Forjando Patria: Pro-Nacionalismo

20: Our Catholics

93 TheimmensemajorityofourpopulationprofessesCatholicism,withoutadmitting argument or doubt. Unfortunately, not all of us are sensibly Catholic. In Mexico, there are three types of Catholics: Pagan Catholics, True Catholics, and Utilitarian Catholics. A. Pagan Catholics Although they are the majority, they constitute the intellectually and socially inferior elements of the population. It would require them twenty, fifty, or more years to acquire the religion, language, and culture that are indispensable for their incorporation into civilization. We will cite a few relevant cases of this mixed religion. In the Sierra de Zongolica in the State of Veracruz, spread along the rivers Tontos, Coyolapan, and Altototonga, there are Indians of diverse ethnic affiliations: Popolocas, Mixtecs, Zapotecs. If the parish churches are not too far away, all of these Indians confirm their children, marry, and die in the bosom of the Catholic Church. Still, many other ceremonies that are of great importance in their lives show the clear seal of paganism. When their milpas are about to germinate and sprout tender shoots, they consider it indispensable that an old Indian who knows mysterious conjurations preserves the plants from voracious pests, especially the deer that come down from the mountain on moonlit nights. We have been witnesses of the curious rite and can describe it faithfully. The wise old Indian, a true priest of this race, chants in Aztec, in a tearful and supplicant tone, and begs the Deer God to calm his children, the 20 Our Catholics 94 O u r C a t h o l i c s forest deer. Later, under a great ceiba tree that filters the light of the moon, braziers burn with little sacrificed birds, horn scrapings and dear hooves, strips of paper made from wild banana leaf, and amber-colored grains of copal incense, all tossed in by the blackened hand of the Indian sorcerer. It burns in fleeting white clouds. This is an intermediate example of Pagan Catholicism. Some of the groups that we denominate as Pagan Catholics are more inclined toward paganism, and others are more inclined toward Catholicism. Amongst the former we include primitive tribes, the Huicholes, Coras, Seris, Tepehuanes, Lacandónes, and so forth. Go to the museum, and you will see the gods, idols carved in stone, wood, and ferns, that those tribes currently “use.” The latter include Indians who live close to the cities, the uncultured rabble of the city itself, and other people who are neither Indians nor part of the rabble but who commune with pagan superstition. Have we not seen the dancers that come year after year to Remedios or Tacuba to sing and dance in the parish atria, crowned with headdresses of feathers and foil just as they had worn in the teocallis of their ancestors? Do we not know how the thugs of Tepito and La Palma kneel before the Virgen de Soledad as before the warlike Huitzilopochtli, pleading for a firm grip with which to handle their knives in the next homicide? Are there not young ladies that hang Saint Anthony from his feet or naïve ranchers that put out the candle of Saint Isidro because they do not see their wishes granted? All of this is Pagan Catholicism or Catholic Paganism, however one wishes to call it. B. True Catholics These are firm, sincere believers who are free of conventionalisms. They are conscious of their ideas and have the valor to sustain them. They are liberal regarding the ideas of others. These Catholics flog the merchants in the temple. From their lips always fall two sentences that are very convenient for our country : “Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s” and “My reign is not of this world.” They understand the infinite nature of divinity with a generous sensibility. They are not complacent with having the saints to scare away spiders or mice, or with finding lost needles and rings. They take science as science and religion as religion. True Catholics understand that fanaticism is offensive to God, and they themselves flee from fanatics as if they were the plague. The clergy that cultivates these Catholics serves as a fine moral example and exercises a noble social 95 O u r C a t h o l i c s function in Mexico. Respect and guarantees should be extended to these True Catholics. C. Utilitarian Catholics The Pagan Catholics are not culpable for their errors; they need help and piety. It is necessary...