New Britain herald., 1915-12-03
REPLY TO TUMULTY'S
 LETTER ON MEXICO
Mgr. Kelley and Father Riley
 Renew Criticism of Wilson

Chicago, Dec. 3.-Statements in re-
 ply to the recent letter in which Jo-
 seph F. Tumulty, secretary to Presi-
 dent Wilson. explained from an ad-
 m1n4stration viewpoint the situation
 In Mexico, as regards the Roman
 Catholic church. are made public
 here. One is by Mgr. Francis c. Kel-
 ley, president of the Catholic church
 Extension society, and the other by the Rev. R. H. Tierney, editor of the
 Catholic weekly America" and both
 renew criticism of President Wilson in
 recognizing the Carranza government
 under which, says Mgr. Kelley, re-
 1g1ous liberty is being denied to the
 people of Mexico.
 Mgr. Kelley's Statement.
 The statement by Mgr. Kelley fol-
 lows:
 If the files of the department of Astate are without official records to
 prove the "dastardly crime" of ort-
 rages committed upon nuns bv Mexi- can revolutionfsts, there are official records in other places, comics of
 which have been offered to the de- Farment or state. I happen to have some or them myself, given under oato. nave one in particular that -has never seen tho light of day. But Is MT. Tumulty perfectly safe in trying to disapprove all the outraees agaanst religion through denying one Even IT we grant all his contentious tnere srlH remains 8 great burden of crime absolutely unexplained. One thlns, however, he may be certain of: .no Worst or tho aHdavits will never 1 pc gfven out. for it's stands to reason 1 alat no names are going to be men uoned;' not for the revolutionists' 1 sake. or for MT. Tumulty's sake. but 1 rather for the sake of the poor vio- tfms.' The murders, the footing. the stealing, the closing of churches. etc. etc., have been admitted over and over again by the revolutionists them selves. It is most extraordinary that MT Iumulty could make the state ment seriously that the officers of the american army never heard a sim gle report of outrage having been committee The fact of the matter is that the story first came to my knowledge through one who re- celVed 1t from officers of both the army and navy. I afterwards con- Versed With one of these officers and ne not only corroborated what I had heard, but gave me additional facts his case is about the same as that of the nuns. While I have his name and his signature, I do not pro- pose to have him dismissed from the army, or have his fife made a burden by revealing it. Mr. Tumulty may not perhaps have heard that nuns were forcibly taken from trains and sent Into the revolutionist army. The rS1mber of nuns who reached Cuba or the United States safely is negligible. How many of them will never be 1 heard from?
 Appointed by Carranza.
 A rather strange thing it is that MT. should use as an authority '"The Very Rev. Antonio J. Paredes 1 Roman Catholic Vicar-General, the l Archbishopric of Mexico City," When MT. Bryan was secretary of state, he communicated to me copy of the statement of Canon Paredes, and in- formed me that he was going to give it to the press. Through Dudley | Field Malone of New York, I gave Mr. Bryan information as to who this An tonic J. Paredes was. I told him IiAdC llc WdS lCdT-SoHera1 or MeXlCO | City only because he had been ap- pointed by Carranza to that office, de- spite the fact that the constitution of l Mexico proclaims that there is no union in that country between church and state. The Venerable Archbishop of Mexico City, however, as Father Tierney says, in order to avoid fur ther scandal, allowed Paredes to act; butlas a matter of fact, very few of the clergy of Mexico City pay any at tention to him, but recognize the au- thorfty of another vicar-general, 1 whose appointment was not made by General CarranZa. Antonio J. Pare | des is today knocking around Mexico City with a revolutionary uniform on. It was he who, taken as nominal prisoner to Vera Cruz with a number 1 of other priests from Mexico City, 1 worked on the poor prisoners to have them sign a document favorable to Carranza. This is the sort of ''au- thority' Antonio J. Paredes is. It is matter of interest in this connec- tion to know that Mr. Bryan, when he learned about Canon Paredes, did