Madre Conchita's Martyrdom

After a beautiful woman, Mexicans most love a martyr. Next best is a hero. For a dozen years comely, dark-eyed Conception Aceveda de la Llata, Madre Conchita (a Capuchin nun), has been all three. She became a sort of Mexican Tom Mooney.

Twelve years ago Madre Conchita was arrested, charged with exerting an occult influence over the assassin who shot down Catholic-hounding President-elect General Don Alvaro Obregon. She was sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment in the grim penal colony on the Tres Marias Islands. With gentle, biblical good spirits she went to work as nurse, teacher and confidante. Her fame spread throughout her country.

Two years ago she was transferred to the Federal Prison in Mexico City. Belonging to an order of nuns whose vows are not perpetual, she was presently released, married another prisoner who had been sentenced for a previous attempt on Obregon. A priest, Father Jose Jimenez, also serving a term, for complicity in the Obregon murder, performed the ceremony. Fortnight ago, the pressure of popular opinion and the hard work of her previously released husband induced new President General Manuel Avila Camacho, who wants to be friends with the Church, to commute her term. As her fellow prisoners waved tearful farewells and the Mexican press broke into congratulatory headlines, Seiiora Castro Balda walked out through the prison gates. A vindicated martyr, at 49 more bloomingly plump than ever, she drove with her husband to the Villa Madero, placed a grateful bouquet at the foot of the Virgin of Guadalupe.

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