Blood-Drenched Altars: A Catholic Commentary on the History of Mexico

What fate has doomed the people of the United States and the people of Mexico to be as they are to each other? It is not fate but plain ignorance, and alas! very much on our own side. We do not know the truth about Mexico, the story of her triumphs, her defeats, her beating onward against the winds of adversity. We have listened to slanders against her. We have believed the lies of the riffraff from within who robbed her. We have helped them in their robberies. In a word, we have treated Mexico not at all as we have treated Canada, for we have hurt her. The worst ill feeling always comes from the one who has done an injustice to the other. 


It goes without saying that no one can read history to his or her own profit with a mind full of unconquerable prejudices. In other days, that was how history was written, and it is the reason why it could and was truthfully said that history is nothing but a recorded lie. Modern research is rapidly changing all that. Prejudice is being taken out of historical writing. It will be a more difficult task to take it out of reading. Nevertheless that too must be done. For what civilization is going to be will, to a greater extent than we now realize, perhaps, depend on what we learn of its mistakes as well as its triumphs. No history written in the English language has more need to be approached without prejudice than that of Mexico. Too much of the English record called Mexican history is the work of conscious or unconscious special pleaders. We shall notice these as we go along. The present urgent necessity is to make sure of our warning against prejudice. Strange to say the necessity of this warning may not be understood, and there are good reasons for expressing the fear. Prejudice against anything Spanish is part of the inheritance of English-speaking peoples. It is in their blood. Its sources are both political and religious. To remove them it is first necessary to uncover them. That may take a little time, but it will be time well spent for those who do really wish to get at the truth. 


It is not difficult to find the reasons for our dislike of Mexico and Mexico’s dislike for us. For the latter the story is spread over the record of our dealings with Mexican problems; for the former, it may be had by an honest confession of what is in the minds and hearts of the majority of English-speaking people. It will profit us to take a look at both.