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 Cfturct) anb &tate m JWexico 
 
 OPINION OF AMERICAN COUNSEL 
 
 AS TO THE PROVISIONS OF THE MEXICAN CONSTITUTION OF 
 
 1917 AND OF THE DECREE OF PRESIDENT CALLES OF 
 
 JUNE 14, 1926. 
 
 The opinion of American counsel has been requested 
 in regard to the provisions of the Mexican Constitu¬ 
 tion of 1917 and of the Decree of President Calles of 
 June 14, 1926, which relate to religion and education 
 in Mexico in so far as these provisions affect the rights of 
 the Roman Catholic Church and of the ministers and 
 members of that faith in Mexico. For the purpose of 
 this opinion, it will be assumed, although apparently 
 doubtful, that the Mexican Constitution of 1917 was 
 legally adopted and that the Presidential Decree of 1926 
 was legally issued. The Constitution was, however, 
 never submitted to the people of Mexico, but was im¬ 
 posed upon them by a revolutionary and militant 
 minority without due action on the part of the Mexican 
 Congress. It is further assumed, after investigation and 
 conference with Mexican counsel, that, in the respects dis¬ 
 cussed below, the Roman Catholic Church and her 
 bishops, priests and laymen, as well as all other churches 
 in Mexico, are now substantially remediless in the local 
 courts so far as Mexican law and procedure are applicable 
 to the matters dealt with in this opinion, and that resort 
 thereto would be entirely vain and futile. 
 
The provisions of the Mexican Constitution and 
 Presidential Decree specifically discussed below are in the 
 opinion of the undersigned American counsel in violation 
 of long-established rules of international law and of the 
 fundamental principles of liberty and justice which are 
 recognized in all civilized countries, as well as in viola¬ 
 tion of fundamental and essential principles of con¬ 
 stitutional law, as that term is understood among Ameri¬ 
 cans, in that they conflict with American elementary con¬ 
 ceptions of liberty, private property, free exercise of 
 religion, and freedom of speech and of the press. The pro¬ 
 visions hereinafter mentioned would in the opinion of the 
 undersigned be held by American courts to be unconstitu¬ 
 tional and void whether enacted by Congress or by any 
 State Legislature. It is regretted that the limits of a legal 
 opinion prevent a more comprehensive and exhaustive 
 discussion of far-reaching principles of human freedom 
 and of the rights of men which are not challenged in 
 any country or under any regime worthy of the name 
 of liberty, equality, or fraternity in the true and vivify¬ 
 ing sense of each of these political principles, but which 
 are now being violated in Mexico. 
 
 The principal questions arising under the Mexican 
 Constitution of 1917 and the Presidential Decree of 
 1926, which latter professes to carry out and enforce the 
 Constitution and render it practically effective, will be 
 considered as concisely as practicable under five sub¬ 
 divisions or heads, viz., (1) international law, (2) sepa¬ 
 ration of Church and State, (3) confiscation of church 
 property, (4) education, and (5) international relations. 
 
 The translation of the Mexican Constitutions of 
 1857 and 1917, which was printed this year by the 
 
 2 
 
United States Government Printing Office at Washing¬ 
 ton, will be used in connection with this opinion, al¬ 
 though in respect of important terms and their possible 
 construction by officials or courts in Mexico, an effort 
 has been made to verify such translation by reference to 
 dictionaries, publications and conference with Mexican 
 counsel, to the end that so far as practicable the risk of 
 misinterpretation or misrepresentation in so important a 
 matter should be avoided. The extracts from the Mexi¬ 
 can Constitution and Presidential Decree are not sum¬ 
 marized and hence are unavoidably lengthy, because any 
 epitome might seem either incredible or distorted, and the 
 actual provisions must, consequently, be left to speak for 
 themselves. 
 
 1 . 
 
 VIOLATION OF RIGHTS OF ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH 
 UNDER INTERNATIONAL LAW, 
 
 The Mexican Constitution of 1917 provides in 
 Article 130 that— 
 
 “The law recognizes no juridical [r. e. juristic] 
 personality in the religious institutions known as 
 churches." 
 
 The deliberate intent and the direct effect of this con¬ 
 stitutional enactment is that all churches in Mexico are 
 denied the right either to petition the Mexican Congress 
 or to appeal to the courts for redress of wrongs, however 
 grave and unlawful, or for protection against oppression 
 or violation of the commonest rights by government offi¬ 
 cials or otherwise. The churches are deprived of all 
 means of redress and protection, and denied any legal or 
 
 3 
 
juristic personality whatever; and the Roman Catholic 
 Church cannot appeal to Congress or to the courts to 
 enforce its property rights, which is in direct violation 
 of long-established principles of international law, or as 
 it is termed in Europe, Africa and Asia, the law of na¬ 
 tions, or the jus gentium of the Roman law. 
 
 Thus, last September, when the Roman Catholic 
 Hierarchy, to which faith belong fully ninety-five per 
 centum of the Mexican population so far as it professes 
 any Christian faith, respectfully presented to the Mexican 
 Congress a petition seeking the redress of grievances and 
 protection against violations of church rights which are 
 recognized to-day by every civilized country in the world 
 and protesting against the confiscation of church property, 
 the petition was laid on the table and wholly disregarded, 
 if not spurned, either because the Catholic Church under 
 the Mexican Constitution of 1917 had no juridical 
 (juristic) personality or capacity to present any petition 
 whatever, or because the Catholic Bishops so petitioning 
 had lost their citizenship and right to petition by having 
 violated Article 37, which provides as follows: 
 
 “Art. 37. Citizenship shall be lost: . . . 
 
 “III. By compromising themselves in any way be¬ 
 fore ministers of any religious creed or before any other 
 person not to observe the present Constitution, or the 
 laws arising thereunder." * 
 
 This denial to the Roman Catholic Church of juristic 
 entity or personality violates international law among 
 all civilized nations under principles of universal accept- 
 
 * See The New York Times, October 3, 1926, and appendix hereto con¬ 
 taining statement of Mexican Episcopate. 
 
 4 
 
ance “both in the law of continental Europe and in the 
 common law of England," as has been emphatically 
 declared by the Supreme Court of the United States. 
 
 In the case of Ponce V. Roman Catholic Church 
 (1908), 210 United States Reports, pp. 296 et seq., that 
 court was called upon to consider and adjudicate upon the 
 issue whether the Roman Catholic Church could sue in 
 Porto Rico to protect its property rights against at¬ 
 tempted spoliation. The case is especially instructive 
 because the court reviewed the history of Spain in re¬ 
 spects equally applicable to Mexico, which was itself for 
 centuries a Spanish colony or dominion. The opinion 
 was delivered by the late Chief Justice Fuller, and among 
 the statements applicable to the present discussion (at 
 pp. 314-15, 318-19) were the following: 
 
 “The Spanish law as to the juristic capacity of the 
 church at the time of the cession [t. e,, of Porto Rico 
 from Spain to the United States in 1919 under the 
 Treaty of Paris] merely followed the principles of the 
 Roman law, which have had such universal acceptance, 
 both in the law of continental Europe and in the com¬ 
 mon law of England. . . . The right of the church to 
 own, maintain and hold such properties was unques¬ 
 tioned, and the church continued in undisputed pos¬ 
 session thereof. . . . 
 
 “This was the status at the moment of the annexa¬ 
 tion, and by reason of the treaty, as well as under the 
 rules of international law prevailing among civilized 
 nations, this property is inviolable. 
 
 “The corporate existence of the Roman Catholic 
 Church, as well as the position occupied by the Papacy, 
 has always been recognized by the Government of the 
 United States. . . , 
 
 5 
 
“The proposition, therefore, that the church had no 
 corporate or jural personality seems to be completely 
 answered by an examination of the law and history of 
 the Roman Empire, of Spain and of Porto Rico down 
 to the time of the cession, and by the recognition ac¬ 
 corded to it as an ecclesiastical body by the Treaty of 
 
 Paris and by the law of nations. 
 
 .by the Spanish law, from the earliest 
 
 moment of the settlement of the island to the present 
 time, the corporate existence of the Catholic Church 
 has been recognized." 
 
 In concluding the unanimous opinion of the Supreme 
 Court, its learned and revered Chief Justice used the 
 following language (pp. 323-4) : 
 
 “We accept the conclusions of appellee's counsel 
 [Messrs. Coudert, Kingsbury and Fuller] as thus sum¬ 
 marized: . . . 
 
 “ 'Second. The Roman Catholic Church has been 
 recognized as possessing legal personality by the 
 Treaty of Paris and its property rights solemnly safe¬ 
 guarded. In so doing the treaty has merely followed 
 the recognized rule of international law which would 
 have protected the property of the church in Porto 
 Rico subsequent to the cession. This juristic person¬ 
 ality and the church's ownership of property had been 
 recognized in the most formal way by the concordats 
 between Spain and the Papacy and by the Spanish laws 
 from the beginning of settlements in the Indies. Such 
 recognition has also been accorded the church by all 
 systems of European law from the fourth century of 
 the Christian era. 
 
 6 
 
“ ‘Third. The fact that the municipality may have 
 furnished some of the funds for building or repair¬ 
 ing the churches cannot aifect the title of the Roman 
 Catholic Church, to whom such funds were thus irre¬ 
 vocably donated and by whom these temples were 
 erected and dedicated to religious uses.’ ” 
 
 This decision of the Supreme Court of the United 
 States establishes that the provision of the Mexican Con¬ 
 stitution of 1917, Article 130, denying juristic person¬ 
 ality to the churches is clearly in violation of a recognized 
 rule of international law. To the same effect are the 
 decisions in the cases of Santos V. Roman Catholic 
 Church, 212 United States Reports, at pp. 463 et seq., 
 and Barlin V. Ramirez, 7 Philippine Reports, at pp. 41 
 et seq. 
 
 There can be no doubt whatever, in the opinion of 
 the undersigned American counsel, that if such a provi¬ 
 sion as is contained in Article 130 of the Mexican Consti¬ 
 tution of 1917, depriving the Roman Catholic Church 
 of juristic personality and thereby of the right to sue or 
 to petition, were contained in any statute of our Federal 
 Congress or in any state constitution or statute, it would 
 be declared by our courts of justice to be unconstitutional 
 and void because depriving the Roman Catholic Church 
 of liberty and property without due process of law and 
 denying to it the equal protection of the law, which lat¬ 
 ter principle is itself contained in and of the very essence 
 of “due process of law’’ in American jurisprudence. If, 
 moreover, there were now any international judicial 
 tribunal, such as the Permanent Court of International 
 Justice, which had jurisdiction over Mexico and of such 
 controversies, or power to enunciate an advisory opinion 
 
 7 
 
thereon (as to which the undersigned is not called upon 
 at present to express an opinion), the juristic personality 
 of the Roman Catholic Church would be upheld within 
 the universally recognized rule of international law illus¬ 
 trated as above by a Chief Justice of the United States 
 speaking for the unanimous court. 
 
 Indeed, as stated by Chief Justice Fuller, “the corpo¬ 
 rate existence of the Roman Catholic Church, as well as 
 the position occupied by the Papacy, has always been 
 recognized by the Government of the United States.” 
 Many examples might be cited and would be were it not 
 for the necessarily limited length of this opinion. But 
 conspicuous and most pertinent among these examples 
 would be the controversy which arose between the 
 Roman Catholic Church and the Republic of Mexico in 
 respect of the fund known as the “Pious Fund of Cali¬ 
 fornia,” which Mexico sought to confiscate although such 
 fund had had a separate existence recognized by her sev¬ 
 eral governments for the period of one hundred and sixty 
 years. The Government of the United States intervened 
 on behalf of the Roman Catholic Bishops in whom the 
 title and control of such fund had become vested as mat¬ 
 ter of right. By those readers who are interested in hav¬ 
 ing full and accurate information upon this important 
 subject, reference should be made to The History of the 
 Pious Fund of California, by John T. Doyle, San Fran¬ 
 cisco, California, 1887 (a publication of The California 
 Historical Society), and The Hague Arbitration Cases, 
 by George Grafton Wilson, Boston, 1915. 
 
 As this opinion is being finally revised, the press con¬ 
 tains information* of the submission by President Calles 
 
 * See The Neiv York Times of November 7, 1926. 
 
 8 
 
to the Mexican Congress of a still more rigid church bill, 
 which is to emphasize that the law no longer recognizes 
 any legal or juristic personality in the religious groups 
 known as churches and that consequently churches do 
 not have any of the rights which the law concedes to 
 persons. It is reported that the purpose of the Presi¬ 
 dent in this bill is to seal any possible loophole and to 
 prepare the way for the rigid and absolute enforcement 
 of the religious clauses of the Mexican Constitution. It 
 is further stated that if Congress does not pass the bill, 
 President Calles has power to promulgate it on his own 
 account. Thus, even if some of the religious clauses of 
 the Mexican Constitution of 1917 might be reasonably 
 interpreted and enforced, the extent to which a hostile 
 Congress or President may go is unlimited. In the lead¬ 
 ing case of Yick Wo v. Hopkins (1886), 118 United 
 States Reports, at pp. 356, 373, the Supreme Court of 
 the United States, in holding that a Chinaman was en¬ 
 titled to the full protection of our Constitution, among 
 other things, said: 
 
 “Though the law itself be fair on its face and im¬ 
 partial in appearance, yet, if it is applied and admin¬ 
 istered by public authority with an evil eye and an 
 unequal hand, so as practically to make unjust and 
 illegal discriminations between persons in similar cir¬ 
 cumstances, material to their rights, the denial of 
 equal justice is still within the prohibition of the Con¬ 
 stitution.” 
 
 2 . 
 
 THE ALLEGED SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE. 
 
 It is believed that it may facilitate a better and truer 
 understanding of the questions involved in the Mexican 
 
 9 
 
situation if it be at the outset appreciated that, whatever 
 may be protested or pretended in its behalf and defense, 
 the Mexican Government is not attempting in good faith 
 to bring about the separation of Church and State as 
 Americans conceive the substance of such separation, nor 
 is it attempting merely to prevent alleged ecclesiastical 
 intervention or interference in politics or in matters of 
 state. On the contrary, both the Mexican Constitution 
 and the Presidential Decree now in question are calcu¬ 
 lated and, indeed, deliberately intended to bring about a 
 more entire domination by the State over the Church than 
 has ever existed before, and to place under the absolute 
 control and supervision of the Mexican Federal and State 
 Governments every church in Mexico, and preeminently 
 the Roman Catholic Church and her temples, which, to 
 repeat, represent the religious faith of more than nineteen- 
 twentieths of the population. The membership of other 
 churches, it is understood and counsel has been so in¬ 
 structed, may be reasonably asserted to be comparatively 
 almost negligible so far as numbers are concerned; but 
 they, of course, are equally affected and interested and 
 will inevitably be equally subjugated and oppressed if 
 they ever attempt to free themselves from governmental 
 control and direction, though unhappily some of their 
 spokesmen do not seem to perceive this and prefer to join 
 in the attacks on the Roman Catholic Church in Mexico. 
 
 Under the 1917 Constitution, all church buildings 
 in Mexico are being confiscated; and all Catholic orphan 
 asylums, hospitals, colleges, convents, monasteries, etc., 
 though devoted as they are to the noblest of charities, 
 have likewise been confiscated and arbitrarily made the 
 property of the State. The spoliation has been as com- 
 
 10 
 
prehensive, complete and ruthless as all-inclusive lan¬ 
 guage and vindictive enforcement could make it. The 
 churches no longer own anything in the eyes of Mexi¬ 
 can constitutional law! As we have seen they have been 
 deprived of all juridical or juristic personality in order 
 to deprive them even of the right to appeal for protec¬ 
 tion or redress to the courts of justice or to the Mexican 
 Congress. The Mexican Government proposes to deter¬ 
 mine which of the church buildings so confiscated shall 
 continue to be used for the holy purpose of divine wor¬ 
 ship; the State is to have the exclusive power to determine 
 the number of ministers of any creed who may belong 
 to any church, and these must be Mexican by birth; the 
 State is to license, which means in final analysis select, 
 all Catholic priests, all Protestant ministers, all Jewish 
 rabbis; the churches are placed at all times under the 
 supervision of political appointees, and the federal au¬ 
 thorities are expressly granted by the Constitution of 
 1917 power to intervene even in matters of religious 
 worship and outward ecclesiastical forms as may be au¬ 
 thorized by any law, that is to say, by Presidential Decree, 
 or legislation by the Federal Congress or the several State 
 Legislatures. 
 
 It would, as it seems to the undersigned American 
 counsel, be simply preposterous to claim that these provi¬ 
 sions were intended to produce or promote in good faith 
 the separation of Church and State in Mexico. On the 
 contrary, a more complete subjugation of Church to State 
 could not be devised by the wit of man. Certainly, no 
 precedent of any such complete absorption of church con¬ 
 trol and regulation or governance of divine worship even 
 in state churches by the State has ever before been at- 
 
 11 
 
tempted in modern times except in Soviet Russia and 
 Jacobin France, and no such precedent can be recalled in 
 the history of Christianity or Judaism. 
 
 The Roman Catholic Church is not opposing the 
 separation of Church and State in Mexico, provided such 
 separation be not a sham and screen and will leave the 
 Church free to teach the Gospel and to educate children 
 and inculcate sound and true spiritual doctrines and 
 moral rules of conduct without dictation from or super¬ 
 vision by government officials and subject only to rea¬ 
 sonable police regulations. 
 
 In the opinion of the undersigned American counsel, 
 the Roman Catholic Church could not reasonably or 
 properly have accepted or submitted to any such control 
 and supervision as are now exercisable by the Mexican 
 Government under the Mexican Constitution of 1917 
 and the Presidential Decree of 1926. In fact, had the 
 undersigned been consulted prior to the action of the 
 Mexican Catholic Hierarchy and the Papacy in ordering 
 the discontinuance of religious services in the Catholic 
 churches, he would, with the deepest sense of professional 
 duty and responsibility, have advised the cessation of all 
 religious services under such governmental control and 
 supervision, because in his opinion submission to the en¬ 
 forcement of the Constitution and Presidential Decree 
 would inevitably lead to the subordination of the Roman 
 Catholic Church in Mexico to the power of the State, 
 the dictation of politicians, the complete union of Church 
 and State, and the sacrifice of the independence and free¬ 
 dom which are essential to the true and proper function¬ 
 ing and discipline of any church of whatever religion. 
 It would furthermore be absurd and preposterous to call 
 such a condition religious liberty. 
 
 12 
 
The views of the noblest and most philosophic 
 minds, the glory of the human intellect during the past 
 two centuries, might readily be quoted in overwhelming 
 support of the proposition that church government must 
 be free from outside governmental and political dictation. 
 Furthermore, no such scheme as the present attempt of 
 Mexican politicians to establish a Mexican National 
 Church and a scission from due church government under 
 the Roman Catholic Church could be acquiesced in with¬ 
 out inevitably leading to separation from Rome and the 
 establishment of a so-called Mexican National Catholic 
 Church without any true or proper Catholic government 
 thereof. This is necessarily in clear conflict with the basic 
 doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church and the deep 
 belief of her members that she is ecumenical and universal 
 in the very sense and scope of the belief that all peoples 
 ought to worship one and the same God, and that their 
 Church was founded by Christ, true God and true Man, 
 for the governance of the spiritual life of all men living 
 under all skies, irrespective of nationality and irrespective 
 of origin, class, or condition in life, even of servitude. 
 
 But above this consideration is a fundamental con¬ 
 ception which all in her holy communion profoundly 
 believe, and that is, that the Roman Catholic Church is 
 not only of divine origin but is destined to be eternal in 
 the destiny of man, per omnia saecula saeculorum. With 
 such a belief and a polity in its support which is “the very 
 masterpiece of human wisdom," the Church cannot tem¬ 
 porize anywhere, in any country, with such a subversive, 
 tyrannical and destructive system as is now being main¬ 
 tained by brutal force in suffering Mexico. The Roman 
 Catholic Church must be true to her mission, though 
 meantime the people of Mexico may have to endure great 
 
 13 
 
spiritual suffering. Eighty-six years ago a great his¬ 
 torian, Macaulay, who was hostile to and prejudiced 
 against the Papacy, wrote of the permanence, not to say 
 eternity, of the Roman Catholic Church in a famous and 
 familiar passage, the following, viz.: 
 
 “There is not, and there never was on this earth, a 
 work of human policy so well deserving of examina¬ 
 tion as the Roman Catholic Church. The history of 
 that Church joins together the two great ages of 
 human civilization. No other institution is left stand¬ 
 ing which carries the mind back to the times when the 
 smoke of sacrifice rose from the Pantheon, and when 
 camelopards and tigers abounded in the Flavian 
 Amphitheatre. The proudest royal houses are but of 
 yesterday when compared with the line of the Supreme 
 Pontiffs. That line we trace back in an unbroken series 
 from the Pope who crowned Napoleon in the nine¬ 
 teenth century to the Pope who crowned Pepin in the 
 eighth; and far beyond the time of Pepin the august 
 dynasty extends, till it is lost in the twilight of fable. 
 The republic of Venice came next in antiquity. But 
 the republic of Venice was modern when compared 
 with the Papacy; and the republic of Venice is gone, 
 and the Papacy remains. The Papacy remains, not 
 in decay, not a mere antique, but full of life and youth¬ 
 ful vigour. The Catholic Church is still sending forth 
 to the farthest ends of the world missionaries as zeal¬ 
 ous as those who landed in Kent with Augustin, and 
 still confronting hostile kings with the same spirit 
 with which she confronted Attila. The number of 
 her children is greater than in any former age. Her 
 acquisitions in the New World have more than com- 
 
 14 
 
pensated for what she has lost in the Old. Her spirit¬ 
 ual ascendency extends over the vast countries which 
 lie between the plains of the Missouri and Cape Horn, 
 countries which, a century hence, may not improb¬ 
 ably contain a population as large as that which now 
 inhabits Europe. The members of her communion 
 are certainly not fewer than a hundred and fifty mil¬ 
 lions [/. e. in 1840]; and it will be difficult to show 
 that all other Christian sects united amount to a hun¬ 
 dred and twenty millions. Nor do we see any sign 
 which indicates that the term of her long dominion is 
 approaching. She saw the commencement of all the 
 governments and of all the ecclesiastical establishments 
 that now exist in the world; and we feel no assurance 
 that she is not destined to see the end of them all. 
 She was great and respected before the Saxon had set 
 foot on Britain, before the Frank had passed the 
 Rhine, when Grecian eloquence still flourished in 
 Antioch, when idols were still worshipped in the tem¬ 
 ple of Mecca. And she may still exist in undiminished 
 vigour when some traveller from New Zealand shall, 
 in the midst of a vast solitude, take his stand on a 
 broken arch of London Bridge to sketch the ruins of 
 St. Paul’s.''* 
 
 Three pertinent quotations from authorities are all 
 that can further reasonably be made in this legal opinion: 
 the first from Chancellor Kent in his famous Commen¬ 
 taries on American Law; the second from Lord Acton 
 in his masterwork entitled, The History of Freedom and 
 other Essays, London, 1909, and the third, from a deci¬ 
 sion of the Supreme Court of the United States. 
 
 * Macaulay’s Works, London, 1897, vol. vi, pp. 454-5, Essay on Ranke's 
 History of the Popes, 
 
 15 
 
Chancellor Kent in his Commentaries discussed re¬ 
 ligious liberty, and, among other things, said (vol. 2, p. 
 *34) as follows: 
 
 “The free exercise and enjoyment of religious pro¬ 
 fession and worship may be considered as one of the 
 absolute rights of individuals, recognized in our 
 American constitutions, and secured to them by law. 
 Civil and religious liberty generally go hand in hand, 
 and the suppression of either of them, for any length 
 of time, will terminate the existence of the other." 
 
 Lord Acton wrote as follows (at pp. 151-2): 
 
 “Civil and religious liberty are so commonly asso¬ 
 ciated in people's mouths, and are so rare in fact, that 
 their definition is evidently as little understood as the 
 principle of their connection. The point at which 
 they unite, the common root from which they derive 
 their sustenance, is the right of self-government. The 
 modern theory, which has swept away every authority 
 except that of the State, and has made the sovereign 
 power irresistible by multiplying those who share it, 
 is the enemy of that common freedom in which relig¬ 
 ious liberty is included. It condemns, as a State within 
 a State, every inner group and community, class or 
 corporation, administering its own affairs; and, by 
 proclaiming the abolition of privileges, it emancipates 
 the subjects of every such authority in order to transfer 
 them exclusively to its own. It recognizes liberty only 
 in the individual, because it is only in the individual 
 that liberty can be separated from authority, and the 
 right of conditional obedience deprived of the security 
 of a limited command. Under its sway, therefore. 
 
 16 
 
every man may profess his own liberty more or less 
 freely; but his religion is not free to administer its 
 own laws. In other words, religious profession is free, 
 but Church government is controlled. And where 
 ecclesiastical authority is restricted, religious liberty is 
 virtually denied. 
 
 “For religious liberty is not the negative right of 
 being without any particular religion, just as self- 
 government is not anarchy. It is the right of religious 
 communities to the practice of their own duties, the 
 enjoyment of their own constitution, and the protec¬ 
 tion of the law, which equally secures to all the posses¬ 
 sion of their own independence." 
 
 The leading decision of the Supreme Court of the 
 United States upon the question of church government 
 and the necessity for its freedom from governmental inter¬ 
 ference or control is in the case of Watson V. Jones, 13 
 Wallace (U. S.) Reports, at pp. 679 et seq. It was 
 decided at the December, 1871, term of that court, and it 
 related to a controversy which had arisen as to the gov¬ 
 ernment, discipline and control of a Presbyterian Church 
 in the City of Louisville, State of Kentucky. The opin¬ 
 ion of the court was written by Mr. Justice Miller, one 
 of the ablest and most scholarly justices who have ever 
 sat in that great court. Whilst the issues involved did 
 not relate to any constitutional or statutory enactment, 
 portions of the reasoning of the court and the principles 
 then enunciated by it would clearly apply to any attempt 
 by Congress or a State Legislature in the United States 
 to interfere in church government in the manner that is 
 now being done and authorized to be done in Mexico by 
 
 17 
 
its federal and state legislative bodies. Mr. Justice Miller 
 discussed the protection which the law under our just and 
 beneficent system of jurisprudence throws around the 
 dedication of “property by way of trust to the purpose 
 of sustaining, supporting, and propagating definite religi¬ 
 ous doctrines or principles, provided that in doing so they 
 violate no law of morality, and give to the instrument by 
 which their purpose is evidenced, the formalities which 
 the laws require,’' and referred to “that full, entire, and 
 practical freedom for all forms of religious belief and prac¬ 
 tice which lies at the foundation of our political princi¬ 
 ples.’’ Speaking for the court, he used the following 
 language (at p. 728), viz.: 
 
 “In this country the full and free right to entertain 
 any religious belief, to practice any religious principle, 
 and to teach any religious doctrine which does not 
 violate the laws of morality and property, and which 
 does not infringe personal rights, is conceded to all. 
 The law knows no heresy, and is committed to the 
 support of no dogma, the establishment of no sect. 
 The right to organize voluntary religious associations 
 to assist in the expression and dissemination of any 
 religious doctrine, and to create tribunals for the deci¬ 
 sion of controverted questions of faith within the asso¬ 
 ciation, and for the ecclesiastical government of all the 
 individual members, congregations, and officers within 
 the general association, is unquestioned. All who unite 
 themselves to such a body do so with an implied con¬ 
 sent to this government, and are bound to submit to it. 
 But it would be a vain consent and would lead to the 
 total subversion of such religious bodies, if any one ag¬ 
 grieved by one of their decisions could appeal to the 
 
 18 
 
secular courts and have them reversed. It is of the 
 essence of these religious unions, and of their right to 
 establish tribunals for the decision of questions arising 
 among themselves, that those decisions should be bind¬ 
 ing in all cases of ecclesiastical cognizance, subject only 
 to such appeals as the organism itself provides for. 
 
 “Nor do we see that justice would be likely to be 
 promoted by submitting those decisions to review in 
 the ordinary judicial tribunals. . . . It is not to be 
 supposed that the judges of the civil courts can be 
 as competent in the ecclesiastical law and religious 
 faith of all these bodies as the ablest men in each are 
 in reference to their own. It would therefore be an 
 appeal from the more learned tribunal in the law which 
 should decide the case, to one which is less so." 
 
 The opinion then reviews the authorities in other 
 courts. Among these, Mr. Justice Miller cited the earlier 
 case of Chase et al, V. Cheney (1871), 58 Illinois Re¬ 
 ports, pp. 509, 536 et seq., in which the highest judicial 
 tribunal in the State of Illinois, among other holdings, 
 enunciated the following: 
 
 “Shall we maintain the boundary between Church 
 and State, and let each revolve in its respective sphere, 
 the one undisturbed by the other? . . . Our consti¬ 
 tution provides, that ‘the free exercise and enjoyment 
 of religious profession and worship, without discrimi¬ 
 nation, shall forever be guaranteed.’ . . . Religious 
 worship consists in the performance of all the exter¬ 
 nal acts, and the observance of all ordinances and cere¬ 
 monies, which are engaged in with the sole and avowed 
 object of honoring God. The constitution intended to 
 guarantee, from all interference by the State, not only 
 
 19 
 
each man’s religious faith, but his membership in the 
 church, and the rites and discipline which might be 
 adopted. The only exception to uncontrolled liberty 
 is, that acts of licentiousness shall not be excused, and 
 practices inconsistent with the peace and safety of the 
 State, shall not be justified. Freedom of religious pro¬ 
 fession and worship cannot be maintained, if the civil 
 courts trench upon the domain of the church, construe 
 its canons and rules, dictate its discipline, and regulate 
 its trials. . . . It is as much a delusion to confer relig¬ 
 ious liberty without the right to make and enforce 
 rules and canons, as to create government with no 
 power to punish offenders. . . . The civil power may 
 contribute to the protection, but cannot interfere to 
 destroy or fritter away.” 
 
 Consult also Shepard et al. V. Barkley, Moderator, 
 etc. (1918), 247 United States Reports, pp. 1 et seq., 
 and State ex rel. Hynes Y. Catholic Church (1914), 183 
 Missouri Appeal Reports, pp. 190 et seq., which are 
 typical of many other decisions by the highest courts of 
 numerous States of the United States. 
 
 We may now turn to the Mexican Constitution of 
 1917 and the Presidential Decree of 1926 in order to 
 apply to them the reasoning of Chancellor Kent, Lord 
 Acton and Mr. Justice Miller and by that test determine 
 whether they are or are not in violation of elementary 
 principles of liberty and whether the Roman Catholic 
 Church could submit to them without certainty of ulti¬ 
 mate “total subversion” in Mexico. 
 
 The Constitution of 1917 provides, as shown in 
 detail below (p. 30), not only for the confiscation of 
 
 20 
 
the property of the Roman Catholic Church as well as 
 the property of all other churches, but also that they 
 "shall in no case have legal capacity to acquire, hold, or 
 administer real property or loans made on such real prop¬ 
 erty" (Article 27, subdiv. II). It declares (Article 5) 
 that "the States shall not permit" any abridgement of 
 personal liberty "whether by reason of labor, education 
 or religious vows,”^ and "does not permit the establish¬ 
 ment of monastic orders, of whatever denomination, or 
 for whatever purpose contemplated," that is to say, not 
 even for educating the poor, caring for orphans or the 
 blind or insane, or ministering to the sick and suffering in 
 hospitals. Article 24 further provides that "every relig¬ 
 ious act of public worship shall be performed strictly 
 within the places of public worship, which shall be at all 
 times under governmental supervision/' Then follows 
 Article 130, providing inter alia as follows: 
 
 "Article 130. The Federal authorities [that is, of 
 course, Mexican government officials and politicians] 
 shall have power to exercise in matters of religious 
 v/orship and outward ecclesiastical forms such inter¬ 
 vention as by law authorized. All other officials shall 
 act as auxiliaries to the Federal authorities. . . . 
 
 "Ministers of religious creeds shall be considered as 
 persons exercising a profession, and shall be directly 
 subject to the laws enacted on the matter. 
 
 "The State legislatures shall have the exclusive 
 power of determining the maximum number of minis¬ 
 ters of religious creeds, according to the needs of each 
 locality. Only a Mexican by birth may be a minister 
 of any religious creed in Mexico. 
 
 * Italics here and elsewhere are not in original. 
 
 21 
 
“No ministers of religious creeds shall, either in 
 public or private meetings, or in acts of worship or 
 religious propaganda, criticize the fundamental laws 
 of the country, the authorities in particular or the 
 Government in general; they shall have no vote, nor 
 be eligible to office, nor shall they be entitled to as¬ 
 semble for political purposes. 
 
 “Before dedicating new temples of worship for pub¬ 
 lic use, permission shall be obtained from the Depart¬ 
 ment of the Interior (Gobernacion ); the opinion of 
 the Governor of the respective State shall be previ¬ 
 ously heard on the subject. Every place of worship 
 shall have a person charged with its care and mainte¬ 
 nance, who shall be legally responsible for the faithful 
 performance of the laws on religious observances with¬ 
 in the said place of worship, and for all the objects 
 used for purposes of worship. . . . 
 
 “Under no conditions shall studies carried on in in¬ 
 stitutions devoted to the professional training of min¬ 
 isters of religious creeds be given credit or granted any 
 other dispensation of privilege which shall have for 
 its purpose the accrediting of the said studies in official 
 institutions. Any authority violating this provision 
 shall be punished criminally, and all such dispensation 
 of privilege be null and void, and shall invalidate 
 wholly and entirely the professional degree toward 
 the obtaining of which the infraction of this provision 
 may in any way have contributed. 
 
 “No periodical publication which either by reason 
 of its program, its title or merely by its general tend¬ 
 encies, is of a religious character, shall comment upon 
 any political affairs of the nation, nor publish any 
 
 22 
 
information regarding the acts of the authorities of 
 the country or of private individuals, in so far as the 
 latter have to do with public affairs. 
 
 “Every kind of political association whose name 
 shall bear any word or any indication relating to any 
 religious belief is hereby strictly forbidden. No as¬ 
 semblies of any political character shall be held within 
 places of public worship. 
 
 “No minister of any religious creed may inherit, 
 either on his own behalf or by means of a trustee or 
 otherwise, any real property occupied by any associa¬ 
 tion of religious propaganda or religious or charitable 
 purposes. Ministers of religious creeds are incapable 
 legally of inheriting by will from ministers of the same 
 religious creed or from any private individual to whom 
 they are not related by blood within the fourth degree. 
 
 “All real and personal property pertaining to the 
 clergy or to religious institutions shall be governed, 
 in so far as their acquisition by private parties is con¬ 
 cerned, in conformity with Article 27 of this Constitu¬ 
 tion [that is to say, confiscated]. 
 
 “No trial by jury shall ever be granted for the in¬ 
 fraction of any of the preceding provisions.” 
 
 The Presidential Decree of June 14, 1926, drastically 
 enforces the above quoted provisions of the Constitution 
 and the anti-religious and bolshevistic spirit that animated 
 and brought about their adoption. The following are 
 quoted from a translation which counsel has been in¬ 
 structed is substantially correct, viz.: 
 
 “Law amending the penal code concerning crimes 
 against the statute laws of the Federal district and terri- 
 
 23 
 
tories, and crimes against the Federation throughout 
 the Republic: 
 
 "Concerning crimes and offenses in matters of relig¬ 
 ious worship and outward conduct— 
 
 "Article 1. To exercise the ministry of any cult 
 within the territory of the Mexican Republic, it is 
 required to be Mexican by birth. 
 
 "Violators of this provision shall be punished sum¬ 
 marily by a fine not to exceed 5,000 pesos, or in lieu 
 thereof, by arrest of not to exceed fifteen days. More¬ 
 over, the Federal Executive, at his discretion, shall have 
 power to deport, without further process, any foreign 
 priest or minister violating this law, using for such 
 purpose the authority which Article 33 of the Con¬ 
 stitution grants him. 
 
 "Article 4. No religious corporation or minister of 
 any cult shall be permitted to establish or direct 
 schools of primary instruction. 
 
 "Those responsible for the infraction of this pro¬ 
 vision shall be punished with a fine not to exceed 500 
 pesos, or in lieu thereof, with arrest of not more than 
 fifteen days, and in addition the authorities shall order 
 the immediate closing of the teaching establishment. 
 
 "Article 6. The State cannot permit that there be car¬ 
 ried into effect any contract, pact, or agreement that 
 may have as an object the diminution, loss or irrevo¬ 
 cable sacrifice of the liberty of man, whether it be 
 for the reason of work, education or religious vow; 
 the law, in consequence, does not permit the establish¬ 
 ment of monastic orders, whatever may be the denom- 
 
 24 
 
ination or the object for which they may seek to be 
 established. 
 
 “For the purposes of this article, monastic orders 
 are those religious societies whose individuals live 
 under certain rules peculiar to them, by means of 
 promises or vows, temporal or perpetual, and who sub¬ 
 ject themselves to one or more superiors, even though 
 all the individuals of the order may have their living 
 places separate. 
 
 “Monastic orders or established convents shall be 
 dissolved by the authorities, after having made a rec¬ 
 ord of the identification and affiliation of the- ex- 
 cloistered persons. 
 
 “If it is proved that ex-cloistered persons return to 
 live a community life after the community has been 
 dissolved, they shall be punished with a penalty of 
 from one to two years in prison. In such case, the 
 superiors, priors, prelates, directors or persons who 
 may have a hierarchical standing in the organization or 
 direction of the cloister shall be punished with a pen¬ 
 alty of six years’ imprisonment. 
 
 “In each case, women shall suffer two-thirds of the 
 penalty. 
 
 “Article 7. Persons who induce or lead a minor to 
 renounce his liberty through a religious vow shall be 
 punished with ‘major’* arrest and fine of the second 
 class, even though there be bonds of relationship be¬ 
 tween them. 
 
 * “By a ‘major’ arrest is meant action involving a sentence of more than 
 fifteen days in a penitentiary. By a ‘minor’ arrest is meant action involving 
 a sentence of not to exceed fifteen days in jail.’’ 
 
 25 
 
"If the induced person is of age, the penalty shall 
 be ‘minor’ arrest and a fine of first class. 
 
 "Article 8. Any individual who, in the exercise of 
 the ministry or priesthood of any religious cult what¬ 
 soever, publicly incites, by means of written declara¬ 
 tions, or speeches or sermons, his readers or audience 
 to disavowal of the political institutions or to disobedi¬ 
 ence of the laws, or of the authorities and their com¬ 
 mands, shall be punished with a penalty of six years 
 in prison and a fine of the second class. 
 
 "Article 10. Ministers of religion, whether in public 
 or private meetings, or in acts of worship or religious 
 propaganda, shall not criticize the fundamental laws 
 of the country or the authorities of the government, 
 either in particular or in general. 
 
 "Transgressors shall be punished with a penalty of 
 from one to five years in prison. 
 
 "Article 13. Religious periodical publications or those 
 simply with marked tendencies in favor of any specific 
 religious belief, whether by their program or title, shall 
 not comment on national political subjects nor publish 
 information regarding the acts of the authorities of the 
 country or of private persons, which may have a direct 
 relation to the functioning of public institutions. 
 
 "The director of the publication, in case of infrac¬ 
 tion of this provision, shall be punished with the pen¬ 
 alty of ‘major’ arrest and a fine of the second class. 
 
 "Article 15. The formation of any class of political 
 group whose title may contain any word or indication 
 relating it with any religious creed is strictly prohibited. 
 
 "If this provision is violated, the persons who com- 
 
 26 
 
pose the board of directors, or the persons at the head 
 of the group, shall be punished with ‘major’ arrest and 
 a fine of the second class. 
 
 “The authorities shall order in each case that the 
 societies having the character indicated in the first part 
 of this article be broken up immediately. 
 
 “Article 17. All religious acts of public worship 
 must be celebrated absolutely inside the churches, 
 which shall always be under the supervision of the 
 authorities. 
 
 “The celebration of religious acts of public worship 
 outside the churches carries with it penal responsibility 
 for the organizers and the participating ministers, who 
 shall be punished with ‘major’ arrest and a fine of the 
 second class. 
 
 “Article 18. Nor shall religious ministers or individ¬ 
 uals of either sex belonging to such religion, be allowed 
 to wear, outside the churches, special garments or in¬ 
 signia that indicate their religion, under the summary 
 penalty of a fine of 500 pesos, or in lieu thereof, arrest 
 of not to exceed fifteen days. 
 
 “In case of a second olfense there shall be imposed 
 the penalty of ‘major’ arrest and a fine of the second 
 class. 
 
 “Article 21. The religious associations known as 
 churches, whatever may be their creed, shall not have, 
 in any case, capacity for acquiring, possessing or ad¬ 
 ministering real estate, or real estate securities; those 
 who actually do have such real estate, either in their 
 own behalf or through an intermediary agent, shall 
 turn it over to the Government of the Nation, the right 
 
 27 
 
being granted to anyone to denounce the property that 
 may be found in such case. 
 
 “Persons who conceal the goods and securities to 
 which this article refers shall be punished with a pen¬ 
 alty of from one to two years’ imprisonment. Those 
 who act as intermediary agents shall be punished with 
 the same penalty. 
 
 “Article 22. The churches destined for public worship 
 are the property of the Nation, represented by the Fed¬ 
 eral Government, which shall determine those churches 
 which shall continue destined for the purpose of wor¬ 
 ship. 
 
 “Bishops’ residences, parish houses, seminaries, 
 asylums or colleges of religious associations, convents, 
 or any other building that may have been constructed 
 or destined for the administration, propagation or 
 teaching of any religious belief, shall immediately pass, 
 under the law {de plena detecho) to the full owner¬ 
 ship of the nation, to be destined exclusively for the 
 public use of the Federation or of the States in their 
 respective jurisdictions.’’ 
 
 It surely must be manifest to all candid, fair-minded 
 and tolerant men of whatever creed that the above quoted 
 provisions from the Mexican Constitution and Presiden¬ 
 tial Decree alike would inevitably and utterly destroy the 
 independence of the Roman Catholic Church and its min¬ 
 isters in Mexico; that they would totally subvert the 
 necessary and indispensable governance and discipline of 
 the Church in Mexico, and that although the Catholic 
 Church has not actively resisted by force the tyrannical 
 confiscation of her property, as in the past, nevertheless 
 
 28 
 
submission to the oppressive, tyrannical and destructive 
 measures by which the Mexican Government is now seek¬ 
 ing to undermine and subvert the Church in Mexico 
 would be wrong in principle and prejudicial in the long 
 run to the best interests of the Mexican Catholics them¬ 
 selves. Hence, the Roman Catholic Church cannot sub¬ 
 mit and permit its temples, holy offices, liturgy and cere¬ 
 monies to be placed under the control and supervision of 
 socialistic and bolshevistic political officials who may be 
 intent for their own ends either upon establishing a 
 Mexican National Church to be controlled by revolution¬ 
 ary politicians, or upon destroying all churches of what¬ 
 ever denomination as has been ruthlessly attempted in 
 Soviet Russia. 
 
 Paraphrasing the noble words of our Declaration of 
 Independence, the Roman Catholic Church is advised 
 that, whilst, of course and preeminently, first “appealing 
 to the supreme judge of the world for the rectitude of 
 [her] intentions,” she now appeal to the advised opinion 
 of mankind throughout the world and in the forum of 
 fair and honest public opinion in every country, to the 
 end that all may appreciate that her policy in Mexico is 
 proper, wise and just, and that she would have been 
 untrue to herself and her traditions if she had submitted 
 in our age to the arbitrary, brutal and subversive perse¬ 
 cution now being enforced in Mexico, which is so plainly 
 incompatible with the crudest notions of religious or per¬ 
 sonal liberty. 
 
 3 . 
 
 CONFISCATION OF CHURCH PROPERTY. 
 
 In considering the confiscation of the property of the 
 Roman Catholic Church by the Mexican Constitution 
 
 29 
 
of 1917, it should be borne in mind that it supplements 
 the confiscations made under the Constitution of 1857 
 and other confiscatory measures both by the Mexican 
 Republic and the Government of Spain before the inde¬ 
 pendence of Mexico. Some of the supplemental provi¬ 
 sions contained in the Constitution of 1917 should speak 
 for themselves. They are as follows: 
 
 “Art. 27. . . . Private property shall not be expro¬ 
 priated except for reasons of public utility and by 
 means of indemnification. . . . 
 
 “II. The religious institutions known as churches, 
 irrespective of creed, shall in no case have legal capacity 
 to acquire, hold or administer real property or loans 
 made on such real property; all such real property or 
 loans as may be at present held by the said religious in¬ 
 stitutions, either on their own behalf or through third 
 parties, shall vest in the Nation, and any one shall have 
 the right to denounce property so held. Presumptive 
 proof shall be sufficient to declare the denunciation 
 well-founded. Places of public worship are the prop¬ 
 erty of the Nation, as represented by the Federal Gov¬ 
 ernment, which shall determine which of them may 
 continue to be devoted to their present purposes. Epis¬ 
 copal residences, rectories, seminaries, orphan asylums 
 or collegiate establishments of religious institutions, 
 convents or any other buildings built or designed for 
 the administration, propaganda, or teaching of the 
 tenets of any religious creed shall forthwith vest, as of 
 full right, directly in the Nation, to be used exclusively 
 for the public services of the Federation or of the States, 
 within their respective jurisdictions. All places of pub- 
 
 30 
 
lie worship which shall later be erected shall be the 
 property of the Nation. 
 
 ‘dlL Public and private charitable institutions for 
 the sick and needy, for scientific research, or for the dif¬ 
 fusion of knowledge, mutual aid societies or organiza¬ 
 tions formed for any other lawful purpose shall in no 
 case acquire, hold or administer loans made on real 
 property, unless the mortgage terms do not exceed ten 
 years. In no case shall institutions of this character 
 be under the patronage, direction, administration, 
 charge or supervision of religious corporations or in¬ 
 stitutions, nor of ministers of any religious creed or 
 of their dependents, even though either the former or 
 the latter shall not be in active service.'' 
 
 It follows that, although the Mexican Constitution 
 expressly provides that '‘private property shall not be 
 expropriated except for reasons of public utility and by 
 means of indemnification," nevertheless Article 27 dis¬ 
 criminates against religious institutions by providing for 
 such expropriation of their property without any in¬ 
 demnity or compensation whatever. 
 
 Manifestly, there should be no doubt that, under ele¬ 
 mentary American principles of liberty, the expropriation 
 or confiscation of church property without any indemnifi¬ 
 cation or compensation whatever, as is provided in Arti¬ 
 cle 27 of the Mexican Constitution of 1917, above 
 partially quoted, would be declared unconstitutional and 
 void and strongly condemned by any American court as 
 politically unjust, whether attempted by the Congress of 
 the United States or by the Legislature of any State in 
 the Union. This view was voiced one hundred years 
 
 31 
 
ago by Mr. Justice Story in the leading case of Terrett V. 
 Taylor (1815), 9 Cranch’s Reports, pp. 43, 49, 52, 
 when, speaking for the Supreme Court of the United 
 States, he used language quite applicable to the claim now 
 advanced on behalf of the Government of Mexico that it 
 is entitled as of governmental right to confiscate church 
 property if it sees fit to do so and award to its owners 
 no pay or compensation or indemnity whatever: 
 
 “Be, however, the general authority of the legisla¬ 
 ture as to the subject of religion, as it may, it will 
 require other arguments to establish the position that, 
 at the revolution, all the public property acquired 
 by the Episcopal churches, under the sanction of the 
 laws, became the property of the state. Had the prop¬ 
 erty thus acquired been originally granted by the state 
 or the king, there might have been some color (and it 
 would have been but a color) for such an extraor¬ 
 dinary pretension. But the property was, in fact and 
 in law, generally purchased by the parishioners, or ac¬ 
 quired by the benefactions of pious donors. The title 
 thereto was indefeasibly vested in the churches, or 
 rather in their legal agents. It was not in the power 
 of the crown to seize or assume it; nor of the parlia¬ 
 ment itself to destroy the grants, unless by the exercise 
 of a power the most arbitrary, oppressive and unjust, 
 and endured only because it could not be resisted. 
 . . . Nor are we able to perceive any sound reason 
 
 why the church lands escheated or devolved upon the 
 state by the revolution any more than the property 
 of any other corporation created by the royal bounty 
 or established by the legislature. . . 
 
 32 
 
Then, answering the argument that the legislative 
 power could, by repealing a statute incorporating a 
 church (in that case a Protestant Episcopal Church), 
 escheat all its property to the State, Mr. Justice Story 
 used the following language (at p. 52): 
 
 “But that the legislature can repeal statutes creating 
 private [religious] corporations, or confirming to them 
 property already acquired under the faith of previous 
 laws, and by such repeal can vest the property of such 
 corporations exclusively in the state, or dispose of the 
 same to such purposes as they may please, without the 
 consent or default of the corporators, we are not pre¬ 
 pared to admit; and we think ourselves standing upon 
 the principles of natural justice, upon the fundamental 
 laws of every free government, upon the spirit and the 
 letter of the constitution of the United States, and 
 upon the decisions of most respectable judicial tri¬ 
 bunals, in resisting such a doctrine.” 
 
 It is deemed unnecessary to cite additional legal 
 authorities to sustain the proposition, happily now ele¬ 
 mentary in American constitutional law, that the prop¬ 
 erty of no church of whatever denomination can be taken 
 by the Nation or any State without just compensation or 
 indemnification. Just compensation is guaranteed to all 
 religious corporations by the Fifth Article of Amend¬ 
 ment to the Constitution of the United States, and it is 
 also guaranteed to all religious corporations by the Four¬ 
 teenth Article of Amendment, which is in express re¬ 
 straint of confiscatory action by any State. 
 
 33 
 
4 . 
 
 FREEDOM OF EDUCATION. 
 
 The importance of religious liberty in connection 
 with education cannot be exaggerated. To Roman Cath¬ 
 olics it is deemed essential and inseparable. For many 
 centuries the education of children has been one of the 
 principal functions and activities of the Roman Catholic 
 Church, and well-informed, though hostile, critics have 
 conceded to the Church an immeasurable debt for the 
 preservation of learning, of the literature of the classics, 
 of political and other philosophies, through the eclipse of 
 the Dark Ages. To assert that the Church is now or 
 ever was opposed to the education of the masses, or has 
 left undone what it should have done to enlighten man¬ 
 kind, is to pervert all the teachings of history. It is 
 true that in temporal matters and in the interpretation of 
 scientific theories, certain ecclesiastics and officials may 
 have erred, for they followed the then dominant and 
 almost universal current of human ignorance and they 
 erred alike with the best and most enlightened among 
 other religious leaders. If during the past century in 
 Mexico fair play and religious liberty, as we Americans 
 now conceive fair play to all creeds and to all churches, 
 had been granted to the Roman Catholic Church, it is 
 highly probable and reasonably just to assume that the 
 Mexican people of to-day would have been as well- 
 educated as any other people and certainly as well- 
 educated as the rural population in the United States was 
 seventy years ago or is to-day, particularly in the 
 Southern and Southwestern States that are predomi¬ 
 nantly Protestant, except Louisiana and perhaps two or 
 three other States bordering on the frontier of Mexico 
 and at one time part of that Republic. Several Protestant 
 
 34 
 
critics have indicted the Roman Catholic Church as re¬ 
 sponsible for the fact that at present fully four-fifths 
 of the Mexican population are illiterate, but they fail 
 to state or recognize that the property of the Church 
 has been generation after generation confiscated by the 
 State and that it has thus been deprived of the 
 funds necessary to maintain free schools such as the 
 Church now maintains for more than 2,000,000 children 
 in the United States. They likewise fail to state that the 
 finest and most extensive educational foundation exist¬ 
 ing on this continent during the eighteenth century was 
 utterly disrupted by the expulsion of the Jesuits from 
 Mexico by Spain in 1767. 
 
 It is no exaggeration to say that whatever education 
 and culture exist to-day in Mexico are due to teachers 
 affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church, and that were 
 it not for the repeated confiscations of church property 
 Mexico would to-day be more fully provided with pri¬ 
 mary and secondary schools as well as high schools and 
 colleges than are at present to be found in many of the 
 States of the American Union. Mexico would, it is con¬ 
 fidently affirmed, then be the literary and scientific light 
 of Central and South America as Catholic France was 
 indisputably the literary and scientific light of Europe in 
 the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in comparison 
 with Protestant England and Protestant Prussia. Let us 
 be fair and just, if fairness and justice be indeed possible 
 in religious controversies or amid religious prejudices. In 
 fair play let us recall how meagre were the educational 
 facilities in the United States one hundred years ago, how 
 high was then our percentage of illiteracy, how recent 
 the introduction of free public schools supported by taxa- 
 
 35 
 
tion, how inadequate our public school system still is in 
 many States, and finally how shamefully the negroes, 
 generally as intelligent and civilized as the Mexican 
 Indians, have been treated in Protestant States. A quo¬ 
 tation from a recognized authority may be instructive 
 (History of Education in the United States, by E. G. 
 Dexter, New York, 1906, p. 454): 
 
 '‘The history of negro education in the United 
 States goes back no further than the Civil War. Pre¬ 
 vious to that time in the South the teaching of the 
 blacks, whether they be slaves or free, was forbidden 
 by law, and in some states made an offense for which 
 the pupil might be fined and whipped, at the discre¬ 
 tion of the court, and the teacher be fined or impris¬ 
 oned. In the North no such penalty was imposed, but 
 since no special schools were provided for the blacks, 
 and public sentiment opposed their admission to other 
 schools, they were practically without educational ad¬ 
 vantages. It is true that both in the South and the 
 North negroes occasionally were taught the rudiments 
 of learning in the so-called ‘clandestine schools'; still 
 such instances were rare, and cannot be said to qualify 
 the general statement that in ante helium days the 
 negroes were uneducated." 
 
 Attention has been called above to the sweeping con¬ 
 fiscations of church property under the Mexican Consti¬ 
 tutions of 1857 and 1917, but these were but two in¬ 
 stances of many to be found in the history of both Spain 
 and Mexico since the Conquest of the Aztecs. To hold 
 the Roman Catholic Church responsible for not estab¬ 
 lishing more schools when its property and funds were 
 being constantly confiscated or menaced with confiscation 
 
 36 
 
and when wholly inadequate provision was being made 
 by successive governments, is the extreme of unreason¬ 
 ableness and unfairness. 
 
 It is impracticable to discuss at length the funda¬ 
 mental principles and constitutional provisions which 
 guarantee to all living in the United States true liberty 
 in education and which prohibit the National Govern¬ 
 ment as well as every State from denying to any parents 
 of any class or creed the exercise of liberty in the edu¬ 
 cation of their children. Three decisions of the Supreme 
 Court of the United States will, however, be cited: first, 
 in the case of Meyer v. State of Nebraska (1923), 262 
 United States Reports, pp. 390 et seq., involving the 
 right to teach German in a parochial school of the Prot¬ 
 estant Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church; secondly, in 
 the cases of Bartels v. State of Iowa, Bohning v. State of 
 Ohio and Pohl v. State of Ohio (1923), 262 United 
 States Reports, pp. 404 et seq,, involving the same right 
 in certain Protestant schools in the State of Ohio, and, 
 thirdly. Pierce, Governor of Oregon, et al. V. The Society 
 of the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary, 
 and V. Hill Military Academy (decided June 1, 1925), 
 268 United States Reports, pp. 510 et seq,, which 
 latter cases involved the constitutionality of a state 
 statute compelling all parents in the State of Oregon, un¬ 
 der penalty of punishment as for a crime, to send their 
 children between eight and sixteen years of age to a 
 secular public school maintained by the State by means 
 of general taxation. 
 
 In the first case, Meyer V. Nebraska, Mr. Justice Mc- 
 Reynolds delivered the opinion of the court. It contains 
 a remarkably interesting and instructive statement of the 
 
 37 
 
views of the court in its interpretation of the broad 
 scope and efficacy of the guaranty of liberty contained in 
 all American constitutions—whether national or state. 
 Only two paragraphs will here be quoted, although the 
 entire opinion should be studied and pondered for its 
 admirable breadth of view, scholarship and eloquence 
 (pp. 399-400): 
 
 “While this Court has not attempted to define with 
 exactness the liberty thus guaranteed, the term has re¬ 
 ceived much consideration and some of the included 
 things have been definitely stated. Without doubt, 
 it denotes not merely freedom from bodily restraint but 
 also the right of the individual to contract, to engage 
 in any of the common occupations of life, to acquire 
 useful knowledge, to marry, to establish a home and 
 bring up children, to worship God according to the 
 dictates of his own conscience, and generally to enjoy 
 those privileges long recognized at common law as 
 essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free 
 men. Slaughter-House Cases, 16 Wall. 36; Butchers' 
 Union Co. V. Crescent City Co., 111 U. S. 746; Yick 
 Wo V. Hopkins, 118 U. S. 356; Minnesota V. Bar¬ 
 ber, 136 U. S. 313; Allgeyer V. Louisiana, 165 U. S. 
 578; Lochner V. New York, 198 U. S. 45; Twining 
 V. New Jersey, 211 U. S. 78; Chicago, Burlington U 
 Quincy R. R. Co. V. McGuire, 219 U. S. 549; Truax 
 V. Raich, 239 U. S. 33; Adams V. Tanner, 244 U. S. 
 590; New York Life Ins. Co. V. Dodge, 246 U. S. 
 357; Truax V. Corrigan, 257 U. S. 312; Adkins v. 
 Children s Hospital, 261 U. S. 525; Wyeth v. Cam¬ 
 bridge Board of Health, 200 Mass. 474. The estab- 
 
 38 
 
lished doctrine is that this liberty may not be inter¬ 
 fered with, under the guise of protecting the public 
 interest, by legislative action which is arbitrary or 
 without reasonable relation to some purpose within 
 the competency of the State to effect. Determination 
 by the legislature of what constitutes proper exercise 
 of police power is not final or conclusive but is subject 
 to supervision by the courts. Lawton V. Steele, 152 
 U. S. 133, 137. 
 
 “The American people have always regarded edu¬ 
 cation and acquisition of knowledge as matters of 
 supreme importance which should be diligently pro¬ 
 moted. The Ordinance of 1787 declares, ‘Religion, 
 morality, and knowledge being necessary to good gov¬ 
 ernment and the happiness of mankind, schools and 
 the means of education shall forever be encouraged.' 
 Corresponding to the right of control, it is the natural 
 duty of the parent to give his children education suit¬ 
 able to their station in life; and nearly all the States, 
 including Nebraska, enforce this obligation by com¬ 
 pulsory laws." 
 
 The cases above mentioned against the State of Ohio 
 were similarly decided on the authority of the Nebraska 
 case. 
 
 Then came before the Supreme Court of the United 
 States, in March, 1925, the Oregon School Cases, and 
 Mr. Justice McReynolds delivered its unanimous deci¬ 
 sion holding that the statute of the State of Oregon was 
 unconstitutional and void because beyond the legitimate 
 power of any State to interfere with the liberty and con¬ 
 stitutional rights of parents. This opinion should like- 
 
 39 
 
wise be studied in its entirety, but its tenor, so far as 
 directly applicable to the present opinion of counsel, may 
 be gathered from the following extracts (pp. 534-5) : 
 
 “The inevitable practical result of enforcing the Act 
 under consideration would be destruction of appellees' 
 [/. e., the Catholic Sisters'] primary schools, and per¬ 
 haps all other private primary schools for normal 
 children within the State of Oregon. These parties are 
 engaged in a kind of undertaking not inherently harm¬ 
 ful, but long regarded as useful and meritorious. Cer¬ 
 tainly there is nothing in the present records to indicate 
 that they have failed to discharge their obligations to 
 patrons, students or the State. And there are no 
 peculiar circumstances or present emergencies which 
 demand extraordinary measures relative to primary 
 education. 
 
 “Under the doctrine of Meyer V. Nebraska [ 1923 ], 
 262 U. S. 390, we think it entirely plain that the Act 
 of 1922 unreasonably interferes with the liberty of 
 parents and guardians to direct the upbringing and 
 education of children under their control. As often 
 heretofore pointed out, rights guaranteed by the Con¬ 
 stitution may not be abridged by legislation which has 
 no reasonable relation to some purpose within the 
 competency of the State. The fundamental theory of 
 liberty upon which all governments in this Union 
 repose excludes any general power of the State to stand¬ 
 ardize its children by forcing them to accept instruction 
 from public teachers only. The child is not the mere 
 creature of the State; those who nurture him and direct 
 his destiny have the right, coupled with the high duty. 
 
 40 
 
to recognize and prepare him for additional obliga¬ 
 tions." 
 
 The Mexican Constitution of 1857 had provided 
 (Article 3) that instruction should be free, and under this 
 guaranty the Roman Catholic Church had been allowed 
 to develop, so far as it could possibly do so in view of the 
 confiscation of its property without any compensation or 
 indemnity whatever under Article 27 of the same Consti¬ 
 tution, which, however, was not as rigorous as the confis¬ 
 cation provided for in 1917. In 1857 the Church was 
 permitted "to acquire title to, or administer . . . the 
 
 buildings immediately and directly destined to the services 
 or purposes of the said [religious] corporations and insti¬ 
 tutions"; but the Constitution of 1917 confiscated all 
 these buildings without compensation of any kind. 
 
 Under the Mexican Constitution of 1857 and a for¬ 
 tiori under the provisions quoted above from the Consti¬ 
 tution of 1917, it must be manifest that the Roman 
 Catholic Church could not acquire the capital necessary to 
 establish schools and colleges and to provide the necessary 
 regular income for operating expenses. Development in 
 education could not fairly be expected and certainly not 
 after the overthrow of President Diaz and stable Govern¬ 
 ment and the substitution of revolutionary and bolshe¬ 
 vistic control under President Calles. 
 
 The Mexican Constitution of 1917, whilst in one 
 breath declaring that ""Instruction is free,” proceeds 
 in the next absolutely to deny that right. Thus, we find 
 the following: 
 
 "Art. 3. Instruction is free; that given in public 
 institutions of learning shall be secular. Primary in- 
 
 41 
 
struction, whether higher or lower, given in private 
 institutions shall likewise be secular, 
 
 “No religious corporation nor minister of any relig¬ 
 ious creed shall establish or direct schools of primary 
 instruction. 
 
 “Private primary schools may be established only 
 subject to official supervision. 
 
 “Primary instruction in public institutions shall be 
 gratuitous.” 
 
 The first three words of this above quoted article were 
 in the 1857 Constitution; the language following them 
 and italicized was added in 1917. 
 
 The Presidential Decree of June 14, 1926, enforces 
 the constitutional provisions by oppressive and cruel sanc¬ 
 tions, which are obviously intended to prevent parents 
 from having their children educated with any religious 
 influence or religious instruction whatsoever. Some of 
 these decretal enactments are as follows: 
 
 “Article 3. The instruction that may be given in 
 official educational establishments shall be secular; like¬ 
 wise that given in the higher and lower primary 
 branches of private educational establishments. 
 
 “Violators of this provision shall be punished sum¬ 
 marily with a fine of not to exceed 500 pesos, or in 
 lieu of such a fine, with arrest that shall not exceed fif¬ 
 teen days. 
 
 “In case of a second offense, the transgressor shall 
 be punished with ‘major' arrest and a fine of the sec¬ 
 ond class, and in addition, the authorities shall order 
 the closing of the establishment of learning. 
 
 42 
 
“Article 4. No religious corporation or minister of 
 any cult shall be permitted to establish or direct schools 
 of primary instruction. 
 
 “Those responsible for the infraction of this pro¬ 
 vision shall be punished with a fine not to exceed 500 
 pesos, or in lieu thereof, with arrest of not more than 
 fifteen days, and in addition the authorities shall order 
 the immediate closing of the teaching establishment. 
 
 “Article 5. Private primary schools may be estab¬ 
 lished only by subjecting themselves to official super¬ 
 vision. Transgressors of this provision shall be pun¬ 
 ished by a fine of 500 pesos, or in lieu thereof, by 
 arrest of not to exceed fifteen days. 
 
 “Article 12. For no reason shall confirmation be 
 made, exemption issued, or any other procedure take 
 place that may have for its purpose the official vali¬ 
 dating of the studies made in establishments destined 
 for the professional instruction of ministers of religion. 
 
 “Transgressors of this provision shall be removed 
 from the employment or office which they hold, and 
 shall be barred from other such employment in the 
 same branch for a period of from one to three years. 
 
 “Any exemption or procedure to which the first part 
 of this article refers shall be null and shall carry with 
 it the nullification of the professional title the obtain¬ 
 ing of which may have been a part of the infraction of 
 this provision." 
 
 There can be no reasonable doubt, in the opinion of 
 the undersigned American counsel, that these constitu¬ 
 tional provisions and decretal enactments would be de¬ 
 clared unjust and void and beyond the power of any legis- 
 
 43 
 
lative body if ever enacted by our Federal Congress or by 
 any State Legislature. It is deemed unnecessary further 
 to elaborate the discussion of the constitutional princi¬ 
 ples that condemn these several oppressive and tyrannical 
 measures as in plain conflict with religious liberty, sound 
 principles of natural justice and the fundamental laws of 
 every free government worthy of that name. To argue, 
 as some have attempted, that under the Mexican Consti¬ 
 tution of 1917, '‘instruction is free/' is to jeer at the 
 public opinion of the civilized world. No country except 
 Soviet Russia and the France of the Jacobin Terror has 
 ever before so affronted the intelligence, the conscience and 
 the sense of right and justice of civilized peoples. Such 
 enactments are only consistent, if at all rational, with the 
 deliberate purpose of destroying or totally subverting 
 all religions in Mexico, in emulation of the inhuman, 
 cruel and repulsive attempts to suppress religion by the 
 Bolsheviks in Russia, which have so shocked the whole 
 civilized world. 
 
 5 . 
 
 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS. 
 
 Many historical precedents of action on the part of 
 the Government of the United States of America as well 
 as of other countries could be cited which would abun¬ 
 dantly support a protest or remonstrance and even armed 
 intervention at the present time in Mexico, in order to 
 assure to the Mexican people religious liberty. They can 
 be found in the authoritative works of writers on inter¬ 
 national relations from Grotius (1583-1645), De Jure 
 Belli et Pads, to Professor Stowell's comprehensive re¬ 
 view in his work Intervention in International Law. 
 
 44 
 
President Coolidge, Secretary of State Kellogg and 
 Ambassador Sheffield are familiar with these precedents 
 and this international usage. These American statesmen, 
 who are now in charge of our relations with the Mexican 
 Government, are certainly in full sympathy with Ameri¬ 
 can principles of civil and religious liberty and appreciate, 
 as Chancellor Kent declared, that “the suppression of 
 either of them, for any length of time, will terminate the 
 existence of the other.” In fact both civil and religious 
 liberty have long since terminated in Mexico, and these 
 conditions must be a matter of profound anxiety and 
 daily concern to our Government. 
 
 The problem of dealing with the Mexican Govern¬ 
 ment is extremely delicate and complex. The concep¬ 
 tions of civil and religious liberty of many Mexicans are 
 not our conceptions or those of other liberal and civil¬ 
 ized peoples; in the domain of what we call liberty 
 they speak a very different language; and they are ex¬ 
 tremely resentful of foreign advice or interference and 
 particularly of advice or interference on our part. The 
 Monroe Doctrine, which protects them against the en¬ 
 forcement of European rights and enables them under our 
 protection to flout great nations, has generated no appre¬ 
 ciation or gratitude. Any such natural sentiment or feel¬ 
 ing of gratitude has long been obscured, if not entirely 
 submerged, by cherished wrongs such as the annexation 
 of Texas, the War of 1848, and the taking by us of 
 immensely valuable territory. The relations between the 
 two nations have been frequently stormy. Our treatment 
 at times has inflamed a sensitive and proud people to 
 intense indignation and resentment, although at the time 
 of their successful revolution against Spain, Augustin de 
 
 45 
 
Iturbide, in 1821, not only expressed gratitude to the 
 United States, but declared his belief that Mexico and the 
 United States were “destined to be united in the bonds of 
 the most intimate and cordial fraternity." Unfortunately 
 and lamentably, dissension and trouble soon arose, inten¬ 
 sified as time passed by our annexation of Texas and the 
 Mexican War of 1848 down to the high-handed and to 
 many wholly unwarranted expedition which President 
 Wilson sent to occupy Vera Cruz in 1914. These his¬ 
 torical grievances and aggressions have been very interest¬ 
 ingly treated in Professor Rippey’s recent book entitled 
 The United States and Mexico, 
 
 It is not, therefore, at all unnatural, although deplor¬ 
 able, that the Mexican people should harbor resentment 
 and suspicion against their powerful and irresistible neigh¬ 
 bor on all their northern frontier from the Atlantic to the 
 Pacific; and that from this resentment and suspicion, so 
 readily played on by demagogues, arises the great diffi¬ 
 culty in dealing now with the question of religious lib¬ 
 erty. Interference on our part might do the cause of 
 liberty and religion more harm than any possible good. 
 As Senator Newlands once said of a proposal to intervene 
 in Mexico, we might thereby “open a Pandora’s box of 
 trouble for the United States for the next twenty years.” 
 History has recorded its tragedies in vain for those who 
 do not realize that interference and intervention by the 
 United States in Mexico in order to compel religious 
 liberty, might precipitate the horrors and atrocities of 
 civil war and that worst of all scourges, a religious 
 civil war. Therefore, the undersigned American counsel 
 is persuaded that thoughtful Catholics will not endeavor 
 by agitation, political or otherwise, to force the hand of 
 
 46 
 
our Government, far better advised as it must be of con¬ 
 ditions in Mexico than others usually are. This respon¬ 
 sibility towards the present generation and future genera¬ 
 tions weighs heavily enough upon our President. No 
 President since Washington has been more deeply religious 
 than President Coolidge; no President has ever felt more 
 strongly that civil and religious liberty are inseparable 
 and cannot exist apart in any country; and when he can 
 effectively act by moral persuasion and sympathy or 
 otherwise, he will speak for religious liberty on this con¬ 
 tinent in no uncertain or temporizing terms. Seldom 
 before has language been more appreciative of religious 
 liberty than that contained in the noble and eloquent 
 address of his Secretary of Labor, Hon. James J. Davis 
 (a very distinguished Protestant, Mason, Odd Fellow, 
 etc.), at the Twenty-eighth International Eucharistic 
 Congress at Chicago in June of this year, when he said 
 in part as follows: 
 
 "It gives me great pleasure, in addressing this 
 Catholic audience, to call attention to the fact that 
 the members of your communion who settled in Mary¬ 
 land share with Roger Williams, the founder of Rhode 
 Island and Providence plantations, in the honor of be¬ 
 ing the first American settlers to establish the princi¬ 
 ples of religious toleration. The Catholics of Mary¬ 
 land respected the conscience of all men and women in 
 that province. They allowed the men and women of 
 the various protestant persuasions the same liberty that 
 they asked for themselves. The student of the history 
 of religious freedom in America knows that in accord¬ 
 ing toleration to all faiths, the Catholics of America, in 
 the one original colony that was settled by them, built 
 
 47 
 
a monument to the great cause of religious freedom 
 more enduring than one of bronze or marble. 
 
 “Catholics have reason to be proud of the growth of 
 their faith in America. From humble beginnings the 
 Church has grown by leaps and bounds until to-day 
 it has nearly nineteen million communicants. Many of 
 the leading citizens of our country to-day are of your 
 faith. They are graduates of our universities. They 
 are to be found in editorial chairs; they are leaders in 
 the arts and sciences: many are illustrious men of let¬ 
 ters; they have taken an eminent rank in the profes¬ 
 sions and in business. Catholics are found in our halls 
 of legislation and upon the bench. Two of their 
 number have been Chief Justices of the Supreme 
 Court. On every field of battle in which America has 
 engaged they have shed their blood in behalf of the 
 land of their birth, or the land of their adoption, and 
 on more than one hotly contested field a Catholic gen¬ 
 eral has led the American arms. The patriotism of 
 our Catholic citizens is not open to dispute. If there 
 is any prejudice against Catholics in America, it comes 
 from persons who make a specialty of prejudice, and, 
 like all other countries, we have a few who do. 
 
 “So far as the bulk of our people are concerned, 
 their minds are by nature tolerant of all that is tol¬ 
 erant. America has developed a neighborly spirit, in 
 which all men and women who breathe a spirit of 
 peace and good will feel themselves at home. We have 
 no quarrel with any man’s religion; and any nation 
 that refuses to grant freedom of worship is a nation 
 that must realize sooner or later that it has made the 
 profoundest of mistakes. 
 
 48 
 
“There are elements among us, as in other lands, 
 which are so dissatisfied with life, or, rather, with the 
 life that they know from experience that they desire 
 to destroy our American institutions. These advo¬ 
 cates of revolution are men who abhor all religion, and 
 believe in neither God nor the life eternal. They are 
 materialists against whom all who believe in the valid¬ 
 ity of spiritual ideals must set a face like flint. The 
 Catholic church has stood like a wall of adamant 
 against the vicious revolutionary procedures of this 
 class, which are urged ostensibly in behalf of labor, 
 but which really owe their origin in the will of a few 
 to power. Whatever a man’s religious faith may be, 
 if he have one, he can have no intellectual commerce 
 with this type of revolutionist.” 
 
 This has been the elevated and inspiring spirit, like¬ 
 wise, of the Papacy and the Mexican Hierarchy. History 
 admonishes them of the horrors of civil war and of the 
 danger of inviting interference by foreign powers and 
 armies to compel what the aggressors conceive to be 
 either religious liberty or the only true faith. The splen¬ 
 did glory of the Crusades was dimmed by awful atrocities 
 and barbarities. The menace of the invasion of England 
 by Philip II and the great Spanish Armada during the 
 reign of Queen Elizabeth, which had much of the char¬ 
 acter of a crusade, and other similar threatened invasions 
 by Catholic Spain and Catholic Erance of Protestant 
 England on religious grounds, did more than any other 
 cause to alienate the English people from the Church of 
 Rome. As a great English historian has said, “The work 
 of the Jesuits was undone in an hour. The spirit of 
 national unity proved stronger than religious strife.” 
 
 49 
 
England was thus lost for centuries to the Catholic 
 Church by the proud spirit of resentful nationalism. 
 And many students profoundly believe that the Mas¬ 
 sacre of Saint Bartholomew might never have stained the 
 annals of Catholic France if the Huguenots had not in¬ 
 flamed religious as well as intense national resentment by 
 inviting Spain and Germany to invade France in aid of 
 the Huguenot cause. Hence, the wisdom of the refusal 
 of the Papacy and the Mexican Hierarchy to approve 
 either the inviting of foreign intervention by force or the 
 drawing of the sword of religious civil war with its in¬ 
 evitable horrors and the inevitable aftermath of revenge¬ 
 ful bitterness and indelible resentments. So, too, the wis¬ 
 dom of the determination of the Papacy not to approve 
 the organization of a distinctively political Catholic 
 party in Mexico, for experience and history in other coun¬ 
 tries have taught that the Catholic Church never can 
 profit by entering into political strifes or by being drawn 
 into the political combinations and compromises which 
 politicians often deem vitally necessary to a political 
 party, but which the Papacy cannot approve. Its eternal 
 principles cannot be made a pendant to temporary politi¬ 
 cal campaigns. It may lose now by such an attitude of 
 promoting peace among men at any cost or sacrifice and 
 by consistently refusing to bend to ephemeral expediency, 
 but it will gain in the long run when truth must finally 
 prevail. 
 
 New York, November, 1926. 
 
 William D. Guthrie 
 of the American Bar. 
 
 50 
 
Appendix I to Opinion of American Counsel. 
 
 TEXT OF THE STATEMENT OF THE EPISCOPAL COMMITTEE 
 OF THE MEXICAN HIERARCHY.* 
 
 “As Congress refused to take 
 into consideration the petition pre¬ 
 sented by the episcopate in which 
 the Bishops requested certain re¬ 
 forms in the Federal Constitution, 
 the Episcopal Committee thinks it 
 its duty to comment on this action, 
 not only to the Reverend Archbish¬ 
 ops, Bishops and clergy and to the 
 IMexican Catholic people, but also 
 to the entire nation and to the 
 whole world which is favorably in¬ 
 terested in a people struggling to 
 obtain liberty of conscience, educa¬ 
 tion and religion, liberties which 
 all civilized peoples of the world 
 are enjoying. 
 
 “The Mexican episcopate in a 
 precise manner has made known to 
 the entire world in various state¬ 
 ments the true situation of the 
 Catholic Church in Mexico. Ham¬ 
 pered by the present laws it can¬ 
 not comply with the eternal mis¬ 
 sion which its Divine Pounder, 
 Jesus Christ, has confided to it. It 
 has made known all the efforts 
 which up to the present it has made 
 to regain the liberty lost through 
 these laws. Unfortunately the sit¬ 
 uation has not changed. 
 
 Solution of Conflict Sought. 
 
 “At a conference between mem¬ 
 bers of the episcopate and the 
 President of the Republic the lat¬ 
 
 ter invited us to petition the Fed¬ 
 eral Congress for reforms in the 
 Constitution which we deemed nec¬ 
 essary. 
 
 “We stated to the President and 
 to the press that although our Gov¬ 
 ernment is democratic and repre¬ 
 sentative in form the fact is that 
 in the actual legislative Congresses 
 the Catholic population of the 
 country is not represented. 
 
 “In spite of this we desired to 
 obey the suggestions of the Presi¬ 
 dent in order to show that we were 
 willing to employ all legal methods 
 to arriA^e at a solution of the 
 lamentable conflict. 
 
 “The words of the President 
 should mean to us and to all Cath¬ 
 olic Mexican people a guarantee 
 that when we sent our petition to 
 Congress the Executive Avould con¬ 
 sider this proceeding was legal, and 
 the promise of the President not 
 to prevent, in spite of his philo¬ 
 sophical and political convictions, 
 the introduction of reforms pro¬ 
 posed by the late President, Don 
 Venustiano Carranza, should be an 
 indication of the good faith of the 
 Chief Executive. 
 
 Petition Held Moderate. 
 
 “With directions so precise, we 
 followed the road indicated and 
 formulated our petition to Con- 
 
 * Reprinted by permission from The New York Times, October 3, 1926. 
 
 51 
 
gress with all moderation, limiting 
 ourselves to a request for the re¬ 
 forms absolutely indispensable for 
 religious liberty and in aecord with 
 the universal dictates of conscience. 
 
 “Our petition voiced the hopes 
 of an immense majority of the 
 nation, which in spite of the lim¬ 
 ited time endorsed it by public 
 manifestations, by innumerable 
 telegrams to Congressmen and by 
 nearl}^ half a million signatures. 
 
 “Under these circumstances it 
 was logical to suppose that the 
 members of the Chamber of Depu¬ 
 ties would not fail to listen to the 
 popular demand, and, imitating the 
 conduct of the President, forget all 
 personal prejudice and personal 
 opinion, and grant satisfaction to 
 the public that they represent. 
 
 “Unfortunately, in contrast with 
 this noble and serene legal and 
 pacific attitude of the episcopate, 
 clergy and Catholic people, the 
 Chamber of Deputies in session on 
 the twenty-third of last month 
 voted to reject our petition on the 
 pretext that in their belief the 
 Bishops and Archbishops of the 
 Ejiiscopal Committee had not the 
 right of petition, because, accord¬ 
 ing to Clause 3 of Article XXXVII 
 of the Constitution, they had lost 
 their citizenship. 
 
 Right op Petition Claimed. 
 
 “We wish to say in regard to the 
 allegation that we foreswore the 
 Constitution when we swore al¬ 
 legiance to the Church that we are 
 Mexican citizens. In effect. Article 
 XXXIV requires only that a per¬ 
 
 son, to be a citizen of the republic, 
 shall be a native of the country, 18 
 years old if married, 21 if not, and 
 have an honest means of living. 
 
 ‘ ‘ The Constitution expressly 
 gives the right to all citizens to 
 petition for reform of the laws. 
 
 ‘ ‘ Although Congress cannot 
 demonstrate that we have made an 
 agreement before any minister of 
 religion not to respect the Constitu¬ 
 tion, it is true that we have de¬ 
 clared to the Roman Pontiff our ob¬ 
 jection to several articles of our 
 ]\Iagna Charta. But not even this 
 circumstance falls in the strietest 
 sense within the text of Clause 3 
 of Article XXXVII. The loss of 
 the rights of citizenship, so far as 
 the right of petition in political 
 matters is concerned, cannot be 
 brought about except by competent 
 authority, and then only after the 
 interested parties have been heard. 
 It is evident that the Chamber of 
 Deputies lacks jurisdiction in this 
 matter completely. 
 
 “We should be false to our duty 
 if we did not protest formally be¬ 
 fore the nation and history against 
 the statement that we have lost the 
 status of Mexican citizenship, 
 which was the basis of the cham¬ 
 ber’s rejection of our petition. 
 
 ‘ ‘ Following the noble example of 
 Saint Paul, who proclaimed his 
 Roman citizenship, with love and 
 pride w^e claim our rights to Mex¬ 
 ican citizenship. 
 
 Refusal Declared Unjust. 
 
 “We have sought recognition of 
 our natural rights, backed and up- 
 
 52 
 
held by eternal justice, recognized 
 by our Constitution and by all civ¬ 
 ilized countries, rights which con¬ 
 stitute the indestructible heritage 
 of free peoples in all countries of 
 the world. 
 
 “The denial of our petition by 
 (Congress was made so lightly that 
 one newspaper of great circulation 
 commenting on it said: 
 
 “ ‘We never believed that Con¬ 
 gressmen in the Chamber of Depu¬ 
 ties would base their rejection upon 
 reasons so futile and so unworthy.’ 
 
 “In spite of all this the Mexican 
 Catholic people should not despair 
 because of this unjust refusal. 
 They must persevere in their noble 
 attitude. They must continue 
 working through all legal means 
 until their ideas triumph. Only bj" 
 
 doing this can they avoid blood¬ 
 shed. 
 
 “We prelates and all the clergy 
 and Mexican Catholic people will 
 remain firm and serene, always de¬ 
 manding liberty through legitimate 
 methods. We expect that our Leg¬ 
 islators will reconsider their deci¬ 
 sion and give satisfaction to a peo¬ 
 ple thirsting for liberty and jus¬ 
 tice. 
 
 “But we shall make known to 
 the entire world that if Congress 
 does not reconsider its decision we 
 shall persevere in our just demands 
 as long as necessary in order to ob¬ 
 tain reforms in the laws and the 
 removal of the religious restrictions 
 so that the glorious aura of re¬ 
 ligious liberty will shine upon our 
 country. ’ ’ 
 
 53 
 
^andic k ^ress 
 
 22 THAMES STREET 
 NEW YORK