Chapter XVI: One Hundred Years’ Struggle for Land and Democracy, Against Clericalism

In August, 1521, Cortez consummated the conquest of New Spain and in August, 1821, under Iturbide, the independence of Mexico was wrested from the mother country.

For exactly three hundred years Spain governed Mexico with soldiers and priests. Ten prelates of the Dominican order, out of a list of sixty-two viceroys, had ruled New Spain, which was surrounded with a ring that was mightier than a Chinese wall.

Education, outside of religious teaching, was discouraged. Communication with the outside world was forbidden. Spain fed New Spain commercially, politically and intellectually.

The Mexican born was allowed no privileges, no rights. The Spaniards, soldiers, priests and aristocrats monopolized everything; all the offices, the commerce, the property, were theirs. Four-fifths of the lands were in the hands of the Church.

In 1811 an ex-priest, Hidalgo, unfurled the banner of the revolution by the shouts of: “Long live Religion! Death to bad Government! Death to the Gachupines!” (Spaniards).

The revolution for freedom from Spanish rule was initiated by an ex-priest. Morelos, Matamoros, Dr. Cos, and Navarrete, who continued the struggle, were all ex-priests. Great personalities appeared in the ten years’ revolution, such as Alvarez, Guerrero, Bravo, Victoria. The Mexican revolutionists were battling for political liberty and land.

When the Church realized that Mexico was lost to Spain, it put forward a Spanish officer, Iturbide, as the Liberator. Iturbide betrayed his own king, and after accepting the first Constitution, betrayed the revolution and became emperor by means of a military “cuartelazo” (mutiny).

The Mexican liberals fought continuously the encroachments of the Church, which used the army to support it politically. The military strength created by the Church and landowners was maintained, not to protect the nation from foreign aggression, but to guard the government from the assaults of the people.

The climax of the struggle took place during the three years’ war, 1857-1860, when the liberal leaders enforced the laws of the reform, which entitled the nation to possess all the properties of the clergy, both religious and secular, and the Church was denied the right to own real estate.

Religious orders as contrary to public welfare were dissolved. Church and State were absolutely separated, and religious freedom was fully and firmly established.

Benito Juarez, a pure-blooded Indian, continued the strife of the Liberals, initiated by Gomez Farias, Melchior Ocampo and other martyrs of the cause. After the three years’ war, the Church was ostensibly eliminated as a political power. The land which had been absorbed by the Church from the Indians, and known as “egidos,” communal lands, reverted to them, and over three million Indians became small landowners.

Defeated but not discouraged, the clericals then brought about French intervention and placed on the throne of Mexico a clerical, Emperor Maximilian, who met his defeat and death in Queretaro in 1867.

Porfirio Diaz came into power as a liberal through a revolution, and ended as a clerical. Under his régime of spoliation, all the lands which belonged to the Indians were taken away from them by trickery and legal frauds, and distributed among Diaz’ generals and political supporters. Government land was sold to foreigners.

Through the influence of Carmelita Diaz, the wife of General Diaz, the religious orders, foreign priests, friars and nuns, came back to Mexico and acquired property, and the clericals began reorganizing themselves and taking breath for another struggle which they knew was coming soon. When Diaz was tottering to his fall, the Church placed the clerical, De la Barra, in the provisional presidency. The Madero cabinet was composed of clericals and neo-Científicos who sat tight in a passive policy of non-intervention in Mexican internal affairs, as if the government reforms were none of their business.

Meanwhile, the clericals were very active politically and financially; they contributed millions of dollars to the downfall of the Madero government. As usual, the clericals corrupted the army chiefs, and succeeded in having the reform government overthrown.

Dr. Urrutia, a pupil of the Jesuit College, was the instigator and chief plotter. He picked out Huerta as the most convenient tool for the Church. Huerta, although a Catholic, was a most unscrupulous and ambitious man, and used the Church as a stepping-stone. He received millions of dollars from the clergy, from the landowners, and the foreigners, such as bankers and mining and oil interests. During Huerta’s régime, Dr. Urrutia was the Mephisto and Iago of Huerta.

As soon as Huerta was in power and the higher clergy began to notice the unpopularity of the dictator, they began plotting his assassination or overthrow. Huerta, who trusted Dr. Urrutia more than any other man in Mexico except General Blanquet, made him Minister of the Interior, and upon his shoulders fell the responsibility of the murder of scores, nay, hundreds, of political enemies of the Huerta régime.

As long as Dr. Urrutia and his friends, Mora the Archbishop of Mexico, Jenaro Mendez, Archbishop of Michoacan, Eulogio G. Gillow, Archbishop of Oaxaca, Ramon, Archbishop of Puebla--in fact, almost all the archbishops of Mexico, were plotting with Dr. Urrutia for the elimination of the enemies of the dictatorship, Huerta seems to have made no objection. The following letter, addressed to Dr. Urrutia, Minister of the Interior, by the Archbishop of Mexico City, silences the statements made by Catholics in America and Mexico, that the Church was neutral and did not play politics.

LETTER FROM ARCHBISHOP MORA TO URRUTIA

MEXICO, July 11th, 1913.

_My dear Minister and friend_:

Thanking you for the kind terms of your favor of the 9th inst. which I received yesterday, I beg to assure you once more THAT ALL THE CURATES AND PRIESTS UNDER MY JURISDICTION, in compliance with their duty, will make every effort in order to bring about as soon as possible, the fulfilment of the aspirations of all the good people in this republic, who desire the peace and tranquillity of the beloved country.

I say that they do so in compliance with their duty because the Church desires peace, and to avoid bloodshed, and that all co-operate to the ultimate object of society, which is the well-being of all its members.

In this sense, I shall continue to animate them to lose no opportunity to exhort their parishioners to help to obtain this great boon.

In order to proceed in all justice, I would like, if you have no objection, to know the name of the person who is working against the government. _One word from you on the subject will be sufficient._

I enclose a Memo. of something which may be of use to you, and which has come to my knowledge from trustworthy sources.

With kindest greetings, and assuring you of my thankfulness, friendship and respect, I beg to remain,

Very respectfully,
JOSÉ, _Archbishop of Mexico_.

Dr. Urruita, emboldened by his success in eliminating so many enemies by assassination, and in his formidable and terror-inspiring position as official executioner of Huerta, became ambitious. The high clergy of Mexico encouraged his pretentions, and began sending out feelers to discover if he would be willing and ready to oust Huerta and place himself in Huerta’s stead as dictator. But Huerta was wide-awake, and as soon as he discovered the plot, he gave orders to have Urrutia arrested. Urrutia escaped by the skin of his teeth; disguised as an Indian peon he crossed the American lines to Vera Cruz, where he was almost lynched by the infuriated Mexicans.

The following letter from the Archbishop of Michoacan proves irrefutably that the Mexican clergy had plotted to place one of the most dastardly, cruel and infamous men in Mexico, in the culminating position of Chief Executive of the Republic, as a protégé and tool of the Church in Mexico.

LETTER OF THE ARCHBISHOP OF MICHOACAN TO MINISTER URRUTIA

September 11th, 1913.

_My dear compadre_:

The timely measures taken by you saved this city from being ravaged by the rebel gangs which have been concentrating in these localities to the number of over a thousand strong, but now, I think I can assure you that if the detachment which has just arrived, pursues them, this part of the State will soon be pacified.

The principal object of this letter is to ask you to relieve me of a great anxiety under which I am laboring, and which has been caused by the aggressive and almost scandalous attitude taken in public by Mr. Calero and a small group of porristas, against your good self. I can well see that their object is to tarnish the glory which you have so justly won, and to alienate your adherents all over the republic.

But they will not accomplish anything, because all the sensible men know very well the envy and intrigues that animate these degraded people. Although I am at ease on that score, my profound sympathy and affection for you make me fear that these men’s intrigues might put obstacles on the path that Our Lord and His Blessed Mother HAVE PUT BEFORE YOU TO CLIMB TO THE CULMINATING POSITION OF CHIEF EXECUTIVE OF THE REPUBLIC, which position will require of you the greatest sacrifice, but will at the same time lay before you a vast field in which to exercise your activity for the glory and honor of God, and for the benefit of our beloved country.

In the meantime I beg of you to tell me confidentially if this threat of Calero is to be feared, or whether you think it will be easy for you to humiliate the efforts of these upstarts.

Your compadre etc.,
JENARO MENDEZ,
_Archbishop of Michoacan_.

The flight of several archbishops from Mexico was not due so much to their fear of the persecutions of the Constitutionalists but more to the terror of the retaliations of General Huerta. The Mexican clergy enlisted the sympathy of the American Catholics and of the Pope in Rome, in their appeals for protection. The impression has been given that the Mexican clergy is a victim of the persecutions of the Constitutionalists, who want to destroy religion.

What the Mexican liberals, as well as the leaders among the Indians, are after, is the elimination of the clergy from the political arena. The political activities of the clericals will only result in disastrous effects--their abstention from it will only enhance their spiritual supremacy.

At Aguascalientes, one of the delegates of Zapata, Paulino Martinez, said before the assembled generals: “The Indian, the peon, the workingman of all the factories, the artisans in the cities, were all exploited by that odious trinity formed by the cacique, the military man and the priest.

Carranza never said a more profound truth, than when he stated, at the beginning of the revolution against Huerta-- “WE ARE FIGHTING THE THREE YEARS’ WAR ALL OVER AGAIN.”

The religious question in Mexico has to be settled once for all by the Mexicans themselves, and the pernicious interferences by the Mexican clergy, which tries to enlist the sympathy, influence and intervention of the American or foreign Catholics, will only revert to the disadvantage of all the fair thinking, just Catholics, who, if they are sincere in their claims that they do not mix in politics, will find that the safest and most practical thing to do is to keep neutral in a family quarrel. Otherwise they might burn their fingers.