Religion: Death in Mexico

The Rt. Rev. Ignacio Valdespino, Bishop of Aguascalientes, Mexico, a good Roman Catholic, died last week in San Antonio, Texas. The Most Rev. Arthur Jerome Drossaerts, archbishop of San Antonio, pronounced a funeral sermon at a solemn requiem mass in San Fernando cathedral. It was a pronouncement not limited to laudations of the dead man’s character. Archbishop Drossaerts pointed out that Bishop Valdespino had belonged to the colony of Catholic refugees who had fled to San Antonio from the Mexican government. He commented on the poverty in which many of them have died, saying that the Most Rev. Jose Mora y Del Rio, archbishop of the City of Mexico, had three weeks ago “been buried on charity.” From the pathetic, Archbishop Drossaerts proceeded to the critical:

“Liberty is being crucified at our very door, and the United States looks on with perfect indifference. Despotism seems to have become popular amongst us. Are we not sending endless goodwill parties to Mexico? Are we not courting the friendship and favor of the very men whose hands are simply dripping with the blood of their innocent victims? . . . The ominous silence of the American press and pulpit is not understandable. . . .”

Archbishop Drossaerts, as he said these words, was speaking to people whose minds were filled with a thousand small and bitter pictures. He and they could remember the stories that are told across the border, of the malign and treacherous determination with which Mexican officials pursue Roman Catholics. In circulation are the stories of:

Maria Guadalupe Chaires, from Ciudad Victoria, who was captured and asked where the priest and certain other Roman Catholics were hiding, and who when she refused to tell, was torn to pieces by soldiers. The soldiers began by tearing off her fingers and continued their mutilations until the woman was dead.

The Rev. Pablo Garcia de Jesus Maria of Aguascalientes, who, as he was leaving for exile, gave absolution to a dying man and who was for so doing mutilated by his guards in the ears, nose, tongue and eyes, then killed and dropped off the train.

A priest, who when examined by a reporter for El Eco de Mexico, Los Angeles, showed proof that he had been purposely inoculated with the bacillus of leprosy by the agents of Calles; other priests who have been inoculated with disease under the pretense of vaccination.

The Mother Superior of the nuns of Ejutla, who was shot to death, and the Sisters of her charge, who were delivered to the soldiery for bad purposes.

Countless other priests killed, Catholics caught and tortured, villages burned, rape, murder and happenings of like nature.

These stories, typical of those which passed through the minds of Archbishop Drossaerts and his audience, were said to be exaggerated. For one who believes them it is surely reasonable to wonder at the “ominous silence of the American press and pulpit.” The reasons for this silence, aside from incredulity, are many. Less because they think that it would endanger U. S. relations with Mexico, less because talk about Catholics would endanger Catholic Al. Smith’s political fortunes, than because they think their readers or listeners are weary of grim fancy tales about barbaric savageries, editors and pulpit-holders keep quiet about religious persecution of Mexico. Abroad, where Mexican absurdities have the attraction of the exotic, newssheets have given the Church v. State affair more advertising. The London Daily Express recently delegated a correspondent to investigate the situation and subsequently published an editorial saying:

“President Calles and his Administration have incurred the censure of the civilized world for indulging in cruelties and persecutions unjustified by the requirements of government.”