SUFFERINGS OF CATHOLICS

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 348, 8 May 1928, Page 14

SUFFERINGS OF CATHOLICS

BISHOP’S MESSAGE TO MEXICO SYMPATHY AND ADMIRATION “Scarcely exceeded even by the persecutions under Nero, Domitian and Caligula,” the sufferings of the Catholic Church in Mexico have stirred the Catholic Hierarchy of New Zealand to send the following letter through Cardinal Hayes, of New York, to the Catholic Episcopate of Mexico;

“We, the Catholic Hierarchy of New Zealand in assembled, feel we can no lc ger remain silent regarding your sufferings for the cause of Christ, but must in this public manner assure you and your people of the sympathy, admiration and pravers of ourselves, our clergy and our people. “Our hearts beat in sympathy -ith yours, venerable brothers, as your eyes turn to your native land and you ee the Church of God denied there all legr* 7 existence; her property wholly confiscated; 1 .cred buildings, schools, hospitals, homes for the orphan and the aged poor, all closed; her bishops in forced exile from their owh country, or in hiding with a price upon their heads; her priests forbidden to exercise even in private the least act of their sacred ministry. Nor is this all. Day by day, we know, you must be bowed down with grief as you hear of vile calumnies spoken by Government officials against yourselves and your people, of priests tortured and shot, of nuns and other holy women in numbers suffering from a brutalised soldiery a fate to which death itself were preferable, of men of every cL-ss massacred or sent to the living dea.h of the mines. Your trials stand, we believe, seldom surpassed in the 1900 years of our Catholic life, and are scarcely exceeded even by the persecutions under Nero, Domitian and Caligula. How could we or any fairminded men, knowing the truth, refuse you sympathy? How could we. sharers with you in the Catholic faith, fail you in our prayers? “The Catholic world is stirred to admiration in the presence of your patience and dignity, your counsels of peace, the constancy of youi people and their manifestations of piety, the nobility of your martyr-priests and the laity of every rank and age—glorying in their sacrifice and with their dying breath forgiving their persecutors and praying for their country. We bless Christ, Our Saviour, for giving you and your spiritual children to stand so bravely at the foot of the Cross. A Government censorship and direction of telegraphic news still sus*ain the campaign of calumny and seek to s jppress or distort the known and even notorious facts of the aggressively atheistic war against religion in Mexico; and considerations of politics, finance and commerce maintain a conspiracy of silence on the part of the great body of the American secular Press. These sources of misrepresentation will pass; and we are confident that history will vindicate the fair name of the bishops and people of Catholic Mexico and set down your fidelity to the faith of Christ as one of the noblest pages in her record ” The letter is signed by Archbishops Redwood and O’Shea, and Bishops Cleary, Brodie, Whyte and Liston.