A Gringo in Mañana-Land

by Harry L. Foster

We came back to the churches to see the peons.

At the central Zocalo, or main plaza, a rather dusty square with a few bedraggled palm trees, where once had stood an Aztec pyramid, there now stands the famous Cathedral of Mexico. Mexicans will inform one that it is the largest and handsomest cathedral in the hemisphere, although it is much smaller than the Peruvian Cathedral, and one of the least handsome churches in Mexico itself. There are really two edifices, joined together like the Siamese twins; each with a façade of elaborately carved gray sandstone against a background of cracked red basalt, pierced by many little windows in which repose mildewed green bells.

This, essentially, is the church of the common people. Society attends a more exclusive church on the Avenida Madero, where the women (always devout) go inside to mass, and the men (usually agnostic) remain at the gate to ogle them as they make their exit. There one finds the dim light, the subdued air, and the solemnity of churches in other lands. There is none of it in the Cathedral.

Everything in the huge edifice was bright and gaudy and noisy. Many windows flooded it with light. Glittering gilt ornamentation was everywhere. The priests wore green and yellow robes. The choir sang enthusiastically and loudly, without evidence of training, as though each would outsing his fellows both in volume and speed. Services were proceeding simultaneously in both halves of the institution, and each seemed trying frantically to drown out the other.

Yet this, offensive even to one of mediocre taste, impressed the peons for whom it was intended. They knelt at the door and lighted their candles. Then they crept forward upon their knees—ragged little brown devils, unwashed, unshaven, and unlaundered—many of them still a trifle pulque-sodden from a fiesta of the night before. This noise and display thrilled them as no solemn service could thrill them. As they crept forward, with arms extended, expressions of rapt ecstasy almost ennobled their villainous faces. Their sins were forgiven! To-morrow, with that odd mixture of idealism and materialism so characteristic of their race, they would start sinning again with a clean conscience.

These ragged little devils were the pawns of a long series of revolutions. To-day, while the successful generals rode grandly through Chapultepec, the peons who had won their battles and gained nothing turned to the Cathedral for solace. One might not believe in their religion, but one was forced to admit that they found comfort. And certainly they needed it.

IX

To avoid religion as a delicate subject, as most writers do, is to ignore a most important phase of Mexican life.

In Mexico, even more than in most parts of Latin America, the Church has been obliged, to the regret of many of its own clergymen, to sacrifice much of its dignity. It came originally to a land which already possessed a religion consisting solely of barbaric rites. It was adopted by a people whose conception of things ecclesiastic was limited to the meaningless observance of pagan ceremonials. And these people, as a whole, to-day attend mass and march about in procession without any very definite idea of what the Church means, in much the same fashion as in days of old they followed their Aztec priests. Even in more intelligent circles, the Church must cater to a racial mind which concerns itself not with substance but with form and cares little about creed or doctrine so long as it can maintain outward appearances by elaborate ceremony. And since the rank and file of the clergy come from the same sort of people, the Church in Mexico has become largely theatrical.

Religion, in short, caters here to a primitive mind. It has many difficulties wherewith to contend. Because its earliest leaders were gaining such authority among the peons, the government placed severe restrictions upon them. To-day no foreign priest is allowed to conduct services. No native priest may appear upon the street in clerical garb. No collections may be taken at mass. No church may own its property, which the government holds and permits it to use. And church bells may ring but one minute out of every hour.