Religious Persecution in Mexico

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The whole story is not being told. This is an old problem and is not just religious but based on political and ethnic problems as well. Incidentally, the Catholic Church has tried to help:

*On August 27, 1998, indigenous Catholics in Mitziton, Chiapas, took 23 evangelicals hostage and threatened to eject them from the community if they did not convert to Catholicism. **Catholic and state authorities intervened to obtain their release. ***

But Catholics have also been victims:

In addition, a number of Catholic churches were burned in Chiapas, but the authorities made no arrests. *The Catholic Diocese of San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, has complained that progovernment armed civilian groups threaten and harass its lay catechists. Moreover, human rights groups allege that such groups have murdered five catechists from 1994 through 1997. Nonetheless, the motive for these killings has not been established, nor has anyone been apprehended or charged. The Diocese also has alleged that these groups have vandalized 28 Catholic churches in Chiapas and caused more than 20 other churches to close. Church closures occurred when local indigenous groups physically prevented Catholic catechists from occupying and opening existing churches, with the active or tacit support of local officials. *

From: U.S.Department of State
Annual Report on International Religious Freedom for 1999: Mexico
state.gov/www/global/human_rights/irf/irf_rpt/1999/irf_mexico99.html
 
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Chickamauga:
The whole story is not being told. This is an old problem and is not just religious but based on political and ethnic problems as well. Incidentally, the Catholic Church has tried to help:

*On August 27, 1998, indigenous Catholics in Mitziton, Chiapas, took 23 evangelicals hostage and threatened to eject them from the community if they did not convert to Catholicism. Catholic and state authorities intervened to obtain their release. *

But Catholics have also been victims:

In addition, a number of Catholic churches were burned in Chiapas, but the authorities made no arrests. *The Catholic Diocese of San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, has complained that progovernment armed civilian groups threaten and harass its lay catechists. Moreover, human rights groups allege that such groups have murdered five catechists from 1994 through 1997. Nonetheless, the motive for these killings has not been established, nor has anyone been apprehended or charged. The Diocese also has alleged that these groups have vandalized 28 Catholic churches in Chiapas and caused more than 20 other churches to close. Church closures occurred when local indigenous groups physically prevented Catholic catechists from occupying and opening existing churches, with the active or tacit support of local officials. *

From: U.S.Department of State
Annual Report on International Religious Freedom for 1999: Mexico
state.gov/www/global/human_rights/irf/irf_rpt/1999/irf_mexico99.html
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Thank you. Thank you… for your lucid response and the U.S.State Department link. I knew I’d find more and better information in the brain trust here at Catholic Answers than I was slowly unearthing paging through anti-Catholic web sites on the WWW. I’m not quite sure why I go toe to toe with these folks spreading their anti-Catholic venom, but I do. I kill em with kindness ane hopefully we get off the subject of the Crusades and the Inquisition quick enough for me to make my case for the one doctrine I hang my hat on so to speak…the Real Presence.

Peace,
Paul
 
Religious persecution in Mexico is not a new thing. Remember, the first attempted Communist purge of the Catholic Church did not occur in Russia. It happened in Mexico.

PF
 
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WanderAimlessly:
Remember, the first attempted Communist purge of the Catholic Church did not occur in Russia. It happened in Mexico.
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Neither Carranza, Mexico’s chief executive in 1917 when the new Constitution suppressed the Church, nor Obregon, who overthrew him in 1919, were “communists,” though they were very anti-catholic.

And the worst measures against the Church occurred in the mid-20s after the Catholic counter revolt.
 
I would argue though that they shared some of the communist views and communists could find sympathy the Mexican government. Remember Troksky was assassinated in Mexico City. I did a Graduate term paper in Latin American Politics on the Anticlerical Persecution of the church throughout the 20th Century. I had College professor who was very anti-catholic throughout the semester. The PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party) exercised sole control of the government until the election of Ficente Fox to the Presidency in 2000. The PRI began adopting reforms in 1991 due in large part to a desire to be a part of NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement).

Article 130 of the Constitution of 1917 provides in part that:

To practice the ministry of any denomination in the United Mexican States it is necessary to be a Mexican by birth. Ministers of denominations may never, in a public or private meeting constituting an assembly, or in acts of worship or religious propaganda, criticize the fundamental laws of the country or the authorities of the government specifically or generally. They shall not have an active or passive vote nor the right to form associations for religious purposes.
Code: 
      Article 3 of the 1917 Constitution prohibited a religious organization from setting up primary schools, even private ones. In addition, Article 5 prohibits the establishment of any religious teaching or monastic order regardless of denomination.
The PRI began the 1930s with severe persecution of the Mexican Church. The Mexican Catholic Church as the decade unfolded found itself substantially impaired. The Church:

Legally had no corporate existence, no real estate, no schools, no monasteries or convents, no foreign priests, no rights to defend itself publicly or in the courts, and no hope that its legal and actual situations would improve. Its clergy were forbidden to wear clerical garb, to vote, to celebrate public religious ceremonies, and to engage in politics

TO BE CONTINUED
 
The PRI Party exercised sole control over Mexico for over 71 years.
In 1935, the government amended the law on nationalization of church property to allow the denunciation process to occur by administrative, not judicial means. In 1936, the State of Chihuahua passed legislation to limit the number of ministers to one per denomination. During this period 1930 to Present catholic lay organizations composed of private citizens flooded the judiciary with petitions called writs of Amparo, which often served to tie up the enforcement of anticlerical laws by other branches of government. Often it was Catholic lay organizations with priestly advisors deep in the background that worked the political machinery through the lobbying of individual government officials to obstruct the enforcement of anticlerical policies. In 1991, by amending the 1917 Constitution the restrictions on religious instructions in private schools, setting up religious orders, church ownership of property, legal personality, and individual suffrage of the clergy were all lifted.
It is important to point out that the Soviet Union normalized diplomatice relations with the Vatican two years before Mexico did in 1992 after more than 125 years of no diplomatic ties.

TO BE CONTINUED
 
The following was current as of 1994:

In the Ley Reglamentaria (Reform Laws) numerous restrictions on the Church still remain. Public worship is still subject to government oversight, and the clergy may not engage in any political activity other than voting nor may they criticize the laws of the government. In addition access to these reforms depends upon the discretionary power of the Minister of the Interior to recognize Churches through a registration process. In short, a church must be registered to exercise these new freedoms In addition the government’s pattern of pursuing selective application of reform laws allows it to use competing denomination as pawns. This last point was true as of 1999. The PRI since enacting these reforms utilized a strategy where “evangelicals are not always treated according to the non-interventionist spirit of Ley Reglamentaria [Reform Laws] but are used often as political pawns in a game between the PRI and the Catholic Hierarchy” (Gill, 761). This is most clearly evident in the government’s policy toward religious organizations use of Mass media. The current restrictions on religious use of mass media are an example of a tool the government can use to reward or punish church actions.

I do not know how much the election Fox in 2000 has changed the impact of the reform laws described above which was when my research was done.
 
“The general repression in Chiapas hits also many Roman Catholic Christians. The main cause for this repression lies in the fact that power is held mainly by the caciques and the big landowners and the local wine and alcohol dealers. The persecution of the Protestant Christians can also be brought in connection with this fact: For religious reasons they refuse to drink alcohol. The liquor dealers are afraid of a loss of sales of their goods. Therefore they arrange the expulsion of the Christians.”

Evangelical Christians in Chiapas have borne the brunt of much of the lawlessness there. They are frequently expelled from their homes and villages because they refuse to drink alcohol or to participate in local syncretistic festivities where large amounts of alcohol are consumed. The locals…btw…are a hybrid type of Catholic…not Traditional Catholics as we know them. They practice a lot of their native superstitions that have been part of their culture before Christianity came to Mexico. The powerful local leaders, or caciques, who control the alcohol industry fear a considerable decrease of their earnings and see these Christians as threat to their power. The village authorities often expel the Protestants or threaten them with arrest or other abuse. Roman Catholic Christians or authorities who speak out against the expulsions have also been driven away.
 
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philipmarus:
I would argue though that they shared some of the communist views and communists could find sympathy the Mexican government.

To be sure. But having some common views and finding sympathy isn’t the same as having a communist government in Mexico in 1917. I notice that you, a scholar of the subject, did not accuse the Carranza government of being the Communist Party.
Remember Trotsky was assassinated in Mexico City.
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Yes, in 1940. Stalin pursued his rivals relentlessly.
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