UNHAPPY MEXICO.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume VII, Issue 356, 13 February 1880, Page 17

UNHAPPY MEXICO.

A correspondent of the Erie, Pa., Lalie Shore Visitor sends the following notes on one of the provinces of Mexico :—: —

The Church has been bitterly persecuted by the powers that be in Mexico, atw? that tender mother that has civilised the country and Christianised the wild Indian and savage, who were sitting in darkness and the shadow of death, is now hampered and maltreated by ungrateful sons. If her enemies, or those outside the fold had opposed her and made war against her sacred institutions, she might not have so complained, but it is her own children who have raised the hand to strike the fatal blow, if possible — ungrateful vipers nourished and fed on her maternal bosom, and now intent on destroying it to the core. The authorities, and the big ones of the nation, the oif-scourings of liberalism and the dregs and dross of society, have conspired against God and His Church ; they have combined together to banish from the country all religious orders ; the poor Sisters of Charity who were doing so much good in instructing the youth and consoling the widow and the orphan, were publicly denounced and ordered to leave the country, and hence as many as 500 Sisters, in one day, are exiled from their country and turned out on the world to btarve or to die. Their communities are disbanded, the religious temples desecrated and all their property confiscated.

Monasteries of religious men are also similarly disposed of. There is now a system of national schools established, which is working havoc among the youth, for they are brought up in these schools without ever hearing anything religious, or receiving any knowledge of the Supreme Being, as every form of religion is strictly forbidden to be taught : hence the young after leaving these schools are more degraded in the moral scale than before entering, for they become, in most instances unmanageable and unhealthy subjects of society. The general Government might as well be throwing water iuto the ocean, lifting it up again with a pitchfork, or flinging feathers against the wind, as trying to make -good Mexican citizens by this system of education. Though the schools are numerous in most parts of the country, yet the people, boys and girls, are quite ignorant ; not one out of fifteen persons being able to write his or her name ; and when the old people, who still possess the faith, depart this life, woe be to the state of affairs in another generation. The old prince of darkness is now at the wheel, and is likely to hold on to the top for some time to come — " ab insidiU diahoU, libera Damme."

Out of fourteen daily papers published in the City of Mexico, only one speaks a good word in favour of the Catholic Church ; the rest support other denominations and the liberal party. I find also that of fifty-one papers published in the Republic, only three maintain their Holy Mother and the Church ; the other forty -ei»ht are vomiting oaore filth on the faith of their fathers thau ever Nast, or the nasty Harper's has done ; but now seems to be hour of darkness in this land for the diabolus is running mad, taaquani leo vugien* qiierems ytian devoret. In the diocese of Lapaz and Baja, California, religion is in a hampered and deplorable condition ; the good shepherd has been stricken, and his flock dispersed, so that the diocese for some years has b^en without a bishop, and, I might almost say, without a priest, as I know but two on the entire peninsula. The faithful Bishop Moreno, the meek and humble minister of Christ and conscientious dispenser of the mysteries of God, has been persecuted and exiled from his See by the Government, which seems to be bent on plundering, outraging and killing everything religious. There is no doubt, however, that the Church will come out victorious, and still live, though her bishops be delivered up in {the synagogues to be condemned and scourged. __________ r - M>