Page:About Mexico - Past and Present.djvu/410

402 The following facts are given by Mr. Wells concerning the past and the present of the Church in Mexico. After the downfall of Maximilian, when Juarez became the undisputed and practically absolute ruler of the country, the entire property of the Mexican Church was at once "nationalized" (a synonym for "confiscated") for the use of the State. Mr. Wells thus describes the change that resulted: "Every convent, monastic institution, or religious house was closed up and devoted to secular purposes, and the members of every religious society, from the Jesuits to the Sisters of Charity who served in the hospitals or taught in the schools, were banished and summarily sent out of the country. And so vigorously and severely is the policy of subjugating the ecclesiastical to the civil authority—which Juarez inaugurated in 1867—still carried out that no convent or monastery now openly exists in Mexico, and no priest or sister, or any ecclesiastic, can walk the streets in any distinctive costume or take part in any religious parade or procession; and this in towns and cities where twenty years ago or less the life of a foreigner or skeptic who did not promptly kneel in the streets at the 'procession of the Host' was imperiled. Again, while Catholic worship is still permitted in the cathedrals and in a sufficient number of other churches, it is clearly understood that all of these structures and the land upon which they stand are absolutely the property of the government, liable to be sold and converted to other uses at any time, and that the officiating clergy are only 'tenants at will.' Even the ringing of the church-bells is regulated by law. All these rites, furthermore—which the Catholic Church has always 'classed as among her holy sacraments and exclusive privileges, and the possession of which has constituted the chief source of her power over society—are also now regulated by civil law. The civil authority registers births, performs the marriage ceremony and provides for the burial of the dead, and, while the Church marriage ceremonies are not prohibited to