Posted on 11/15/2010 1:15:59 PM PST by Pyro7480
While Mexico is not a country that many would associate with religious persecution, there was a time when it was not only against the law, but dangerous for Catholics to practice their faith there.
It was a time when priests – many of whom were tortured and executed – risked their lives to celebrate Mass in secluded grottoes, when nuns disguised themselves as lay women to escape arrest, and when Catholics took up arms and – with cries of “Viva Cristo Rey!” and “Viva La Virgin de Guadalupe!” – rose up in rebellion.
“People were not permitted to attend Mass,” says Rosa Dallardo, “It was dangerous – especially for the priests. Soldiers were everywhere.”
...While there were several anti-clerical provisions in the Mexican Constitution of 1917, there had been what one historian called an “uneasy truce” between the Mexican government and the Catholic Church. That truce ended in 1924 with the election of Plutarco Elias Calles as president. A zealous atheist, Calles brutally enforced the anti-clerical provisions and instituted more repressive ones of his own. He seized Church property, expelled foreign priests and closed all monasteries, convents and religious schools. Religious services were banned....
Following several peaceful protests – including an economic boycott that collapsed when wealthy Catholics stopped supporting it – many Catholic villagers took up arms and organized themselves into small fighting units. Initially, the rebels fared poorly. Greatly outnumbered, their leaders – including two priests, Father Aristeo Pedroza and Father Jose Reyes Vega – decided to adopt guerilla tactics....
(Excerpt) Read more at catholic-sf.org ...
Catholic ping!
I didnt know it...
Mexico is supposed to be so “Catholic”
Apparently there was a time that it wasnt...
Americans don’t know their own history, let alone Mexico’s ... and vice versa.
It isn’t really. The Catholic church was driven underground, and the regular Mexican is not very well taught.
Oddly enough it’s at least slightly familiar to many in Britain, simply because of Grahame Greene’s “The Power and the Glory”.
Ping!
Very interesting.
Never knew about this.
I have read that all of the PRI party (the party which every Mexican president belonged to until Vicente Fox was elected)were Free Masons. General Santa Ana was a free mason who escaped death when he was captured at San Jacinto by giving the secret masonic hand shake to Sam Houston. Anti-catholicism goes way back in Mexico.
Everyone should read “Robbery Under Law” by Evelyn Waugh about Mx in the Thirties.
Mexico is yet another example of the utter, demonic foulness of Marxism.
Henry Fonda portrayed a priest replacement in a B&W movie probably from the 40’s depicting this activity in a Latin scenario. Do not remember hearing the word Mexico in the movie.
Title: The Priest
Before WW II I could have been executed for being a Knight of Columbus.
Franco saved Spain from a similar fate.
Living on the border I’ve always known that the government of Mexico was hostile to the Catholic Church but it wasn’t until I read the story of Padre Pro that I realized how bad it was.
The populist revolutionaries were pushed aside by the true marxists and the result was fanatical repression for a time.
The thirties in Mexico were ugly.
The total death toll in Mexico’s revolution was in the millions, and out of it came dictatorship for a time, and more killing. A lot of the revolutionary leaders were thugs who were busy killing each other when they weren’t going after priests.
All that softened over time, but Mexico is always something other than what meets the eye. Its a fascinating place, but spooky.
Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell.
The "republicans" lost to Franco in part because they were marxists too busy slaughtering each other. I think they spent more energy executing one another than fighting the war.
Reading Orwell you can't help but be glad Franco won.
They may be but from my seat looking in they sure have babies out of wedlock. Just sayin.
Many people conceive children out of wedlock, regardless of what their stated principles on the matter are. People can be faithful and foolish at the same time. Catholics have long been having babies out of wedlock. That doesn’t mean they are not Catholic. But it can mean they are more committed to actually giving birth to the children they conceive out of wedlock than some other people are, and getting married and raising the children. A number of people in my extended family did that. They rose to the occasion and ultimately became heads of good Catholic families.
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