RELIGION IN MEXICO

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 189, 12 May 1928, Page 11

RELIGION IN MEXICO

Sir, —At a meeting of the Roman Catholic bishops held in Wellington last week, it was decided to forward to the Roman Catholic Episcopate in Mexico a resolution the text of which appeared in your columns of the Sth inst. After reciting several free opinions as to recent events in Mexico, opinions which on the facts find no support, the resolution refers to the “notorious facts of the aggressively atheistic war against reJigion in Mexico.” I inn as well acquainted with the actual facts as any member of the meeting that passed the resolution, and they contradict the statement quoted. Let two facts speak for themselves: The Mexican Government has ordered the Bible to be placed in and read in every State school in Mexico. That is being done, and it does not comport with an “atheistic war against religion.” Further, speaking in the Mexican House of Congress recently, Deputy Diaz Soto y Gama said: "I shall close my discourse by honouring that holy name which the Roman Church has forgotten—namely, Jesus Christ. (Applause.) And in doing so lam certain I have the sympathy aiid the hearty endorsement of each member of this august Assembly. The thinking men of this Assembly believe in and love the Christ. . . . We know of. nothing more beautiful, more revolutionary, more moving, more holy or more progressive than the Gospel of Christ. ... I do not agree that the present revolutionary tendencies aim at the unchristianisation of Mexico. The revolutionary party would like to see all Catholics become Christian more and more, and we ourselves would like to be better Christians.’’ Rarely even in a Parliament within bur own Empire would we hear so clear and emphatic an expression of faith and, perhaps, more rarely still, so earnest personal confession. —I am. etc.. HOWARD ELLIOTT. .Wallington, May V.