Prelates in Mufti

With religious and racial persecutions 10-c- a dozen in Europe, many people forget that in Mexico there has long been, if not a persecution, a very cramping restriction of Roman Catholics. Priests are forbidden by law to wear clerical garb outside their houses and their churches, and the cassock has not been seen in the streets of most Mexican states for many years. An eye opener for U. S. adepts of "selective indignation"* was a photograph circulated last week. It showed a group of Mexican and U. S. prelates, gathered in the patio of the home of Mexico's Archbishop Luis M. Martinez. He and the Archbishop of Morelia wore their soutanes because, presumably, they were staying indoors. The others wore sack suits and neckties.

The U. S. churchmen--Bishop John Mark Gannon of Erie, Pa., Bishop James A. Griffin of Springfield, Ill., Monsignor Michael J. Ready of Washington--had gone to Mexico to confer on a joint enterprise, a seminary founded two years ago at Las Vegas, N. M. to furnish priests to the Mexican Church. For seminaries, as well as cassocks, are illegal in practice in Mexico. The U. S. prelates found the seminary with its 66 students, going well enough. For the rest, they visited Mexico City's landmarks, were banqueted--in mufti--by a Methodist who has not always been popular with Catholic leaders, U. S. Ambassador Josephus Daniels.

* Catholic Author Arnold Lunn's phrase for getting hot over persecution in one country, keeping cool over it in another.

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