| Catholicism’s Rocky Road in Mexico |
Gregg Thompson
Most visitors to Mexico arrive with the idea that it´s a staunchly Catholic country.
Well, it is and it isn´t, and Mexican history explains why.
Certainly, the outward signs of faith are everywhere: the cab in from the airport sports a dash-mounted crucifix, and rosary beads dangle from the rear-view mirror. On the street, halo-ed images abound of the green-gowned Virgin of Guadalupe, revered patroness of Mexico.
But while these religious symbols reflect the warm regard most Mexicans have for Catholicism, for historical reasons many Mexicans mistrust the Catholic church as an institution.
Statistically, Mexico is 90% Catholic, which means roughly 90 million Mexicans owe their spiritual allegiance to the Vatican.
But when Pope John PauI visited Mexico in 1979 on his first trip abroad as Pope, the Mexican government virtually ignored him. No diplomatic honor guard greeted the pontiff on his arrival from Rome, and Mexican president Jose Lopez Portillo, doffing his presidential sash, met John Paul not as a head of state, but as a private citizen.
The slight was no error in protocol. For 131 years Mexico held no diplomatic relations with the Vatican, and in the world´s second most populous Catholic country the Catholic Church held no legal status. The passion that many ordinary Mexicans felt for Catholicism was disdained by the Mexican government. Church-State animosity had more than once turned to violence and open rebellion – a religious civil war had claimed tens of thousands of lives.
The source of the conflict came with the founding of Mexico by the conquistador Hernan Cortés. Although the Spanish conquest of Mexico was initiated by the sword it was consolidated over centuries by the Catholic Church. With the defeat of the Aztrecs in 1521 the Church, backed by the Spanish Crown, formed the focal point of social organization in the new colony. The Church set the tone in art, architecture, education and even commerce. Its presence united the diverse elements of society. Spaniard, criollo, Indian and mestizo all shared the religious vision of Catholic Christianity.
But as society benefited from the Church so to did the Church benefit from society, and over generations the Mexican Church became extremely rich. Its affluence and authority came to challenge the power of the State itself, a condition that in time would prove politically untenable in a changing Mexico.
Church wealth flowed from a variety of sources, including the “diezmo,” a 10% tax levied on all parishioners, Indians excepted. Clergy also collected sizeable fees for administering the sacraments of baptism and marriage, and nunneries collected large sums from the wealthy whose daughters entered Church service – each novice brought with her a handsome dowry. “Gifts” bestowed on the Church by the faithful often took the form of land, and it was through the acquisition of real property, especially in urban centers, that the Mexican Church amassed its great fortune.
“The missionary orders especially displayed a passion for owning real estate,” writes historian R.E. Ruiz. “The Church spent part of its profits…investing…in properties paying dividends, despite laws that barred clergy from acquiring property… The Jesuits ran the most efficient haciendas, while the Franciscans, forgetting conveniently their vows of poverty, were famous for the size of their haciendas. The Dominicans, thirsty for land from the start, built sugar mills…In the cities the orders owned houses and buildings which they rented out.”
With wealth accumulating the Church became banker, administering as much to the financial requirements of the community as to its spiritual needs. Church credit oiled the colonial economy, with interest-bearing loans to merchants, miners and landowners. The arrangement suited the Spanish Viceroy, relieving as it did the Crown´s responsibility for financing development of a colony whose treasury was often enough bare – with good reason. By right of mortmain – inalienable property held in perpetuity – the Church was exempt from paying taxes.
For almost 350 years this socio-economic framework supported and defined Mexican colonial society. But the 1850´s brought impulses for change. Liberal reformers gained power in 1855, determined to eradicate the colonial – and even feudal – institutional relationships they believed blocked Mexico´s passage to modernity. What followed changed the role of the Catholic Church in Mexico for ever.
In 1856 the government passed a law forbidding the Church from holding landed estates. All properties surplus to the functional needs of the Church were to be sold off. Male religious orders and brotherhoods were dissolved while convents were disallowed new novices. Marriage became a civil contract and restrictions were placed on the number of religious holidays. Religious “fueros,” which protected clerics from prosecution in civil courts, were abolished. Even cemeteries were removed from Church jurisdiction. In 1861 diplomatic relations with the Vatican were severed and the papal nuncio expelled.
The Mexican Church responded by threatening supporters of reform with excommunication, and called on the Vatican for support. Pope Pius IX responded: “We raise our pontifical voice in apostolic liberty…to condemn, reprove and declare null and void everything the said decrees and everything else that the civil authority has done in scorn of ecclesiastical authority and of this Holy See.”
The Vatican´s belligerence only intensified liberal conviction that the Church´s role in a modern Mexico would be limited.
Mexican liberalism faded in the 1870´s with the death of Benito Juarez, and the church regained some of its lost clout under the 30-year dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz. But his ouster in 1910 and the chaotic Mexican Revolution that followed led to the creation in 1917 of a new Constitution that once again targeted the Catholic Church.
Article 27 banned the Church from owning, acquiring or administering real property, and allowed for the seizure of properties without compensation. Article 3 banned the Church from establishing or directing schools of primary education, now secular, free and compulsory. Article 5 outlawed monastic orders and restricted the number of clergy, who were banned from wearing cassocks in public and forced to register with state governments. The right to freedom of speech, otherwise guaranteed to ordinary Mexicans, was denied to clerics – no priest could criticize national laws or any government authority. Clergy were ineligible for elected office and even lost the right to vote.
This anti-Church stance was not confined to politics – it flourished in the arts as well. Famed Mexican muralist Diego Rivera, a strident anti-cleric, gained popular acclaim and not a few government commissions for his works which more often portrayed priests as manifestations of the devil than agents of compassion.
In the late 1920´s, continued repression of the Church led to the Cristero Rebellion, in which Catholic fanatics attacked and destroyed government institutions, principally schools. Many teachers died in the three-year revolt that claimed at least 50,000 lives, and resulted in the closure of every Catholic church in the country, on orders of the Mexican Catholic hierarchy. The rebellion eventually flickered out, in part due to U.S. mediation. But the anti-clerical provisions of the 1917 Constitution remained in effect. Until Pope John Paul´s 1979 visit to Mexico the Church´s political profile in the country cast no shadow.
Tensions in the Catholic Cold War eased during the Pope´s second visit to Mexico in 1990. The trip highlighted not only John Paul´s enthusiasm for Mexico (“They won´t let me sleep,” said the Pope, referring to the raucous reception Mexicans gave him), but also the government´s changing attitude toward the Vatican.
In 1991 Mexico´s Congress approved an amendment to the 1917 Constitution allowing State recognition of the Catholic Church. Churches regained the right to own property under the new law, and priests the right to vote. But Church buildings themselves remained property of the State. In 1992, Mexico restored full diplomatic relations with the Vatican. But even today, the Church is barred from participating in public education, despite Vatican appeals that the law be relaxed.
The July, 2000 election of President Vicente Fox further closed the gap between Mexican Church and Mexican State. Fox visited the Pope at the Vatican only months after taking office, and in July of this year became the first Mexican leader to attend a public Papal ceremony when he was present at the canonization of Juan Diego at the Basilica of the Virgin of Guadalupe in Mexico City. During the ceremony Fox knelt to kiss the Papal ring, provoking newspaper cartoonists to harshly lampoon the gesture the next day. But the close linking of the Presidency to the Church didn´t damage Fox politically – his popularity remains generally high.
Mexicans today are not particularly devout Catholics, as evidenced by sparse church attendance and the meager financial support provided the institutional Church. In this land of sharp contrasts, religious observance also has its contradictions. Behind the ubiquitous image of the Virgin of Guadalupe stand many vestiges of Mexico´s anti-clerical past: school prayer is illegal in Mexico and Mexicans do not swear on a Bible in court or anywhere else.
Still, Mexicans realize that Catholicism is a strong and essential force uniting the nation. It is a powerful cultural symbol, and in that sense especially, respect for religion remains widespread in Mexico.
History has demanded that Mexicans carefully divide their loyalties between Church and State. Maintaining this delicate balance is best demonstrated when Mexicans marry. While only “city hall” marriages are legally recognized in Mexico, most newly-weds opt for another, traditional and culturally significant wedding ceremony. They usually get married a second time – in a church.
Gregg Thompson has lived in Mexico for seven years and is an avid reader of Mexican History. Gregg and wife Angela have recently taken over the former Hotel Cartier, now Angela’s Hotel y Hostel in centro Zihua on the pedestrain walk across from Barracruda & Pepe’s. When not teaching English you can find him there or by email at: gregg_30@hotmail.com
November 2002
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