Fr. Richard H. Tierney, S.J. takes on U.S. Government & Media during the Mexican Revolution


"[S]tories circulated in the United States about persecution of Mexican Catholics at the hands of anticlerical forces..."

Adapted from this source: The Jesuit magazine, America, September 8, 2008, in an article titled "A Bold New Direction," by Fr. James T. Keane, S.J., and Fr. Jim McDermott, S.J.

"South of the Border

"After Mexico plunged into a series of coups and endless civil unrest after the Revolution of 1910, storied circulated in th eUNited States about persecution of Mexican Catholics at th ehands of anticlericla forces.

"By 1915, Tierney claimed to have collected a large dossier of testimonies from prominent Mexican citizens and foreign nationals in Mexico that proved the persecution was not only widespread, but was occurring with the full knowledge of the U.S. government.

"[The Jesuit magazine] America's repeated calls for the United States to protect the religious rights of the Mexican people turned the controversy into somehting of a casue célèbre in the second half of that decade.

"Loath to alienate their Mexican allies for fear of losing the valuable oil concessions controlled by American companies, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson's administration neither intervened nor acknowledged any persecution."

"It is a revolution of rapine..."

"At the same time, Tierney was drawing large crowds to public speaking engagements in New York to expose Mexican persecution of Catholics and to call for official condemnation of it."

As the authors quote Fr. Tierney's own owrds to one such group of around 2,000 people:

"It is a revolution of rapine, and one that is carrying on its turgid waves the mangled bodies of men and the living souls of women and children, who are wailing piteously, crying hopelessly for help ... They are humanity's problem -- issues that concern man because he is a man, not a beast."

A good read!

It even seems that Fr. Tierney had "a long list of atrocities committed by Mexican troops against nuns and priests."

Why not check it all out for yourself?