Religion: Third Exile

The cocks of Mexico City were crowing one morning last week, priests had begun their early orisons, when a guttural little group of government officials appeared at the door of 66-year-old Archbishop Leopoldo Ruiz y Flores and demanded his person. The prelate, who somewhat resembles the present Pope, knew what to expect. As the Vatican’s Apostolic Delegate (appointed 1929) he was the head & front of his church in Mexico. The Pope’s encyclical Acerba animi (“bitterness of soul”) of last fortnight, complaining about the Mexican Government’s treatment of the church, had stirred angry talk among the irreligious populace, had brought forth a prompt and bellicose retort from Mexico’s new young Provisional President

Rodriguez (TIME, Oct. 10). The Archbishop had heard of wild scenes in the Chamber of Deputies the night before—a peon crying “Long live the Pope!” from the gallery and being thrown out; a unanimous vote authorizing President Rodriguez to deport the Apostolic Delegate instanter. The Archbishop’s callers, courteously enough, now commanded his presence at the Ministry of the Interior.

There was nothing to do but go along.

Leopoldo Ruiz y Flores is a native Mexican. He looked amazed when the expulsion order was served, describing him as a “pernicious foreigner” who had lost his citizenship through serving a “foreign power” (defending the Pope’s encyclical).

He was given until midday to get ready while a plane, piloted by one Floyd Clevenger, U. S. barnstormer, was chartered to fly him to Matamoros and the U. S. line.

Twice before had Leopoldo Ruiz y Flores suffered exile from his native land for Mother Church. But never before had he been up in an airplane. His expression of dazed surprise changed to one of prayerful alarm as the plane, with two detectives and a kinsman of the Archbishop’s aboard, swept him up over the mountains towards the coast.

Beyond Tampico’s forest of oil derricks, heavy weather buffeted the plane. Pilot Clevenger had to turn back, flying so low that the prelate’s nervousness increased to terror. That night they kept him in Tampico. Next day he was placed on a “special train” (engine and one car) guarded by 30 soldiers. They did not reach the border until close to midnight. A group of priests and U. S. officials were there to receive the Archbishop, forward news of his arrival to the Vatican, install the exile in a private home to await developments.

As even the most belligerent Mexican politician knows, the Pope’s spiritual realm is vast, his temporal holdings (108.7 acres) minute. Obviously Acerba animi, referred to spiritual things, counselling the

Mexican clergy to pursue a policy of such obedience as would be shown by a man in chains whose neck is ground down by a stout boot. Nonetheless, the Government preferred to regard Acerba animi as a political defy, and public opinion last week was strongly on the Government’s side. Many an observer called the encyclical untimely. Negotiations were said to have been going along quietly by which wider latitude might have been restored to the Church. In open warfare the Church was sure to lose, especially since Plutarco Elias Calles. Mexico’s strong man, announced: “I am ready to occupy any position indicated to me in case this conflict should result in greater consequences.” With the Apostolic Delegate gone, leadership of the Church in Mexico fell upon a burly, swarthy prelate of much the same strong-man stamp as General Calles—bull-necked, horse-jawed, Indian-blooded Archbishop Pascual Diaz, Primate of Mexico. Him the Mexico City police promptly arrested and questioned for over two hours. In the past he had been more vocal against the Government than Archbishop Ruiz but the police were unable to discover that he had lately done anything worse than failing to register as a priest. He was fined 500 pesos and released.

The State of Veracruz, already among the strictest in regulating the clergy (one priest per 100,000 inhabitants), last week withdrew citizenship from all Catholic priests, ordered all church properties expropriated and converted to other uses.

El Nacional continued to hammer out the Government’s theme: “The Pope’s encyclical is a declaration of war. . . . This feigned personality, who by some nations has been made to believe that he is an international personage, speaks and acts like a petty king. His domain would fit within our Federal District; nevertheless he believes that he rules anywhere there may be a cross or a Jesuit cassock darkens the atmosphere. … It is very dangerous to attempt to govern in another’s house.”