archbishop of New York...
...Evidence of their able other legislative acts recently performed at his Bolshevik-like thirst for dictatorial power...
...surprising thing is merely that anybody should care There is merely question of subservience to Calles to be paid...
...The issue God...
...Not since the days when the mediaeval one among the many which heard the cry of liberty caesars or the Moslem throngs enlangered the ex- enkindled by our own revolution-have been victimistence of Christendom have all the mystical weapons ized with regard to a most sacred duty and a perof the universal Church been brought to bear so manent right by a handful of politicians bred through heavily in a conflict with civil government...
...of their order, are based upon a grant of power by the Mexi- use of state prerogatives for the gratification of private can Congress which that Congress had no right to passion...
...is squarely the inviolable conscience of man...
...The laity of the afflicted country are banded to- Why has all this been done...
...Here let this average American ask himwere made into excuses for ignominious treatment...
...the posterous to speak of "obedience to civil authority...
...More There is no doubting the decisiveness of this eccle- than 95 percent of the citizens of an American statesiastical action...
...But until the See of Peter as a victory for itself...
...The pilmandate to heed, because under the mighty impact of grimage has ebbed away from Guadalupe : the serried pure petition the world is changed...
...the worship of the Catholic body has been that...
...The ultimate reasons gether in penitence and prayer and are restrained, -the violation of the honor and the rights of manunder the threat of possible excommunication, from are set forth in this issue of The Commonweal by cooperating with the government...
...and all semblance of the existence of the Church in Mexico did not hamper international courtesy has been abandoned in the treat- the legitimate social development of the Mexican ment of venerable men and women whose very services population...
...But on the whole, the Catholic record is one ing that their government restore order south of the of service and sanctification, of effort and peaceful eduRio Grande by force of arms...
...For even if the hate of despotic Mexican usurpation of the things of God...
...One and approved by the Papal See has authorized a ces- thinks of the morning upon which Don John sailed sation of services ;n the churches of all Mexico "until past Lepanto, of the night when Rome was sacked by we order otherwise...
...to nail every lie, every false interpretation of fact or At the present moment, one bows one's head in history, every scurrilous appeal for sympathy, which confidence at the universal summons to kneel in the is addressed by the agents of Calles to honest public request for the mercy and justice of God...
...There is no question here of Church Church secured such miraculous intervention from and state, of progressive and reactionary...
...Calles should bind the Church as her first pastor was One can understand the concealed satisfaction of a bound in the Mamertine, in the end she will emerge sectarian minority which views every threat against a conqueror because that is her destiny...
...of their reliance upon the shedding of blood give...
...Something like a Bishop Kelley...
...the alternative is spiritual slavery or resistance to Doubtless it is not all immaculate...
...thousands have said a temporary mournful farewell What irony there would lie in the indifference of to the hill which was hallowed by a vision of the VirAmericans to this struggle ! In the very year when gin...
...But no such there were plenty of Americans, and generally not emergency existed-no emergency whatever excepting Catholic Americans, at hand to study and see...
...And in the darkness and the silence, the two our own declaration of human rights is solemnly com- protagonists are face to face...
...In every organipersecution...
...The dark- a series of the most selfish and bloody revolutions in ening of sacrificial candles in Mexican shrines and history...
...The Constitution, as cunningly altered by Car- and upon torture...
...There is a opinion in their land...
...everything in their...
...Those who are not convinced may investigate...
...They have been stated well elsewhere, commercial boycott will be established...
...The same thing as a Caucasian civilization fostered by time has come for Catholics here to cease being squeam- centuries of Christian discipline-may have created ish or timid...
...Just now the call to prayer is the of reverential men and women have knelt...
...321 Books Agnes Repplier, Allen Forgotten Cities (verse) .. Clinton Scollard 324 Sinclair Will, Thomas Walsh, Paul Crowley, William Phillips 330 Outlaw Rhymes Mary Kolars 325 The Quiet Corner 333 DARKNESS IN MEXICO E VENTS of extraordinary seriousness have con- churches is a partial interdict...
...zation there are weaknesses, and the nature of Mexico And so the noble language of the hierarchy of -the peculiar historical evolution of the country and Mexico, enhanced by the appeal of the Holy Father, the fact that a native Indian population is not the is addressed to all America and to all the world...
...We can do the first of August, the feast of Saint Peter in Chains...
...On the pretext that written law must be en316 THE COMMONWEAL August 4, 1926 forced, ministers of religion have been hounded down liberalism that is academic and not even very much and slain...
...the call to prayer is centrated the attention of the world upon what a crusade...
...of their greed for material wealth ranza, permitted the executive to receive special powers -all of it has been accumulated during years when only when society is "in grave danger...
...But they must do cation...
...against religion issued by him, together with innumer- The Calles clique is indefensible...
...It is therefore pre- Mexican government hires paid propagandists...
...What has Calles done for these pretense upon which officious persons base their talk poor...
...One is pre- she does there will be neither peace nor prosperity pared to receive the cautious pronouncements of a in strife-ridden Mexico...
...In no other year of modern history has is happening in Mexico the sorrow of the Kingdom of Christ risen like this A decree promulgated by the hierarchy of the land into majestic and righteously angry sobbing...
...self two questions: What has the Church done for The numerical proportions involved reveal the shabby the poor in Mexico...
...no more than summarize the most important aspects: The date is most opportune since it recalls how the In Mexico the reign of constitutional democracy has prayers of the faithful in the first persecution of the come to an end...
...These inquiries can be answered without any of democracy in Mexico: the ratio is ninety-five to lengthy examination of telling statistics-a sufficient five, the issue is a right no free man can surrender number of which have been published by the United against the ambitions of barbarism...
...States government and are available to inquirers-by Secondly, the dictatorship of Calles is itself a fla- simply delving into the relative character of the progrant violation of the written law...
...Nothing is so means are used by the Mexican laity, and, above all, easily defended as the truth...
...Here once again the lead must great and troubling darkness in Mexico-the shroudbe taken by the lawful leaders of the Church in our ing of the altars before which, since first the holy sons midst, but the followers must be willing and deter- of Saint Francis spoke kindly to the Indian, throngs mined to a man...
...They should continue to avoid demand- others...
...THE COMMONWEAL A Weekly Review of Literature, The Arts, and Public Affairs...
...multitudinous hordes...
...power to succor the people which Accredited spokesmen will be glad to render any is prostrate under the lash, to aid whatever practical assistance, to accept every challenge...
Vol. 4 • August 1926 • No. 13
