Anti cleric Mexico in the 1920-30s

This is a forked discussion from the Spanish Civil War thread.


Here is the summary. Mexico, being a deeply Catholic country, also has had a strong anti cleric tradition as well. One of the many civil wars in the 19th century had to do with taking property and power away from the Church, first through a series of laws and then by re-writing the constitution.

The classic 19th century liberal in Mexico was strongly anticlerical. Here are the basic reasons for it. First, the Church had its own jurisdiction which the civil authorities couldn't breach. Second, the Church was an owner of a lot of land, which 19th century liberals felt that it wasn't put to good use. The Church also had a lot of civil power by keeping public records on births, deaths, access to cementaries etc. Finally, there was the political power that the Church enjoyed in certain areas, its connection with a foreign power (the Vatican), and its leadership being associated with backing conservative causes.

At the end of the era of 19th century civil wars, the liberals won. The official stand of the government was that it stripped power from the Church, took their property, took away its civil power to keep records and to run schools. However the dictator of Mexico was pragmatic and left many of these laws to go unenforced.

When the Mexican Revolution started, a faction defending the liberal constitution of 1857 appeared at one point and became victorious. As part of the package, there were many who held anticleric positions. These became more evident when the constitution was rewritten in 1917.

Problems with the Church began when the Obregon and Calles administration tried to enforce the laws. The Church went on a Mass strike to protest, and they told their followers that Calles had outlawed them. The most religious areas started a guerrilla war, which went on for a few years, until Calles reached an agreement with the Church to, what else?, save face, talk against the Church, but let the Church to carry on as it did before.

There were two things that the government did get from this. First, the taboo that no priest should get involved with politics. Second, priests couldn't vote. Third, church property was officially government property.

So what you have in Mexico, then, is a deeply secular population when it comes to separation of Church and state while being very religious at the same time. There are civil marriage ceremonies, and religious ones. You get religious holidays off in public schools, but officially its is spring break, even though it always coincide with the holy week.

Originally posted by calvo Another impression I get is that in Mexico, and in many other countries in Latin America, Christian missionaries often help the poor, indigenous people.

Edited by Cryptic - 06-Sep-2008 at 14:01

In most countries the peasants remain superstitious and strongly-attached to traditional religion. The same was true in Spain, Italy, Germany, and Russia where they resisted the intellectual and working-class oriented socialist movement by aligning with reactionary groups like Franco's fascists