AFFAIRS IN MEXICO.

Waikato Times, Volume 102, Issue 17133, 21 June 1927, Page 2

AFFAIRS IN MEXICO.

l THE PRESIDENT RENOUNCED. BY EXILED PRELATES. The Most Rev. Leopold Ruiz y Florez, Archbishop of Michoacan and spokesman for several exiled Mexican Catholic prelates in Texas, U.S.A., issued a written statement denouncing President Calles and his Government as the perpetrators of an outrageous campaign against religion. Archbishop Ruiz categorically denied Mexican Government charges that the Episcopate was responsible for any revolt. The statement was issued at the -conclusion of a meeting attended by eight Mexican prelates, exiled following an attack by bandits on a passenger train near Guadalajara, when sixty or more persons were killed and many injured. “This statement is issued only under the necessity of answering a Government which believes it necessary thus to bolster up its outrageous campaign against religion," Archbishop Ruiz said. “Before.all, we declare that wc and al our priests and many laymen are victims of the cruellest religious persecution of modern times. Both the laws passed and the inhuman application of them are proof enough of that. Bishops’ Story of Arrosi Given. “An official account of our arrest and expulsion follows—• “On April 21 six of the fifteen Bishops, including Archbishop Mora y del Rio, ranking prelate, and -Archbishop Ruiz, sequestrated in the capital, were called by Minister of the Interior Telcda to bis office. He told us that, by the President’s orders, we must leave the country that night. He said—- “ ‘You are the leaders of the revolution, and by your silence after the Archbishop of Durango’s recent pastoral declaring lay Catholics justified in resort to arms in self-defence you were guilty in taking part in the rebellion.’

“This was his only declaration. He offered no proofs. . . .- He (Taieda) gave a sign to Colonel Delgado, Chief of the Secret Police. Wc were led thence under an armed guard of soldiers, and at 9 o’clock that same night we were on our way to Laredo.

“Arrived there, what was our surprise .to see a. bulletin issued by the Government ' saying “we had been offered our,.choice of undergoing trial for treason or of voluntarily leaving tho- country, and that wc had chosen the second and voluntarily gone into exile. d “It further said that these six were the leaders of the ■ revolt. It lied: These were merely six who happened to be arretsed, out of fifteen, all of whom had held out against armed rebellion. Nor was there ever any alternative offered of a trial. Calle9 Accused of Violating Law. “The Mexican Constitution itself forbids the penalty of exile to be inflicted on a Mexican, and it forbids any penalty to be imposed without a trial. Thus the President by one act, made himself legislator, witness, prosecutor, judge and executioner. “The attack on Iho Guadalajara train on April IS had been an occasion for the calumny that the Episcopate were its authors. This is false, as was the assertion that priests had taken part in it. “Archbishop Orozco has been another victim of calumny. To protect his liberty he hid himself away last October, and the angry Government spread the story that he was at the head of an armed force. It is as false as the other stories. Several priests were also accused of being under arms. “This, too, is false. Some priests offered to be chaplains for the forces of the national revolt. None, as we know, has taken up arms. If any did they would meet with our reprobation. Yet to our knowledge several priests have been brutally murdered by Federal soldiers, and not even on the pretext of taking up arms. On mere suspicion or no motive but hate many laymen, even boys, have suffered atrocious torments and death."