20th Century Government Mandates against Religion:
Father Miguel Pro, SJ. executed by the Mexican secularist government in 1927 -Viva Cristo Rey! Rey!” 
"We support the right of women in this country to have access to birth control through their insurance policies, and anybody who stands in the way is going to have to deal with us and our friends," said Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., flanked by four colleagues. Boxer said she had spoken to Obama adviser David Axelrod, who assured her that the administration would not weaken its position. USA Today 2/9/2012
Anti-clericalism is a historical movement that opposes religious institutional power and influence in public and political life. In its more extreme manifestations, anti-clericalism has led to violent attacks against the clergy, vandalism against religious sites, and the seizure of church property.
Often directed against the Catholic Church and clergy, anti-clericalism goes beyond mere secularism or the French tradition of laïcité, which advocates both the absence of religious interference in government affairs and government interference in religious affairs. The goal of anti-clericalism is often that religion should become a strictly private activity . . .During the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s, and in the context of atrocities on both sides, many of the Republican forces were violently anti-clerical anarchists and Communists. The numerous assaults against Catholic institutions, clergy, and supporters during this period have been been termed Spain's Red Terror. These included the sacking and burning of monasteries and churches and killing 283 nuns and more than 6,000 priests, including 13 bishops, 4184 diocesan priests, 2365 members of male religious orders. Among these were 259 Claretians, 226 Franciscans, 204 Piarists, 176 Brothers of Mary, 165 Christian Brothers, 155 Augustinians, 132 Dominicans, and 114 Jesuits. There are accounts of the Catholic faithful being forced to swallow rosary beads, thrown down mine shafts, and priests being forced to dig their own graves before being buried alive. The Catholic Church has canonized several martyrs of the Spanish Civil War and has beatified hundreds more. New World Encyclopedia
My students said this more often than not - "No Way!" They also protested " You're Crazy!" Most often they exclaimed " Are You Serious?!"
These came in response to questions with regard to Master At Arms Claggert's homosexual overtures to the handsome sailor Billy Budd, Herman Melville's novel of same name. As the innocent and beautiful young man shouted so innocently to his shipmates " Farewell Rights of Man!" the irony of discovery is a real push -me- pull -you in the noggin. No Way!!!!!!!!!
Way.
I taught wonderfully diverse, but always solidly important novels, plays, essays and histories to my students: Not only did they read Catcher in the Rye, but also Catch 22; The Sun Also Rises and the U.S.A trilogy; The Scarlet Letter and Genesis.
My students were great critics and often favored John Dos Passos over Ernest Hemingway - " Why is Hemingway so huge and no one reads Dos Passos?"
Well, discipuli, that statement is no longer true. You read Dos Passos.
Interestingly, Dos Passos and Hemingway were friends until the Spanish Civil War 1937. The two writers were very much alike - both born in Illinois, WWI veterans and part of the post-war Parisian crowd of Modern Culture Vultures. They both shared leftist political views, until the Spanish Civil War. A man by the name of Jose Robles, who had taught Spanish and literature in America and translated the works of Dos Passos, Hemingway and Sinclair Lewis into Spanish and share the same socialist/leftist political ideals, was placed against a wall and shot by the Republican ( Communists) authorities for not being 'left enough.'
Hemingway was not too bothered by the murder of his friend Jose Robles, but he was really upset that John Dos Passos equated the murder of his friend to the slaughter and persecution of Catholics by the soviet led Republicans. Hemigway cut Dos Passos dead and like any MSNBC shill taking coin today engaged in charcter assasination of his old friend. Dos Passos wrote honestly. Hemingway was a gargantuan bullshitter worthy of his Nobel Prize. Dos Passos died in 1970. Hemigway painted his ceilling with his brains in 1961.
Way.
Progessives are secularists. Religion is okay as long as it does not make itself public. The American Progressives want this Democratic Republic to become "One Nation" without the prepsitional phrase "Under God." America is getting there.
Our popular culture paints the Spanish Civil War as a romantic, gallant fight against fascism. It was monstrous, brutal and heartless fight against fascism. Humphrey Bogart, Gary Cooper and John Garfield all played Spanish Civil War Veterans from the Republican side - they never said Red in the Old Black and Whites.
Every one hates fascists, especially neo-fascists. A fascist is merely a very successful socialist.
No America public educated high school students know anything about the massacre of the Escorial Augustinian seminary students or the Cristiada that swept Mexico from 1926 -1929 ten years before the Communists took control of the Spanish Republic.
Facts are troublesome things. Much more difficult is the task of applying what we have learned to our lives.
President Obama is at war with Catholic Church and American religious liberty. No Way!!!!!! Yes, way.
Obama 2012 is the start of the American Cristiada - make no mistake. John Dos Passos began his U.S.A. trilogy with most chapters dedicated to the Revolution in Mexico. An American Wobbly ( IWW) printer goes to fight the working man's fight in the Mexico of Zapata and Pancho Villa. Fainy Mac ends up very disillusioned by the results of his labors:
The Mexican Constitution of 1917 limited the power of the Catholic Church. The constitution required the closing of all elementary schools operated by the Catholic Church. The document also led to the government confiscation of all church owned building and properties. Monastic orders were also outlawed and church services could not be conducted outside of a church. All church activities were to be overseen by the government. Law was also established to take away the voting rights of clergymen. In 1926, the Calles Law was signed making it illegal for clergy to wear their vestments in public. Following the passing of this act, Catholic priests and citizens, with approval from Pope Pius XI, engaged in acts of peaceful protest: boycotting movies and not using public transportation. Some Mexican states are only permitted by law to have a certain number of clergymen living in them. In these states it is not uncommon for the clergy to be pulled out of their homes and burned or shot before a firing squad. The rebellions became more violent. A number of priests holed themselves up in the church, Our Lady of Guadalupe. There is currently a standoff between the priests and the federal soldiers.
The January HHS Contraception Mandate followed the May Hilda Solis's NLRB stripping the Catholic identity from Chicago's St. Xavier University and other schools. Obama will decide what is religious and what is not, what is acceptable to him and what is not. Obama is a later-day composite Yanqui Obergon/Calles*!
Obama 2012 is the blue print for the American Cristiada. It is to be seen how many American Catholics will become Cristeros.
Facts are troubling things.
* Many leaders and members of the Roman Catholic Church in Mexico were highly critical of the 1917 constitution. They especially criticized Article 3, which forbade religious instruction in schools, and Article 130, which adopted an extreme form of separation of church and state, including a series of restrictions on priests and ministers of all religions to hold public office, canvass on behalf of political parties or candidates, or to inherit from persons other than close blood relatives, etc.).[27]
Although Obregón was suspicious of the Catholic Church, he was far less anti-clerical than his successor, Plutarco Elías Calles, whose policies would lead to the Cristero War (1926–29). For example, he sent Pope Pius XI congratulations upon his election in 1922, and in a private message to the pope, emphasized the "complementarity" of the aims of the Catholic Church and the Mexican Revolution.[27]
In spite of Obregón's moderate approach, his presidency saw the beginnings of clashes between Catholics and supporters of the Mexican Revolution. Some bishops campaigned actively against land distribution and against the organization of workers into secular unions. Catholic Action movements were founded in Mexico in the wake of Pius XI's 1922 encyclical Ubi arcano, and supporters of the Young Mexican Catholic Action soon found themselves in violent conflict with CROM members.[28] The most serious diplomatic incident occurred in 1923, when Ernesto Eugenio Filippi, the Apostolic Nuncio to Mexico, conducted an open-air religious service in spite of the fact that it was illegal to hold a religious service outside of a church. The government invoked Article 33 of the constitution and expelled Filippi from Mexico.[29]
http://www.executedtoday.com/2008/11/23/1927-father-miguel-pro-viva-cristo-rey/
http://sites.google.com/site/edenoperahouse/game-information-sheets/the-mexican-revolution-and-the-cristiada
http://sites.google.com/site/edenoperahouse/game-information-sheets/the-mexican-revolution-and-the-cristiada
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/story/2012-02-08/catholics-contraceptive-mandate/53014864/1
http://www.digitaldospassos.com/items/browse?collection=1
