Communications

...Probably "charity" should have read "clarity," but if so, does Mr...

...To do so would be merely an act of politeness and would not necessarily commit him to admitting the full theological significance of the designation...

...No fair-minded person, Protestant or otherwise, has ever looked upon Calles's banishment of the Catholic clergy, in 1926, as other than a mistaken and fanatical proceeding, so harmful to a people who have been Catholics for 400 years...

...One writes of the priests of Mexico as one has seen them: toiling in the filthy city slums...

...Speaking of these padres, who have been sorely missed, spiritually and temporally, during the past three years—how many of us on this enlightened side of the Rio Grande know that these devoted men are alone among the civilized world's clergy in receiving no salary...

...Can we Protestants truthfully make such a claim...

...No one who has not lived for years in Mexico can understand the veneration of her people for the Church and her priests: without these latter, there is a widespread feeling of loneliness, helplessness, which the less churchly people of our own land cannot comprehend...

...in barren, isolated places of the far interior...

...watching the night through at the bedside of dying ones...

...few physicians remained...

...Two incidents, proving the piety and devotion of these "servants of the poor of Mexico" will ever be remembered by the writer...

...CHURCH CONDITIONS IN MEXICO Aiken, S. C. TO the Editor:—The writer (a Protestant) has spent many years in Mexico, and, knowing the country, people and language intimately well, considers it not only a privilege but a duty to "relate some of the inside facts about Mexico, and to give at least as much attention to actualities concerning the personal Catholic side of the controversy as to the government case...

...TO the Editor:—My letter (published in The Commonweal, May 7) was written as a Catholic paper and I, therefore, naturally expressed my "surprise" that (by a slip, as I assume) the term "Roman Catholic," should have been used, in an editorial in such a paper...

...Gilmore appears to question my statement that "in the East the designation 'Catholic' is universally and upon all occasions conceded to those of our faith," since he states that the official name of the Orthodox Church is "the Holy Orthodox Catholic Apostolic Eastern Church...

...visiting the sick...

...To be sure, our noble foreign missionaries are far more highly paid than their home-staying brethren...

...It is all a matter of convenience and of good manners...

...Our cold, formal, "Sunday-only" ceremony does not appeal to the Mexican of whatever class, be he a non-believer like Calles, or the humble peon, whose only hour of light, comfort and joy, is spent in the church of his fathers, and whose only friend and counselor is his priest...

...and no doubt customs are similar in many other countries...

...While the Orthodox Church no doubt claims that it and it alone, is the "Catholie Church" of the Creed, its members never in common parlance, at all events in the East, refer to themselves as "Catholics" or "Greek Catholics," but always as "Orthodox" or "Greek Orthodox...

...The writer, knowing the vaunted piety of weakhy Mexican ladies, often marveled why they too did not succor these starved folk: but donation of money and personal jewels to "Church saints and crowns of the Virgins" appealed more to them than the relief of the humble sick and dying...

...In addition to this, they are not averse to making an extra penny or so, and add to their already generous salaries and perquisites in ways described by Mr...

...listening to, and counseling, those who come to them in whatever extremity, knowing that "el padre" will advise and comfort, aware, also, that he (the priest) lives in hardship and poverty, denying himself in every way—"holier than we, equally poor"—as many a poverty-stricken laborer has told me...

...But why should it be considered charitable to call us something different from what we call ourselves...

...Let me quote from Mr...

...By "Catholic" or "Greek Catholic" they understand a spiritual subject of the Pope...

...But Catholic church records are thickly filled with the names of padres and nurses who worked unceasingly, and themselves died, at their posts...

...To say it is meaningless or opprobrious...

...But the padres, out of their own miserable stipends, contribute what they can of warmth and food to their hungry flocks: when there is sickness, the priest is always present, nursing, doctoring and comforting, where physicians refuse aid, as is so often the case...

...Nearly all of the cities and villages of Mexico are dangerously chilly at night, lacking the daytime sunshine, for which reason hundreds of poorly nourished children die by hundreds, from pneumonia and starvation...

...Like France, Spain and many other lands, Mexico will always be Catholic...

...The poor of Mexico are bitterly poor: due largely to the oppression of their powerful, wealthy employers, they exist in utter want and poverty, scantily clad and even more scantily fed...

...Two Spanish warships, La Reina Cristina and the Alfonso III had just docked far out, flying the ominous yellow flag—"Vomito on board...

...Miserably poor as is the Church of Mexico, lacking personal comforts and funds (which they use, having such, for their sick and poor) the priest of Mexico knows no joy beyond that of ministering to his simple, ignorant people...

...There is one Catholic body, generally so called...

...William Palmer, for instance, found it to be so when, as a Tractarian Anglican, he sojourned for a considerable time in Russia, and later described his experience in his Visit to the Russian Church...

...Why, then should some persons, in English-speaking countries, persists in endeavoring to fasten on us a name that we do not accept...

...For example, Dr...

...Not even the extreme anticlerical Mexican (who at the hour of death always calls for priestly admonition and absolution) can, or does, accuse any priest of commercialism: vanilla-buying, tea-selling and the like...

...Those "humanitarians" (?) who ignore these conditions (their name being legion) wonder how the Church, itself impoverished, "without revenues or property"—its priests equally poor—can help these unfortunate people...

...The Church is invariably referred to as the Catholic Church...

...Gilmore, who is not a Catholic, expresses (The Commonweal, May 28) his "surprise" at my remarks, it merely indicates an unfamiliarity, on his part, with the Catholic attitude...

...Its common and proper name is 'the Catholic Church,' even in the mouths of those who deny its claim to universality...

...For they have fought a good fight, these priests: they have kept (and steadfastly hold to) the Faith...

...No record was kept of the mortality: Mexico City had, then, the second highest death rate of the world, and electric hearse lines worked night and day conveying the dead to that great potter's field, the Panteon de Dolores...

...Belloc's article in the March Atlantic Monthly: "The term 'Roman' Catholic is a provincial legal term, invented for political purposes, by the Westminster Crown lawyers of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century...

...It is a (very expensive) pity that we Protestants cannot realize this fact, and devote Mexican foreign-mission funds to more urgently needed things at home—the education of our illiterate whites, for example, who cannot read or write, and are shockingly ignorant...

...If I am correct, Romanist friars were laboring in Mexico long before there was a Protestant faith, of which we have so many brands...

...Would it not, moreover, be more courteous to give to Catholics, as he no doubt already does to other religious bodies, the name that they apply to themselves...

...Gilmore says that "for the sake of charity" he always refers to us as "Roman Catholics...

...to the Christian Science Church, which we do not believe to be either Christian or scientific, and to the Old Catholic Church, the members of which we do not look on as Catholics...

...That is no doubt its official description, but the name that it commonly uses is "Orthodox Eastern Church...

...That such as these humble worthy laborers in the Lord's vineyard should be blamed and banished is beyond the writer's comprehension: that they should be upheld, by word of mouth and funds is the bounden duty of every Catholic in our land...

...Abundance of authority might be cited in support of this statement...

...His would be the most unendurable of lives but for "uttering that little word of comfort," administering "that cup of water to those who fever," comforting and praying with those who are about to face the "King of terrors...

...In Germany, I am told, Protestants invariably style us "Catholics" and we invariably refer to them as "Evangelicals," their official name, though they do not admit that ours is the Universal Church of Christ and we do not admit that their teaching accords with the Gospel...

...carrying most of their food to needy people...

...The American conception of a Catholic priest is that he is stout, jolly, well fed and wined, and that his domestic life is far from being dignified or proper...

...Not for any sum would I set my foot on those plague-ridden vessels...

...Flandrau, himself a Bostonian Protestant, resident for years in Mexico, in his book, Viva Mexico...

...To begin with: we were some three hundred years late in getting there...

...These, then, are the men who were persecuted and banished by Calles and his kind, three years ago, and for whom the people themselves call, in every case, when they come to face death...

...But they are not Catholics: it is the faithful, shabby padre to whom the dying turn, and to whom they will always appeal—in life and death...

...Some years ago, the city of Mexico was typhusplagued, fatal at such altitude...

...absolving the dying...

...to the Salvation Army, while holding that our Church is the only channel of salvation...

...And, during the Spanish-American War, the writer was on the quarantined Seguranca, in Havana Bay...

...The case for the government has been widely discussed: that of the Church and people, terribly impoverished and misquoted, has been glossed over and ignored...

...We refer, for instance, to the Orthodox Eastern Church, though we believe that we alone are orthodox...

...The lives of Mexico's humble working-folk are pitiful in the extreme, for their daily wage would not support a prized dog (in this land...

...Fortescue in the preface to his classic work on the subject, states specifically that "the body about which this book treats always calls itself the Orthodox Eastern Church...

...Any southerner will confirm this statement...

...Was not more credit acquired thereby in the eye of their fellowworshipers...

...Above all, "there were the priests to aid and comfort the afflicted poor...

...There are, of course, some exceptions—not even the priesthood is ioo percent perfect...

...Most of Mexico's cities are prey to these diseases, especially pneumonia...

...Noting our curiosity, the captain said, "I salute those priests: I have faced danger ever since I was a lad, but they are braver than I...

...The medical missionaries excepted: they do good work...

...missionaries were obliged to remove their families to non-infected places, wherefore only business men (unwilling to leave their posts) and the priests and nuns remained, these latter nursing thousands of people who sickened and died...

...I wish these misinformed people could see the Mexican priests as I have, during some twenty years (again, I am a Protestant...

...That is what we Catholics do...

...The affrighted Catholic priest, shirking his sacred duty, has yet to be found...

...They have small bare dwelling-places: the simplest of food (most of which they give to their needy) and they are the shabbiest, most poorly clad of men...

...A workman's few centavos go to the semisupport of a starved family, who lack charcoal for their cheap "brazeros" (stoves), milk, tortillas and meat...

...All day long they are busy, at their priestly work: instructing their unlettered poor...

...Of course it is only an armistice—not a real settlement of the question...

...But no country—especially such an ill-governed one as Mexico—can abolish the long-established religion of her people, without terrible consequences...

...W. L. Scott...

...There can be no doubt of this...

...denying themselves much-wanted books, small necessities and decent cassocks, in order to get medicine for these ailing folk...

...Thousands fled to safe spots...

...praying over, comforting and absolving them, with never a murmur or complaint...

...Considering these things: that Mexico demanded her clergy, and was prepared to fight to the death until they were recalled, it is no wonder that the government changed its policy, and reopened the churches so long empty of their priests...

...E. G. C. Terry...

...Gilmore really think that if he referred to us as "Catholics" instead of "Roman Catholics," his readers would be in the slightest doubt as to his meaning...

...and, above all, offering up their lives during plague times, when thousands of people are laid low by smallpox, virulent typhus, yellow fever and other scourges...

...Permit me to add that in the Catechism of the Council of Trent, the Church's official statement of doctrine, the term Roman Catholic never once appears...

...Our American Protestants send millions of dollars to their missionaries in Mexico—all to no avail, for no Latin-American country will ever accept the Protestant belief...

...There are thousands of similar cases, where the priests fought and died as few heroes ever have—perhaps, being only human, they were afraid, but no one ever knew it...

...Standing on deck with the Seguranca's captain, a non-believing German, I noted that he removed his cap and stood at attention, when some boats, containing a number of priests, made their way to the plague-stricken battleships...

...A priest of Mexico cannot even appear publicly in his robe of office, nor is he allowed to conduct burial services at the graveside: in every conceivable way he is shorn of priestly dignity...

...and at such times, well-off folk, foreigners and missionaries are among the first to flee...

...In the chill of the early morning, when their missionary confreres are taking a last comfortable nap, padres are celebrating the "Misa de los Gallos" (Cock-crow Mass) held in all Mexican churches for laborers who must go to their work at an early hour...

...Half-fed, without proper clothing and blankets, a hungry family—father, mother and anywhere from six to twelve wailing children—huddle together for the night on thin straw mats, without any covering...

...Not even the most rabid anti-Catholic person can deny that the life of an average priest does not call for the mortification of the flesh...

...When Mr...