Events

   Mexicans watch the chaos that envelopes much of Europe with confusion, alarm, and more than a little pity.  Liberals saw the moderate, “stable” democratic institutions of the French government as the model to emulate; and now that system seemed to be falling apart.  Conservative landholders saw a wildfire that no one was containing; what if it spread here?  How many gentleman-statemen would be replaced by unwashed illiterates, rewriting society on emotion and whim?

   But many pious Catholics and liberal humanitarians see the moment less as a threat to Mexico and more as a call to action.  Millions are starving across Germany and the Lowlands.  Thousands more have lost their homes and livelihoods to unrest.  Brazil is already opening its doors to those who would start over somewhere else.  Should Mexico do the same?

   President Valentin Gomez Farias thinks so; and argues that his signature secularization programme will allow just that to happen.  It is a nakedly opportunistic stance, but he’s not wrong.

  “We must look at who now suffers, and how we in generosity can aid them”, Farias says at an address in Veracruz, the country’s largest port of entry.  “It is the fellow Catholic who starves, yes; but also the Lutheran, the Anglican, the Calvinist, the Jew.  As followers of Christ, should we not open our door to those of them in the cold, share bread with those who hunger?”

   “We are as the Samaritan now passing on dangerous roads.  Our fellow man lies beaten and robbed at our feet.  Will we extend our hand in aid?  Or will we pass them by?”

   Business elites lend support to easing restrictions on non-Catholics, mostly for their interest in cheap labor.  Meanwhile the rural poor, already inclined to social conservatism, are all the more angered at the prospect of competing with these “refugees” for scarce jobs and bread.