The Red Triangle: Mexico

Few people realise that the Reds took over Mexico almost at the same time they took over Russia. The Church suffered the same in both countries.

From The Imaginative Conservative

By Henri Daniel-Rops

After the triumph of Marxist Communism in 1917, the style of the persecution of Catholicism in Mexico gradually altered as the country’s rulers adopted the methods employed by Moscow.

On the other side of the world, in Mexico, the Church suffered an ordeal similar to that of Christianity in Russia. The Land of the Plumed Serpent indeed had enjoyed few respites from religious persecution since its separation from Spain in 1821. That persecution had turned to violence after the coming to power in 1857 of the Indians Comonfort and Benito Juarez, and again after the collapse of Maximilian’s empire in 1867. The regime of Porfirio Diaz had given the Church a breathing space; but the advent of the dictator Carranza, with underhand support from President Wilson, began a fresh era of persecution. A very large number of priests and religious were expelled, while others were tortured to death. Bishops were hounded like game through the wastes of cactus land. One priest was nailed up in a coffin and buried alive. Profanation was frequent, consecrated hosts being fed to dogs and horses, crucifixes used for target practice. Hundreds of nuns were raped. The Church had to lead a clandestine life. “We are paying for the faults of our fathers,” said the Archbishop of Guadalajaea to Benedict XV in 1915. “For the cruelty of the Conquistadors?” asked the Pope. “Not so much that,” replied the archbishop, “as the mistake of having barred the natives from the priesthood.”

So far this antichristian outburst of revolutionary forces had retained a more or less traditional character; it was in fact the heritage of French Jacobinism. But after the triumph of Marxist Communism in 1917 the style of the persecution gradually altered as the rulers of Mexico adopted the methods employed by Moscow. Steps were taken first to drive out foreign priests, then to suppress the religious orders and forbid the taking of vows, then to reduce the national clergy to ridiculously small numbers. Catholic resistance was organized in the shape of refusal to buy goods, withdrawal of bank deposits and the systematic paralysis of social life. At the beginning of 1920 the ousting of Carranza by Obregon, a pure-bred Indian, aggravated the crisis: episcopal palaces and even the shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe were blown up. When Catholics retorted by erecting a colossal statue of Christ on a mountain, Obregon revenged himself by expelling the nuncio.

All these, however, were only premonitory signs of a much more thoroughgoing persecution launched in 1924 by the new president, Calles, a half-caste ex-schoolmaster. For years on end everything possible was done to eradicate Catholicism from Mexico: arrest, expulsion and execution of priests and distinguished laymen; dismissal of religious of both sexes from hospitals—and even from lunatic asylums, the inmates of which were driven on to the streets. In the schools courses on atheism were provided, as well as lessons in sex; these latter included “practical work” in the shape of visits by the pupils to maternity wards. The most curious part of this anti-religious campaign was the institution in 1925, by an apostate priest named Perez, of a “National Church” separated from Rome and allied with the secular regime. This “Church” pretended to adapt the liturgy to the Mexican character by celebrating Mass with maize wafers, fermented agave juice and prayers translated into Indian dialect. Perez, however, found only two priests and a few hundred layfolk to join him. Police intervention was necessary before their ceremonies could take place; and even so they usually ended in attack by loyal Catholics armed with cudgels.

This persecution had tragic results for the Church in Mexico. Bishops and priests who were not thrown into prison, to die there of “cardiac trouble,” were expelled. Their mere presence in the country was a capital crime. Hundreds of priests and religious defied the threat of death, and, disguised as workmen, as hawkers and even as policemen, went about the country saying Mass in barns or stables. Most famous of these clandestine priests was the Jesuit Miguel Pro, who was ordained in Belgium and returned to Mexico a few days after the edict banishing all priests. Month after month, repeatedly altering his disguise, he hoodwinked the police, managing even to celebrate Mass in houses watched by “coppers” and minister to prisoners awaiting execution. Arrested after more than a year, he in turn was led to the patio de la muerte and was shot together with his brother. He was allowed to die unbound, arms extended crosswise, holding a crucifix in one hand and a rosary in the other. His last words were: “Long live Christ the King!” When Calles resigned, his victims were said to number fifty-three hundred.

Pius XI raised an indignant voice against those acts of violence. “In Mexico,” he said in 1926, “anything called God, anything resembling public worship, is proscribed and trampled underfoot.” He spoke on the same note in his Encyclical Iniques afflictusque, where he drew a remarkable picture of all the Mexican Church had suffered. A lull appeared to set in, following the interdict laid on the whole country by the episcopate; complete suspension of all religious ceremonies caused so much unrest that the government feared mass insurrection. Pius XI took this opportunity to negotiate a modus vivendi—another “pact with the devil.” But the persecution revived in a more subtle and insidious form. The Constitution authorized each state of the Mexican federation to fix the number of priests who might exercise their functions within its boundaries. But the result was quite ridiculous: two hundred and ninety-three priests were “recognized” for a total population of seventeen million; in the most favoured states there was one priest for one hundred thousand inhabitants. This manoeuvre was denounced by the Encyclical Acerbo nimis (1932).

Pius XI, however, did not want rupture. He believed that Mexico was so old a Catholic country that religion could never be completely uprooted from its soil. Resistance stiffened, particularly among the youth. In 1934, for example, the girls of a boarding-school which the authorities wished to close defended their house with such vigour that the police were obliged to use tear gas. Clandestine schools were opened almost everywhere. More important still were the efforts of the Catholic workers’ movement, which won places in the syndicates, frequently ousting Communists and even arranging for Mass to be said in factories. The pilgrimages to Our Lady of Guadalupe proved, if proof were needed, that the Catholic faith was not dead. On the eve of the Second World War a change was noticeable: new men, less tainted with Marxism, were coming to power, and the religious laws were less rigidly enforced. An apostolic delegate was able to set out for Mexico, and the papal letter Nos es muy prepared the ground for reorganization of the Mexican Church. It was now plain that Christians could withstand Communism, if they had the resolution and the courage.

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From “The Red Triangle: Mexico,” from The Church of the Revolutionary Age: A Fight for God, Volume 2

Pictured (top): A photograph of the officers of the Cristero regiment “Castañon”, in the public domain, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.