About Mexico - Past and Present/Appendix
APPENDIX.
Just as this volume goes to press, a book by the Hon. David A. Wells, LL.D., entitled A Study of Mexico, is issued from the house of D. Appleton & Co., New York. The following table, showing the population and the area of each of the States of Mexico according to the census of 1879, is from this book:
The following facts are given by Mr. Wells concerning the past and the present of the Church in Mexico. After the downfall of Maximilian, when Juarez became the undisputed and practically absolute ruler of the country, the entire property of the Mexican Church was at once "nationalized" (a synonym for "confiscated") for the use of the State. Mr. Wells thus describes the change that resulted: "Every convent, monastic institution, or religious house was closed up and devoted to secular purposes, and the members of every religious society, from the Jesuits to the Sisters of Charity who served in the hospitals or taught in the schools, were banished and summarily sent out of the country. And so vigorously and severely is the policy of subjugating the ecclesiastical to the civil authority—which Juarez inaugurated in 1867—still carried out that no convent or monastery now openly exists in Mexico, and no priest or sister, or any ecclesiastic, can walk the streets in any distinctive costume or take part in any religious parade or procession; and this in towns and cities where twenty years ago or less the life of a foreigner or skeptic who did not promptly kneel in the streets at the 'procession of the Host' was imperiled. Again, while Catholic worship is still permitted in the cathedrals and in a sufficient number of other churches, it is clearly understood that all of these structures and the land upon which they stand are absolutely the property of the government, liable to be sold and converted to other uses at any time, and that the officiating clergy are only 'tenants at will.' Even the ringing of the church-bells is regulated by law. All these rites, furthermore—which the Catholic Church has always 'classed as among her holy sacraments and exclusive privileges, and the possession of which has constituted the chief source of her power over society—are also now regulated by civil law. The civil authority registers births, performs the marriage ceremony and provides for the burial of the dead, and, while the Church marriage ceremonies are not prohibited to those who desire them, they are legally superfluous and alone have no validity whatever.' (See Report on Church and State in Mexico to the State Department by Consul-General Strother, December, 1883.)
"How the lower orders of the Mexican people other than the distinctive Indian population regarded the proceedings of the government against the Church is thus described by M. Désiré Charney in the account of his researches in Central America: 'Upon the suppression of the monastic orders in Mexico, and the confiscation of the property of the clergy, and the demolition of certain churches and convents, the multitude protested, but without violence. The leperos, all covered as they were with medals, rosaries and scapulars, pulled down the houses of their fetiches, while the old women—indignant witnesses of the sacrilege—ejaculated their avés without ceasing. The exiles had fulminated the major excommunication against whoever should have act or part in the work of demolition or should tread the streets cut through the grounds of the torn-down convents, but after a week or so all fear vanished, and not only did the destroyers go about their work without remorse, but they even used the sacred wood-work of the churches to make their kitchen-fires, and the new streets had their passengers like the older ones.'—North American Review, October, 1880.
"Mr. Strother, who has studied the matter very carefully, suggests that an explanation may be found in the character of the Indian races of Mexico, who constitute the bulk of the population, and 'whose native spirit of independence predominates over all other sentiments.' He also throws out the opinion that 'the aborigines of the country never were completely Christianized, but, awed by force or dazzled by showy ceremonials, accepted the external forms of the new faith as a sort of compromise with the conquerors.' And he states that he has himself recently attended 'religious festivals where the Indians assisted, clothed and armed as in the days of Montezuma, with a curious intermingling of Christian and pagan emblems, and ceremonies closely resembling some of the sacred dances of the North American tribes.' It is also asserted that on the anniversaries of the ancient Aztec festivals garlands are hung upon the great stone idol that stands in the court-yard of the National Museum, and that the natives of the mountain-villages sometimes steal away on such days to the lonely forests or hidden caves to worship in secret the gods of their ancestors. But, be the explanation what it may, it is greatly to the credit of Mexico, and one of the brightest auguries for her future, that after years of war and social and political revolutions, in which the adherents both of liberty and absolutism have seemed to vie with each other in outraging humanity, the idea of a constitutional government based on the broadest republican principles has lived, and to as large an extent as has perhaps been possible under the circumstances practically asserted itself in a national administrative system.
"When the traveler visits the cities of Mexico and sees the number and extent of the convents, religious houses and churches which, having been confiscated, are either in the process of decay or occupied for secular purposes, and in the country has pointed out to him the estates which were formerly the property of the Church, he gets some realization of the nature of the work which Juarez had the ability and the courage to accomplish. And when he further reflects on the numbers of idle, shiftless, and certainly to some extent profligate, people who tenanted or were supported by these great properties, and who, producing nothing and consuming everything, virtually lived on the superstitious fears of their countrymen—which they at the same time did their best to create and perpetuate—he no longer wonders that Mexico and her people are poor and degraded, but rather that they are not poorer and more degraded than they are.
"What amount of property was owned by the Mexican Church and clergy previous to its secularization is not certainly known—at least, by the public. It is agreed that they at one time held the titles to all the best property of the republic, both in city and in country, and there is said to have been an admission by the clerical authorities to the ownership of eight hundred and sixty-one estates in the country, valued at seventy-one million dollars, and of twenty-two thousand lots of city property, valued at one hundred and thirteen million dollars, making a total of one hundred and eighty-four million dollars. Other estimates, more general in their character, are to the effect that the former aggregate wealth of the Mexican Church cannot have been less than three hundred million dollars; and, according to Mr. Strother, it is not improbable that even this large estimate falls short of the truth, 'inasmuch as it is admitted that the Mexican ecclesiastical body well understood the value of money as an element of power, and, as bankers and money-lenders for the nation, possessed vast assets which could not be publicly known or estimated' Notwithstanding, also, the great losses which the Church had undoubtedly experienced prior to the accession of Juarez, in 1867, and his control of the State, the annual revenue of the Mexican clergy at that time, from tithes, gifts, charities and parochial dues, is believed to have been not less than twenty-two million dollars, or more than the entire aggregate revenues of the State derived from all its customs and internal taxes. Some of the property that thus came into possession of the government was quickly sold by it, and at very low prices, and, very curiously, was bought, in some notable instances, by other religious (Protestant) denominations, which previous to 1857 had not been allowed to obtain even so much as tolerance or a foothold in the country. Thus, the former spacious headquarters of the order of the Franciscans, with one of the most elegant and beautifully-proportioned chapels in the world within its walls, and fronting in part on the Calle de San Francisco, the most fashionable street in the City of Mexico, was sold to Bishop Riley and a well-known philanthropist of New York, acting for the American Episcopal missions, at an understood price of thirty-five thousand dollars, and is now valued at over two hundred thousand dollars. In like manner, the American Baptist missionaries have gained an ownership or control in the city of Puebla of the old palace of the Inquisition, and in the City of Mexico the former enormous palace of the Inquisition is now a medical college, while the Plaza de San Domingo, which adjoins and fronts the church of San Domingo, and where the auto-da-fé was once held, is now used as a market-place. A former magnificent old convent, to some extent reconstructed and repaired, also affords quarters to the National Library, which in turn is largely made up of spoils gathered from the libraries of the religious 'orders' and houses. The national government, however, does not appear to have derived any great fiscal advantage from the confiscation of the Church property, or to have availed itself of the resources which thus came to it for effecting any marked reduction of the national debt. Good Catholics would not buy 'God's property' and take titles from the State, and so large tracts of land and blocks of city buildings passed at a very low figure into the possession of those who were indifferent to the Church and had command of ready money; and in this way individuals rather than the State and the great body of the people have been benefited."