Karl Mennicke, another former minister, points out the attitude of
German Labor. "For modern labor the feeling that human life is first of
all a matter of eternal life, and only secondarily a matter of this
world, has been entirely lost. The high-strung eschatologic mood, or
expectation of Jesus, has no sounding board in the masses of the
proletariat of to-day. The Christian epoch in history is obviously on
its way to extinction. The eschatological mood of Christianity has been
a handicap, and still is, for the Christian community has difficulty
finding an organic relationship to the creative problems of social
life."
Emanuel Radl speaks of labor and the Church in Czechoslovakia. "In
general the churches play a far lesser part in our public life than in
the United States. People are accustomed to speak of the churches as
exploded institutions that are factors only among the uneducated
classes. The churches are not measuring up in understanding and helping
the poor."
Robert Haberman, representing the Mexican Labor Party, gives a clear-cut
summation of the tyranny that the clergy of that country yoked upon the
masses and the retardation that it has produced. It furnishes striking
and conclusive evidence of the harm that is done when the Church and
State are still integrally intertwined. There is no better example of
the efforts of a reactionary clergy to keep the masses in poverty and
ignorance than is this study of the church in modern Mexico. Mr.
Haberman gives an account of the church activities in old Mexico and
coming to the present, "By the year 1854, the Church had gained
possession of about two-thirds of all the lands of Mexico, almost every
bank, and every large business. The rest of the country was mortgaged to
the Church. Then came the revolution of 1854, led by Benito Juarez. It
culminated in the Constitution of 1857, which secularized the schools
and confiscated Church property. All the churches were nationalized,
many of them were turned into schools, hospitals, and orphan asylums.
Civil marriages were made obligatory. Pope Pius IX immediately issued a
mandate against the Constitution and called upon all Catholics of Mexico
to disobey it. Ever since then, the clergy has been fighting to regain
its lost temporal power and wealth. It has been responsible for civil
wars and for foreign intervention." Under the rule of Diaz, the
constitution was disregarded and the Church was permitted to regain most
of its lost privileges. "The Church bells rang out at sunrise to call
the peons out, with nothing more to eat than some tortillas and chili,
to work all day long in the burning fields, until sunset when the Church
bells rang again to send them home to their mud huts. During their work
they were beaten. On Sundays they were lashed and sent bleeding to Mass.
After Church they had to do Faenas (free work) for the Church, in the
name of some saint or other--either to build a new church or do some
special work for the priests.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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