The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1914-07-11
THE CHURCH IN MEXICO

| ACCUSATIONS MADE IN THE
"ouTLooK" NOT SUSTAINED BY
| FACTS NOR BY THE TESTIMONY
OF NoN.cATHoLIcs.
In recent issue of the outlook
(vol. 107; No. 6, p. 305) special cor
respondent, Gregory Mason, campaign
ing with General Villa in Mexico
makes the following remarkable state
ment: villa is doing his best to re
move from his country an old incubus
the Church-which has been the
| friend of the capitalist aristocracy and
the oppressor of the people since the
days of the conquistadores." After
quoting Villa to the effect that priests
are immoral, "hypocrites'' and
frauds and that it shall be the pur-
pose of the Constitutionalist leader
ito open the eyes of the people to the
tricks of the thieving priests" Mason
adds: Apparently his programme
| thus far is successful. The only priest
| found in Torreon was in hiding in
the house of wealthy Irishman"
These accusations of the Mexican
bandit against the priesthood, quoted
| by the Outlook" correspondent, and
triumphantly reinforced by his own
| remarks, are absolutely false, accord
ing to Press Bulletin of the Central
Verein. The Catholic Church, rather
than an oppressor of the people and a
friend of the moneyed interests, has,
despite the years of hardship and per-
secution from her enemies in the ad-
ministration> and in the ranks of
capital, been the greatest force for the
amelioration of conditions among the
poorer classes in the Southern Repub-
lie. Mason himself in a subsequent
article (The Outlook, June 20, 1914,
p. 1922 declares that while the lot of
a Mexican peon is not a happy one for
well-fed American to contemplate,
there is far more happiness to the
square inch in squalid, half-starving
Mexico than in the slums of a large
American city, or in the glamourless,
hard driven American factory town %
And this, too, after century of un-
rest and three years of recent revolu-
ton "that would have stripped coun-
try of average wealth to barren
ground"
In direct contradiction to the state
ment of Mason is the testimony of
Charles F. Lummis, the distinguished
Editor of "Out West" himself New
Highlander, a Protestant and the son of
a college professor. In his interesting
book, 'The Awakening of a Nation, y
he says: ut is fit to say just here that
while, as in mining always, there was
tremendously in Mexico the vast dis
parity of classes, it is wholly unwar-
ranted to speak of the down-treading
of the Indian laborers. They were
poor only as a man is poor whose
enough is little. They were not
despite the armchair historian)
slaves. There was no mita in Mexico;
no compulsory labor in mines; no
labor without wages. The Indian who
did not like the mine, or it's admin
istrador, or its wages, was perfectly
free to go elsewhere, or to stay out
altogether (p. 32). In another place
he declares that human slavery was
never divine institution in those
(the Spanish) colonies" while this
statement" he adds, may derive a
shrek from those who have learned
history by not studying it, it is strictly
true. Only the gross ignorance of
centuries of closet historians biased
by political and religious prejudice,
untravelled, and apparently pledged
not to read any original source, could
ception of the Repartimiento and the
Encomienda as to class them with our
own slave-holding" "The laws of
Spain, as to the aborigines," he de-
clares ''the highest minded, most COM
plete, and most noble Indian policy
ever framed by man." (p. S6).
And this was not necessarily be-
cause of any particular inherent racial
virtue of the Spaniards but because of
the strong spiritual influence of the
Church in their regard. "The conquis-
tador," Lummis says, twas human, but
the hand of the Church was always
upon his shoulder. Individually and
casually he might elude it, but broadly
he could not" (p. 1851
The great explorer, Alexander Won
Humboldt, writing in his Essai
Politique one hundred years ago,
when the Church's influence was
greater in Mexico than it is today, de-
clares that nowhere do the common
people enjoy the fruits of their labor
more than in Mexico. The Indian
laborer is poor, but he is free. His
condition is much preferable to that of
the peasantry of a large part of North
ern Europe"
Mr.. Mason like many other travellers
who rush through Spanish-American
countries, getting their sole informa-
ton from enemies of the Church, has
made a very bad blunder in this
attack This is not the first time that
magazine has given space to these
false accusations; the Episcopalian