Religion: Rebirth in Mexico

"Faith is stronger than law," said Archbishop Luis María Martínez, drawing deeply on his cigarette. "Despite what has happened in the past, we are really not doing too badly." Outside, a brown-cowled Franciscan hurrying along the plaza bore out the Archbishop's point, for this was Mexico City, capital of a country whose 38-year-old constitution 1) forbids monastic orders, and through a statute also bans any kind of religious garb in public; 2) declares all churches, rectories and convents government property, and 3) gives state legislatures the power to determine the number of clergymen permitted to each creed. But Mexico's laws against religion are getting to be dead-letter.

One day last year old Revolutionary General Miguel Flores Villar—who in his day saw priests hunted down and convents burned—spotted a fully garbed Sister of Charity bustling through Mexico City and ordered the police to arrest her. They did because they had to, but at the police station Sister Guadalupe Colon was immediately released. The incident was typical of the state's changing attitude toward religion.

The Conversion. The seeds of anticlericalism are deep in Mexican soil. Hernando Cortes (1485-1547) fought and finagled his way through Mexico in the name of Christ as well as for the sake of conquest. The twelve humble Franciscans (later nicknamed "The Twelve Apostles") who followed the conquistadors' reign of terror were more successful missionaries. At the sight of the ragged friars padding doggedly through the mountains, the Indians sighed, "Motolinia, motolinia [Poor, poor fellows]." Generations of such brave, tough motolinias from Spain finally converted Mexico.* But on the Indians' simple faith, the Roman Catholic Church in Mexico grew fat and feckless. Prelates exacted tremendous fees, gobbled up land and abused their ecclesiastical powers, e.g., one archbishop excommunicated a group of pulque brewers for adulterating their product. Republican thought was ruthlessly suppressed; following the American Revolution, the church censored all discussion of the U.S. Constitution.

In 1810 came the inevitable uprising (actually touched off by a priest, Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla), and for 50 years Mexico was a chaos of violence, weakness and naive hope. Under the iron dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz, the clergy briefly regained its privileges, but the revolutionary constitution of 1917 again swept the church aside in one angry, Marx-muscled blow. By 1928, only 197 priests were permitted in Mexico—out of 4,593 some four years before. One provincial governor tried to force priests to marry. Revolutionary generals rode into churches on horseback, smashing altars, and many churches were converted to movie houses.

The Road Back. But the campaign against the church was not a success. Indians were apt to cut off the ears of the government agents sent to incite them against their priests. Slowly, the cloud of terror lifted. President Lázaro Cárdenas (1934-40) was a far-leftist politically, but he quietly called off the anticlerical crusade, and the church began to build its way back.