Separation of Catholics and state: Mexico's divisive religious history

[trotsky]

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/feb/12/mexico-catholicism-politics-religious-history-pope-francis

Catholicism arrived in Mexico with the conquistadors coming to plunder the country, but it took the apparition of Mary in 1531 for the religion to take root. Historians say the Spanish cleverly substituted the Virgin for Tonantzin and employed her to evangelize the indigenous populations. That syncretism converted the masses, who went on to develop a unique form of Catholicism, in which rabid religiosity and popular piety are expressed, but the sacramental and social side of the faith are often ignored.

...

The church enjoyed a privileged position in the newly independent Mexico, where only Catholics could be counted as citizens. But that ended with the rise of the liberals in the 1850s and indigenous president Benito Juárez, whose reform laws confiscated church properties, subordinated church courts to civilian authorities and prohibited priests from wearing clerical dress in public.

The church responded by supporting conservatives’ efforts to bring in Austrian archduke Maximilian, backed by French forces, as emperor in 1863. He was captured and executed by liberal forces in 1867.

...

As drug war violence has escalated over the past decades, church officials have mostly avoided all but the most timid pronouncements on the bloodletting and corruption – something observers attribute to the Catholic hierarchy’s gradual rapprochement with the political class.

Interesting story.

[Cartoonist]

1. I always smile at Cinco de Mayo.

They actually believe they won independence.