T

HE article "The Church of Mexico,"

in your issue of September 5, deals with the religious issue in reference to the New London Conference, and also a pamphlet issued by the President of the Mexican Commission, Señor Luis Cabrera.

Outside of the quotations made from Señor Luis Cabrera by The Outlook and a passing reference to them in the Havana papers, very little has been said about the Mexican religious question in the public press. As this question involves the equal rights of all men and fundamental principles of government, I trust the other side of the question coming from an exiled Mexican bishop will be of interest to your readers and to all fair-minded American citizens.

There are two statements of Señor Cabrera to which I would call particular attention, namely:

First, that the Constitutionalists have not persecuted the Church, and if any outrages were committed against the Catholic Church they were [in the words of Señor Cabrera] "the deeds not of the Constitutionalists, but of bandits, who have sprung up from the disorganized condition;"

Second, that the Constitutionalists guarantee the most complete liberty of conscience and public worship under the Constitutional principles called Laws of the Reform.

As Archbishop of Yucatan, Mexico, it is to be presumed that I am acquainted with the recent happenings in that diocese, although at present an exile in the hospitable city of Havana.

Yucatan is one of the most peaceful and prosperous States of the Mexican Republic. It was not cursed with Villistas nor Zapatistas, or any of their ilk, and now for a year and a half it has been under the actual government of a Carranza appointee. It is almost impossible to believe what the Church has had to suffer in Yucatan. In October of 1914, under the pretext that they were foreigners, over fifty priests were exiled. At the same time a decree was issued, under governmental authority, abbreviating in an arbitrary way all religious acts and ceremonies. A short time afterwards I was turned out of my episcopal residence, which for more than three hundred years has been the peaceful abode of the bishops of the diocese. In September of

1915 the Cathedral was attacked by a mob of Constitutionalists headed by American Anarchists, who destroyed the ornaments of the church, stole what they could, and did not even hesitate to profane the holy Eucharist. Not only were these criminal acts ignored by the authorities, but it is a matter of record that some of the despoilers were in the employment of the Constitutionalist Government. Since these outrages occurred the Cathedral of Yucatan, erected in the sixteenth century, and recognized by modern architects as one of the most artistic edifices in America, has been taken over by the de facto Government. What would an American tourist think of the veracity of Señor Cabrera's first statement, that "the Constitutionalists have not persecuted the Church," if he stepped into this. Cathedral to-day, to find that its pews and confessionals, which were constructed of rare woods, had been carted away by Carranzista soldiers to serve as firewood; that the Stations of the Cross and various other pictures had been defiled; that its marble altars had been demolished; and that the bare walls of this temple erected to the honor and glory of God look down upon a scene of wanton devastation that would make sad even the heart of an educated pagan. If the Cathedral was treated in this manner, let my readers judge how the other churches of my diocese have suffered at the hands of these champions of liberty and justice! Two of the churches of my diocese have been converted by Carranzista followers into peddlers' stalls for the sale of merchandise. Another has been given to young men to serve as their gymnasium, while the fourth has been handed over to Freemasons to serve as a lodge hall. I will not stop to comment upon these outrages. I am stating facts to which I challenge contradiction.

On the 1st of May of this year all the churches of Merida, which hitherto had remained unsacked, were one by one attacked by a mob of Carranzistas, who, amid the mocking ringing of the church bells, marched from church to church, burning and destroying as they went. When it is known that this vandalism began at ten o'clock in the morning and did not end until ten o'clock in

the evening, without any interference by local authorities save the warning to Catholic groups that they should not interfere, how can one say that it was not under governmental supervision? It is hardly necessary to add to the above chronicle that whatever of value was to be found in gold or silver plate was stolen by the most powerful. During these days the priests of my diocese were subject to every indignity and those who were not exiled were held in durance more vile than even slavery or death.

On one Sunday of last May there was not a church in my diocese open for the worship of Almighty God. Yielding to the protests of many of the people, and to representations made by some people of authority, the governor finally allowed four churches to be opened on the 19th of May, but those out in the country remained closed, and the priests were positively forbidden to go out of the city and to attend to services in country places.

Previous to the present troubles in Mexico the diocese of Yucatan had an ecclesiastical seminary, an academy, a training-school, two academies for girls, and more than thirty Catholic free schools, where more than five thousand children received an education similar to that being given to Catholic children in the United States. Under the present régime of Carranzista authority in Yucatan all these educational facilities have been closed, the buildings and furniture have been seized, while the sisters and lay teachers who conducted them have been obliged to flee for their lives.

Can you not, Mr. Editor, and you, gentle reader, imagine the desolation of my soul in having to stand by helplessly while all these dastardly deeds have been perpetrated in the name of liberty and justice? Some of these institutions were the pride of my diocese for centuries. They were built up by the sweat and blood of our ancestors, and my people, my clergy, and I labored together for fourteen years to continue the good work-now only to see it all leveled to the ground by men of Mexican blood who are standing forth to-day as champions of equal rights to all men. Imagine my desolation when I think of the 270,000 Catholic people of the diocese of Yucatan, divided into forty-five parishes, left without churches in which they might worship God or schools in which their children might be educated in the faith of their fathers! True, there are schools maintained by the Government in my diocese at present, but the

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parents of the children are obliged to send them to these governmental institutions, where the teachers are instructed to stifle and eradicate any vestiges of religion that our own schools hitherto sought to implant. Oh, liberty of conscience, what crimes are being committed in thy name in Mexico! Our Mexico !

I

I have gone into detail only about my own diocese of Yucatan because of the personal knowledge which 1 have of its conditions. am able to state, however, that throughout the Republic this religious persecution is more or less violent according to local conditions and according to the different characters of the local military commanders.

In all fairness, I am glad to state that none of my priests were murdered nor our nuns outraged, but I cannot say this for all the other dioceses. Notwithstanding all that has been said to the contrary, I know it to be a fact that nuns have been ravished and priests have been murdered under the benevolent government of Señor Venustiano Carranza.

The limits of this letter do not permit me to enter into many details, but he who wishes to know them can find them accurately exposed in "The Book of Red and Yellow," written by the Rt. Rev. Francis C. Kelley, D.D., President of the Catholic Church Extension Society, whose headquarters are in the city of Chicago, Illinois. In view of all this, how can any one declare that Mexico has not suffered religious persecution, or that this persecution is due only to elements which are foreign to the Constitutionalists ?

Señor Cabrera's second statement, that "the Constitutionalists guarantee the most complete liberty of conscience and of public worship under the Constitutional principles called Laws of the Reform," contains a promise which ought to console the oppressed heart of all Mexicans. Although this statement has the authority of the de facto Government, where is there any evidence of its being put into practice? They are not new promises; they have been made before, but "by their fruits shall you know them." Were not these promises given in Washington by Carranza's Ambassador, Señor Arredondo, many months ago? and yet most of the outrages committed in my diocese have been perpetrated since this proclamation of religious freedom.

Señor Cabrera not only tries to absolve his party from the blame of religious persecution, but endeavors to throw the fault upon the

shoulders of the clergy, charging that they have meddled in politics. To his statement I reply that it is false that the clergy as a class have mixed in politics. As Bishop of the ecclesiastical province which embraces the States of Yucatan, Campeche, and Tabasco, I can state that the clergy as a class have abstained from every kind of politics; but if one did so meddle here or there, it was without my knowledge. If in any other part of the Republic, they were only isolated cases. In Mexico a priest has the same right to vote and mix in political matters as any other citizen, but ecclesiastical restrictions forbid him to hold any civil office. Any priest who would violate the ecclesiastical provision would naturally be subject to ecclesiastical censure; but what right would the civil law have to punish the clergy as a class for the indiscreet political actions of a few of its members, especially when there was no provision in the law. of the land for the punishing of any such pseudo-violation? Why follow such illegal punishment by closing Catholic schools, molesting innocent nuns, and depriving the faithful of their houses of worship-the faithful who, according to Señor Cabrera, comprise ninety-nine per cent of the population of the country? Suppose a governor of one of the United States were to attempt to throw into jail some of the ministers of religion who mingled in politics? Suppose he went further and attempted to close the church in which these ministers of religion held forth? How long would the people of the United States, of any denomination whatsoever, stand for such an outrage? It is such a brand of liberty of conscience and freedom of public worship that Señor Cabrera's Government has given the Church in Mexico since it has been in power. What can we expect from By their fruits you shall

it in the future? know them."

Looking into the future for a solution of the religious problem, which for more than fifty years has distressed our beloved Mexico, as an archbishop of that unhappy country, I am entirely in accord with the platform proposed by the Catholics of your great country, the United States, who in their convention of federated societies at New York recently reiterated the fundamental principles upon which the Constitution of the United States is founded-"Freedom of conscience and liberty of worship to all men equally." In order to be more explicit, and to be put on record, if it is so desired, I am

not afraid to express the great hope of the clergy and Catholic people of Mexico in the following propositions :

First, we do not ask to have restored the ancient union between the Church and State which was abrogated in the year 1857.

Second, we do not intend to attempt to restore "temporal power," as is attributed to us by Senor Cabrera.

Third, as an interpreter of the wishes of all Mexican bishops, which are well known to me, I can state that we do not ask the restoration of the property seized by Juarez froin the Church; but, on the contrary, all Mexican bishops would be ready, upon the request of the Holy See, to relinquish any claims that they may have in order to avoid any trouble with public authority and bring about a lasting peace to our people and our country.

We do not ask any class privileges or special laws in our favor. On the contrary, we ask only the inalienable right of every man to worship God as his conscience dictates. Our idea of liberty of conscience is the same as that found in the laws of the United States, which gives to the individual the privilege to worship in whatsoever church he pleases; the right to educate his children in a public or private school; the choosing of the ministry as a vocation if a man so desires; and a protection for him in his calling as long as he does not violate the laws of the land in which he lives.

We demand that all public officials respect the belief of the clergy and people, of whatsoever denomination they may be, and that as long as the Church is not allowed to interfere in matters of State, so the State will not interfere in ecclesiastical matters.

We demand the right of educating the children of Catholics in Mexico in accordance with our religious belief, and, even though the law of the land compels us to contribute to the support of public schools, yet we maintain the right to be permitted to found and support our own private schools where our children may be educated in the religion of their fathers.

We demand the restoration of all the church property of which we were recently deprived, and the right of possessing and holding title to our churches, homes, seminaries, schools, and all other ecclesiastical institutions necessary for the upbuilding of the Church.

In a word, we ask only for liberty and justice those two great privileges which all lovers of equality demand as the fundamental

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W

WHEN the American opens his morning paper, he is apt to find in some prominent place a cartoon or caricature relating to the war. He does not perhaps realize that the Englishman, the Frenchman, the German, and not improbably the Italian and the Russian, have a similar experience. While the war with guns is being carried on upon European battlefields, another war is being waged by books, pamphlets, articles, and pictures. This second war makes less noise, but produces not less far-reaching effects. Changes in public opinion, when permanent in their character, are quite as important as changes in the map of Europe. Germany may not lose, France may not regain, Alsace and Lorraine, but nothing can give back to Germany that high esteem in which she was held by the civilized world and which she has recklessly thrown away, and nothing can rob France of the esteem in which the whole civilized world holds her for the steadfast loyalty and courage of her people. Those who are interpreting the issues of the war, whether they do so by voice, by pen, or by pencil, are forming a public opinion which will long outlive military operations and even political changes.

This battle of the cartoonists is not new. It is as old as Christendom. Mr. Parton in his history of Caricature and Other Comic Art "" 1 gives illustrations of the use of caricaCaricature and Other Comic Art in All Times and Many Lands," by James Parton. With 203 Illustrations. Harper & Brothers, 1877.

ture among the Romans, the Greeks, and the ancient Egyptians. But he gives little evidence that they used it for any moral purpose. Not until Christian inspiration had developed moral earnestness and made it well-nigh universal did it lay hold of the humorous and grotesque in art as a useful instrument.

Phillips Brooks first called my attention to the use of caricature by the Church in the churches. He had the not very common ability to get a large view by looking through a very small window. That Holy Trinity in

Boston is what the American Baedeker calls it, the finest church edifice in America, is partly due to his architectural taste... He watched its erection with the greatest interest. He told me once that he discovered that a fresco painter had put in the decoration of the ceiling a burlesque figure, so small that it would escape the ordinary observation from the floor below. It was painted out before the scaffolding was taken down. But in this incident Dr. Brooks found an interpretation of ancient ecclesiastical architecture. The ecclesiastics, he said, have seen in the gargoyles a symbol; they were thought to represent the evil spirits driven out of the Church by the divine grace within. But he thought it more probable that they were simply the naïve expression of the humor of the workman at an epoch which had no funny papers and no comic art. This view is borne out by James Parton. How else, for example, can we understand the

figures in some of the capitals in the Strassburg Cathedral (A.D. 1300)? In two of these groups animals are depicted performing the orthodox religious ceremonies in one a rabbit or hare is performing priestly devotions at an altar on which is the sacramental cup, while near by stands another at a reading-desk with the open book of devotion before him; in another group a religious procession of the same animals is depicted in stone, one carrying a miter, a second the cross, while others follow in grotesque attitudes.

In these cases it is safe to say that there was no intention to ridicule the religious services of the cathedral. The true explanation is probably that given by one of the early Fathers of the Church, who defends such humor in stone by saying, "This is a frivolity with which to amuse the eyes of the faithful." But the transition from burlesquing the current religious ceremonies to using burlesque to express a real if not a very profound disbelief in the current religious doctrine was both natural and easy. Mr. Parton quotes from "The Champagne Country," by Robert Torres, the author's description of the portraiture in stone of the Last Judgment on one of the portals of the Cathedral at Rheims :

The trump has sounded and the Lord from a lofty throne is pronouncing doom upon the risen as they are brought up to the judgment seat by the angels. Below him are two rows of the dead just rising from their graves, extending to the full width of the great door. Upon many of the faces there is an expression of amazement, which the artist apparently designed to be comic, and several of the attitudes are extremely absurd and ludicrous. Some have managed to push off the lids of tl.eir tombs a little way, and are peeping out through the narrow aperture; others have just got their heads above the surface of the ground, and others are sitting up in their graves; some have one leg out, some are springing into the air, and some are running, as if in wild fright, for their lives. . . . An angel is leading a cheerful company of popes, bishops, and kings toward the Saviour, while a hideous demon, with a mouth stretching from ear to ear, is dragging off a number of the condemned toward the devil, who is seen stirring up a huge caldron boiling and bubbling with naked babies dead before baptism.

It is natural to believe that the artist furnished this semi-humorous picture of the Last Judgment as a counterpoise to the solemn descriptions of it common in the sermons of

that day. Certainly this caricature must have had some effect to counteract the fears which the preacher endeavored to arouse, whether such was the artist's intention or not.

At a little later period this intention was perfectly frankly avowed by the caricaturist. In the period of the Reformation caricature was freely and effectually used by both Roman Catholics and Protestants. They both realized that a burlesque is sometimes more effective than an argument, and laughter a more powerful weapon than logic. Luther's claim to speak as God directed him is caricatured by a grotesque figure of the devil speaking through a tube into Luther's ear what Luther is shouting to the people through a trumpet. His marriage was made the theme of a number of caricatures, which evidently had more effect on Luther than all the sober arguments of his enemies or the regret of his quondam friends. “My marriage," he wrote, " has made me so despicable that I hope my humiliation will rejoice the angels and vex the devils". -a mood which did not, however, last very long. Nor were the Protestants less ready with their caricatures, not only of priests and monks, but of the Pope himself. Two of these caricatures are printed by Mr. Parton; in one of them the Pope is portrayed as being cast into hell by grotesque and laughing devils; in the other he is provided with an ass's head crowned by the papal tiara and playing the bagpipes. Underneath is the inscription in German :

"A long-eared ass can with the bagpipes cope As well as with theology the Pope."

The next era of caricature and cartoonsat least as far as the volumes in my library indicate was the close of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century. Apparently the age of conflict is also the age of caricature. As the red-hot iron gives out its sparks under the blow of the hammer, so the mind of the artist seems to need a passionate enthusiasm and the blows of a great contest to produce its greatest scintillations. Both the American and the French Revolutions were characterized by a fertility of pictorial argument, sometimes serious, sometimes satirical or humorous. As one would expect, the French reformer resorted to the pencil more frequently and, I may add, more effectively than the American. Dr. E. F. Henderson in his "Symbol and Satire in the French Revolution" reproduces one hundred and seventy-one of these pictorial argu