Triumph at Tepeyac

The worshipers trudged along under a hot winter sun. Some were actors, politicians, society people, but most were Indian peasants. Their excitement rose as they came near the Shrine of the Virgin of Guadalupe, their half-Aztec Saint.* It was an occasion. For years such processions had been forbidden under the anti-religious laws, broken up with clubs, ridden down by the gorgeous mounted police of Mexico City.

Last week the police appeared as usual, and the worshipers flinched. But the policemen had come to protect them. In spite of leftist protests, the laws against outdoor religious processions had been suspended.

This was joyous news to the humble believers of Mexico who have considered the Virgin their "pedal protectress ever since her image was painted by miracle in 1531 on the cloak of the Indian, Quauhtlatohua, christened Juan Diego.

It was also a clerical victory in Mexico's age-old war between Church and State. Under conservative-turning President Manuel Avila Camacho, the Church had won a beachhead. It might reasonably hope to expand the beachhead, for the history of the Church in Mexico is a slow, cyclical curve which alternates between fabulous power and savage persecution.

The Church has always held the affections of the humble Indians, who enjoy its rites with a touching faith. They will gladly give what the Church asks, within their power. At times the Church has controlled education completely, the Government practically, and owned as much as half the wealth of Mexico.

When the Church reaches this peak, the curve of its power turns down in a fierce reaction: Church property is confiscated, priests forced into exile, nuns driven out of their convents; violent laws restrict all religious activity. Lowest point in the last cycle was under President Plutarco Elias (The "Turk") Calles, 1924-1928, when the Church led an almost underground life, supported by rural piety and Cristero guerrillas, little better than bandits. Now the curve moves up again.

*Behind the Shrine of the Virgin stands the hill of Tepeyac, once sacred to Tonantzin, goddess of fecundity. The Indians who worship the Virgin still climb to its summit in search of their older goddess.

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