Will There Be Dawn in Mexico?
17o THE COMMONWEAL June i9, I i , it. The matters at stake were all clearly outlined in the memorial presented to the Mexican legislature on September 6, I926. This dignified and...
...The real obiect of the agreement reache4 from the Vatican point of view, to secure for Church a status independent of the intellectual social control of governing factions...
...Between the achievement of that right and the present circumstances there lies a Mexican revolution- ary efort which has plunged a nation into disaster...
...What matters is that the battle been shifted to new territory, where it may cont protractedly and indefinitely...
...Of course it may i(,1" have happened that a violently anti-Semitic jo~ re list expressed his prejudices...
...One must not place ~ high a valuation upon verbal passages at arms...
...The latest news indicates that a harassed and per- secuted people is hoping, once again, for the remedy- ing of its woes...
...It is not easy to hurrah under those circumstances...
...Perhaps it really has with the going of Archbishop Ruiz to Mexico City...
...MUSSOLINI'Saddress can only be properly ur ' stood if one correlates it with the flood of opir regarding the treaties which has deluged the pre Italy and all parts of Europe...
...To Caesar Church must have got no end o" What Is shock out of the circumstance t Caesar's before the Lateran treaties had e been so much as signed, so intransi~ a stand should have been taken by the Holy Fat On the other hand those who have hoped, with siderable anxiety, for a new order of things in w Catholic affairs in Italy would be freed from the dens incident to politics, can hardly help seeing the horizon is far from gleaming with rosy-ring...
...17o THE COMMONWEAL June i9, I i , it...
...coming conflict between Catholicism and poll Italy will, in all likelihood, not differ radically t past struggles...
...Many of rumors have, of course, been utterly absurd...
...but these themselves have never been in vain...
...and defense of the just rights of the citizen, in accordance with principles held internationally by all good governments...
...But in so far as either Mexico or our own country is concerned, we shall believe in dawn only when that trail begins to turn...
...Faith can live in the catacombs ~but it too, we may say to an age which seems to believe an oil well more important than conscience, has a right to a place in the sun...
...This dignified and comprehen-sive plea, which Bishop Pascual Diaz himself once commented upon in these columns, has been virtually ignored by the official press on both sides of the Rio Grande...
...TI" who felt sure that an alliance had been efec between Fascism and the Cath...
...One may be sure, however, that religious peace and prosperity can- not, in any country, be secured more cheaply than they are among ourselves...
...Morrow has ridden patiently down the long and bitter trail...
...We have not been able to trace the o :ini of this despatch, which probably owes its exis~ ~el to some feverish imagination...
...Industry has ceased to function, banditry of all sorts has flourished, the individual's freedom to speak and act as a citizen has been destroyed, education has ended, and telephone poles are still grim with bodies offered as a holocaust to the whims of bloated corporals...
...We shall soon be in a position to know...
...Under the liberal r6gime this object was important enough...
...Evidently I1 I wished to impress upon everybody that he was abdicating and that he was determined to make continue to follow his prescriptions...
...but the tenor of the despatch indicates the appalling lack of inform which still persists regarding hostility to the History shows clearly that the Roman ghetto J never molested by the papal government in the states of the Church, and that this ghetto was a place of refuge for many who fled from other...
...AU this would not constitute much of a program in the United States...
...New York Jewish dailies carried, on May I6, a : item to the effect that Italian Catholic editors , demanding that all Jews be expelled from the lan ]sb" that a nation "IOO percent Catholic would no Ic ~e~ be defiled...
...Mussolini probably understands very well, and no doubt even hopes that the dew ment of Catholic strength in Italy will serve his interests...
...the concession to religious communities to settle in the country, to own property, and to do the work of prayer and charity...
...and must sometime be rewarded, if only with the immemorial burden of the cross...
...recognition of the independence of eccle- siastical authority, in matters pertaining to the Church, from civil rule...
...Conceivably enough, failure may again be the fruit of patience and effort...
...But in Mexico every single entry runs counter to views which the party in power, maintained and subsidized by the United States, has expressed for years...
...acknowledgment of the right of parents to give their children instruction in the Faith, and of the legitimacy of religious schools...
...dawn...
...His has been the performance of a sterling trooper, and we honor it...
...It is not a simple matter to believe that the Church can prosper or find peace in the midst of such desolation...
...WEEK BY WEEK O F COURSE the altercation between Pope } and Mussolini has surprised many people...
...Men of good-will, to whatever group or faith they may belong, will join in that prayer...
...The most important demands expressed in this docu- ment were : establishment, as part of constitutional law, of religious liberty for all faiths...
...Nevertheless he seems to fear that development may proceed too far, and so feels emphatic restatement of the unparalleled greatnes Fascism may act as a curb...
...At present the shepherds of the Church, anxious not to halt the ministry to souls longer than human weakness can bear, may not press all their former demands...
...Every aspect of the scene is harrowing...
...with Fascism in the saddle, it has become an ine~ able necessity...
Vol. 10 • June 1929 • No. 7
