The Waterbury Democrat., 1936-02-21

OIONCO y JuuS
 anez, archbishop of Guadalajara. Relatively little is known in this country of the adventurous career of the ecclesiaStic who above all other members of the Mexican hierachy was hated and feared by the powers of darkness which have ruled the land south of the Rio Grande since 1914. One day, however, someone who has the real gift of words and the spark of true genius will write his history. The story will read like the TO- nance of the Spanish conquis- tadores with this difference that whereas Cortes and his fellows were concerned only with na- terial things the seventy-two year old prelate gave his life to the ur- remitting performance of his priestly duties. The physical dan- gers which the conquerors faced were great indeed but they were incomparable to those which Msgr. Orozco lived through year after year. A gentleman of fine family, 8 scholar of consummate talents, a man of personal refinement and the broadest culture, the arch- bishop was driven to spend the last twenty-five years leading the existence of a hunted wild beast pursued from mountain cave to mountain cave, fleeing frome one filthy refuge to another filthier, starving sick, but indomitable. Twice he was banished from the country. Each time he returned to resume where he had left of. He worked as a section hand on the railroads, he labored as Q peon in the fields but in what. ever disguise he never ceased per-. forming the everyday routine of his calling under conditions and circumstances that would be in- credible were they not proven by the testimony of those whose word is incontestable. And for the greater part of the time there was never @ moment when the goverr- ment gunmen at his heels could not have cashed in on his murder. The writers of motion picture scenarios, who are on an endless hunt for dramatic material might with profit devote @ little research
 to the life of Archbishop Orozco. They would however encounter an insuperable difnculty at the end of their studies. No Hollywood pro- ducer of "thrillers" would believe that what actually happened to him could possibly occur to any- one, even in Mexico.
 
 His Crime.
 It was luck in the days when Carranza first fastened his bloody clutch on Mexico that the arch- bishop, who had just been elevated to the see of Guadalajara, was m: .ked down for Liquidation" which is the revolutionary euphemism for murder. Unlike, many of the bishops in Mexico Orozco y Jimenez was of undiluted Spanish blood. That in the eyes of the revolutionaries made him an "aristocrat", a foreigner" and automatically an object of sus- picion. But 1t was his refusal to remain silent in the presence of the outrages being perpetrated against humanity and justice and the natural rights of his flock that unloosed the pack of governmental 'liquidators." His denunciation of the thievery, rape, arson and murder with which the country rocked was not to be borne. In spite of his racial origin the un- impeachable character of his life, his devotion to the poor and downtrodden who were being made poorer and mre oppressed by their s'liberators," and his unqualified fearlessness gave him an influence throughout the entire nation which was intolerable to the reigning gang. He had to be guilty of crime in order to war rant the desired legal" execution and 1t was no trouble at all to tar him with the moth-eaten accusa- ton of being engaged in poli- ties" He was charged with stir ring up rebellion against the gov- ernment whenever some group of persecuted wretched, in sheer fatalistic desperation took up arms to end their sufferings but there never was a scintilla of proof that he was guilty of anything more kraa sosaa hla fhan giving rAliQiniiS