p. 13 | MEXICO AND THE RELIGIOUS ORDERS

Pacific Press Publishing Company · OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA · Jan 20, 1904

MEXICO AND THE RELIGIOUS ORDERS.

By N. Y. Christian Advocate

The reform laws of Mexico prohibit religious communities. We spent most of the Lenten season of 1877 in San Antonio, Texas, where and in the neighboring town of Séguin the expelled monks congregated, and we read with special interest the action of the authorities in Mexico City a few weeks ago. The Department of the Interior having been informed that a monastery of Carmelite friars existed in a building attached to the Church of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, in the City of Mexico, it communicated the fact to the first district judge. The Mexican Herald surmises that the existence of the monastery was revealed by the Mexican friars who were turned out of the monastery soon after the arrival of a Spanish friar. When religious houses flourished in Mexico there was always a certain animosity between the Spanish and the Creole or Mexican members of the various communities. The house was specially equipped with means of exit in case of a sudden domiciliary visit, consisting of corridors in various directions, and spiral staircases. Two friars were arrested. The others, to the number of ten or twelve, it is said, made good their escape. The building externally looked like a private house and had a family in it, "no doubt to throw suspicion off the scent." A small oratory had been fitted up, the central figure of which was the Carmelite Madonna, whose feast was celebrated no longer ago than July 16. It will be remembered that the Virgin of Carmel was the favorite of the late Pope. He had hoped that he might die on the day of her "festa," July 16, but, weak as he was, his conviction that he would die that day did not overcome his remarkable endurance.—N. Y. Christian Advocate.