The Language of Men
January 26, 1927 THE COMMONWEAL 315 told what ought to be thought. How many of them actually find the end of the rainbow is another matter. But they learn some sort of an intellectual schedule in...
...Bland innocence has varied with extravagant Quix-otism in the debates of Congress...
...The great task is to fortify the spirit of Mexico--its still exist- ing respect for justice and its religious faith--when- ever opportunity otters a field of action...
...He ignored absolutely the circumstance that Catholics here have steadily refused to invoke the aid of their government, in spite of the fact that they have long since foreseen the outcome of the Wilsonian agreements with Carranza...
...Those most competent to judge the state of mind now prevail- ing in that terror-ridden republic, agree that if the report of a revolution headed by Archbishop Orozco y Jimenez of Guadalajara is correct, it is the result of a brave man's ultimate resolve not to be hounded into exile or scourged into silence, but to die in defense of the Faith...
...In other words, it is "wise to adjust ourselves" to what is now a constantly intensifying suppression of regard for human rights and reason...
...He caught at the only spark which could have warmed his smoke--the strong and honest resentment of Calles autocracy ex- pressed by a Knights of Columbus convention last summer...
...Meanwhile, the case for the Catholic defenders, outlined time and time again by men of varied creeds and positions of importance, re- mains unanswered and even unmarred...
...to a policy that abrogates freedom of conscience...
...or to convince an American public which still elects persons like Senator Heflin and reads certain New York newspapers...
...The callous seizure of the spokesman for the hierarchy, Bishop Diaz--a seizure caused by government resentment of a reply given to American inquirers and followed by banishment to a country whose laws did not permit him to remain--seems to have convinced Catholics in Mexico that the laws of resistance have been rendered wholly just...
...Well, suppose the policy of aloofness from Mexico were really a fact of United States political practice...
...If the meaning of Bishop Orozco's action is anything, it is that Calles will have to drink what there is left of his reign in gulps of blood...
...It could be only one thing: a force to which many Americans would gladly turn because they felt sure it could tell them what ought to be thought...
...It strikes us that Mexico would probably be governed were it not for these few facts--by persons much better qualified than those who now so thoroughly identify themselves with an his-torical tradition which "goes back" to Henry VIII...
...As such, no Catholic mind exists as yet in the United States...
...Suppose the "regenerating intervention" of some years back had never taken place, and that there existed no agreement under which arms were to be furnished Mr...
...For ultimately, who in the United States would really want to disagree with Henry VIII and Luther ? Who would be appalled at any excesses, at any repudiation of democratic privileges, so long as the "inspiration" was right...
...But the Catholic case, and indeed the whole Mex- ican problem, is not understood in the United States...
...January 26, 1927 THE COMMONWEAL 315 told what ought to be thought...
...It is, therefore, not so unim- portant as many people seem to imagine that there be a Catholic mind, alert and inquisitive, to take its share in the task of American education...
...The in- spiration is nationalist...
...Does anyone really imagine that we, who virtually protect the existing r6gime in Mexico, can see that country leap into chaos without so much as disturbing our comfort...
...It is a case which, ultimately, is older than Magna Charta, and avers simply that every government must respect the consciences of its citizens...
...Making horseplay out of deep Catholic feeling, at a moment tense with great political difficulties, was simply his way of displaying gross mental temper and niggardly ill will...
...THE LANGUAGE OF MEN T HE latest news is an eloquent if ominous com-mentary upon the situation in Mexico...
...People talk of elections, of readjustments, as if the polls and the courts were not on fire...
...Calles exclusively...
...As things now are, however, there is no use trying to undo what has happened...
...We have got to decide as to Mexico whether we shall suppress that nationalism temporarily and by force, or whether we shall recog- nize that in its main inspiration and its chief purposes, all petty disputes aside, it is an irresistible develop- ment to which it is wise for us to adjust ourselves...
...But something more dangerous and disquieting than Quixotism, something that comes perilously near linking hands with the un- American intolerance latent everywhere under the sur- face of our institutional life, came to the fore when Senator J. Thomas Heflin suddenly flung the religious issue upon the floor of Congress...
...One fancies that if the Senator from Alabama had the courage of his convictions, he would assert pre-cisely what a New York paper, important by reason of its circulation, had to say recently about the Mexican problem: "The program of the Calles government as to the position of the Roman Catholic Church, is identical in its inspiration with the long historic process which in Europe goes back to Henry VIII, to Luther, and includes the wars of Italian liberation...
...But they learn some sort of an intellectual schedule in the same way in which they gather the essentials of Emily Post, and during the rest of their lives conduct is governed accordingly...
...This task needs to be reckoned with right now...
...To him, the plea of all the hierarchy for peace and prayer was a document without meaning and moment...
...and to years of bar- barous persecution...
...For injustice, the attempt to enslave, the assumption of spiritual autocracy, have again accomplished what they have always accomplished in the past--the resolve of men of good will to find peace in death...
...It is not at all the same thing as the fact that more students are now attending colleges conducted under religious auspices...
Vol. 5 • January 1927 • No. 12
