EXPULSION OF SISTERS OF CHARITY.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume II, Issue 111, 12 June 1875, Page 14

EXPULSION OF SISTERS OF CHARITY.

Itf the early part of March, at about 4 o'clock in the morning, 140 Sisters of Charity left the Montparnasse railway station at Paris, and proceeded two and two towards their mother-house in the Hue dv Bac. They were the first detachment of the 410 Sisters of St. Vincent of Paul, driven out of Mexico by the liberal and masonic government of that country. As those good Sisters directed the education of the greater portion of the young girls of Mexico, the Government, fearing the indignation of its subjects, used a certain degree of prlfc dence in its impious projects. First they proponed to the Sisters to lay aside the habit of their Order. The Sisters replied with a positive refusal. "Very well! if you will not lay aside your habit, you will have to leave Mexico." — " And we will leave it, seeing that while yon preach universal liberty, you refuse it to us." Taken, aback by such firmness, the wicked magistrates sent for all the religious and began to question them separately. They "wanted to know : 1. The motive of their resistance. 2. Whether they were acting freely. 3. Whether they were not the victims of the despotism of then- superiors. The unanimous reply was this : — "We are bound, but only by our vows, and never will we break them in order to obey man. The only pressure put upon us is that of duty and conscience. We are prepared to leave."

Ashamed of being done by women, the tyrants decreed that the Sisters of Mexican origin (they number 355) could not leave the country without the permission of their parents. But, the parents being consulted by Government, all answered* that they gave their dear exiles leave to execute the arduous duties o£ their vocation. These impious proceedings of those in authority was the subject of a most energetic protest on the part of the Mexican ladies. Here are lome remarkable paisages : — " We are convinced we shall not be attended to. Party spirit is blind to everything, and to execute his orders, the freemason is ready to set the world in a blaze. Notwithstanding we are resolved to protest, so that the true sentiments may be known of the people of whom we form a half, in order that the world shall not attiibute to our nation the infamies of its representatives, and in order to make a solemn affirmation of our faith and to give relief to our just indignation. You seize most holy institutions ; but you are not authorised to act so even by that mass of stupidities called by you a Constitution. You proclaim liberty and you persecute the priests ; you talk of individual guarantees and you proscribe the ecclesiastical dress ; you preach independence and you enthral the Church ; you denounce liberty of association, and you exile 400 Mexican ladies who are guilty, heinous crime as it is, of forming a society together for the purpose of doing all the good they can to their fellows. You deserve right well of the masters to whom you have sworn servitude : freemasonry has reason to be proud of you. But, in revenge, the anathemas of the Church blast you. and the peoples' curse is on yon. By your foolish crime, you have reduced numerous families to be without bread, you have deprived of their foster mothers thousands of little orphans, you leave without education entire populations, without help hundreds of sick, without comfort an immense multitude of wretched. And now, wo declare before the whole world, that he who abuses his office as you do, is a traitor ; he who assails the Sisters of Charity is a cowardly varlet ; he who signs decrees against the religion of his fathers and turns himself into a persecutor of it, may be a very good deputy of the masonic lodges, but not of the Mexican people. We declare that we will disobey, whenever it may be possible, the decrees of the modern Julians, and we will obey even to death our Pastors when they shall address us whether from the depths of a dungeon, or from the top of the scaffold. We declare in fine, that we no longer regard as husband, brothers, or children those who have had a hand in exiling the Sisters of Charity and we are prepared to suffer any persecution that our protest may draw upon us."