File No. 812.404/3.
Vice Consul Silliman to the Secretary of State.
Tampico, July 27, 1914.
Sir: I have the honor to quote herewith a translation made by myself of the decree of the Governor of the State of Nuevo Leon, Gov. Villareal, regarding the Catholic clergy and the Roman Catholic Church in that State: [Page 875]
Decree of the Governor of the State of Nuevo Leon, Antonio I. Villareal, Governor and Military Commander of the State of Nuevo Leon, to the inhabitants thereof, Greeting:
For reasons of public welfare, and complying with the unavoidable dictates of justice and morality, this Government has decided to suppress and punish within the limits of the State of Nuevo Leon the Roman Catholic clergy, taking into account the following considerations:
- 1.
- During our whole National life, the clerics of Mexico, have been a pernicious factor of disorganization and discord; for, in forgetfulness of their spiritual mission, the only reason they have for existence under the tolerant spirit of modern society, they have devoted themselves mainly to controlling the direction of public affairs and to the complete domination of the politics of the country. To obtain this object, they have ever sought an alliance with our reactionary and despotic governments and even with foreigners, and when they could not be helping a Bustamente or a Santa Ana, they have called from Europe a Maximilian; on the other hand they have shown themselves the implacable enemy of every liberal and progressive movement from that of our National independence and the Revolution of Ayutla, until the present revolution, and they have fulminated their ridiculous excommunications against the greatest and grandest benefactors of the country: Hidalgo, Juarez, and Lerdo de Tejada.
- 2.
- The forceful and clerical dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz and Victoriano Huerta against which the people, in these later years have heroically fought, have had all the sympathy and aid of the Mexican Church which has ever striven that light should not shine upon the darkness of the oppressed, and which has loved to weld the chains of those who suffer. The clergy has had blessings for the crimes and the repugnant corruptions of Huerta and has worked, fortunately without success, to induce the credulous proletariat to rise against the Constitutionalist movement which has come for their redemption.
- 3.
- The clergy, on account of its very character and its way of living, in open contradiction with nature, whose laws can not be violated with impunity, tends to corruption, carries in itself the germs of corruption which reaches excess, when, as has happened among us, its power and its privileges are unrestrained. Clerical corruption has come to be a threat against morality in Mexico. The Confessional and the Sacristy are to be feared as anterooms of prostitution. To suppress them is a holy and regenerative work, as is also the closing of Catholic schools and the expulsion of Jesuits and teaching brothers (friars) foreign and Mexican, which this Government will do, excepting only those who can prove that they have not been allied with the men of the uprising at Mexico against Madero. In the Catholic schools the truth is perverted; the pure white soul of childhood, the idealistic burning spirit of youth is deformed, and as an instrument for the ambitions of the clericals there are chosen young spirits which in an environment more honorable and free might have come to be apostles of liberty and progress.
- 4.
- It is a supreme national necessity and an obligation which can not be avoided by the Constitutional revolution, to take energetic and effective measures to dig up from the root, and once for all, put an end to the abominable abuses of the Catholic clergy and terminate the grave danger which this institution, more political than religious, has for the future tranquillity and progress of the fatherland.
It is not the intention of this Government to ignore the liberty of conscience or to persecute what is really worship among Catholics while other religionists enjoy guarantees, and for this reason it is agreed that five of the Catholic churches of Monterey may be reopened for public worship, but it being necessary, and this Government being firm in its determination to maintain the Catholic clergy and the Catholic worship within the limit of its spiritual mission, without allowing it any influence, politically, economically, or educationally, has resolved to impose the following orders for the Catholic schools and worship.
The decree consists of eight articles which were wired to the Department in a radiogram yesterday.
I have [etc.]