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Irreligion In Mexico Information

Irreligion in Mexico may refer to atheism, agnosticism, deism, religious skepticism, secular humanism or general secularist attitudes in Mexico. Mexico was born after its independence as a confessional state. The first Mexican constitution was enacted in 1824, it stated that the religion of the nation is and will perpetually be the Roman Catholic Apostolic, and prohibited any other religion.[1] Since 1857, the country has no official religion[2] and some anti-clerical laws contained in both the 1857 and 1917 Constitutions imposed severe limitations on religious organizations and sometimes codified state intrusion into religious matters.

A 1992 constitutional amendment lifted most restrictions, granting all religious groups legal status, conceding them limited property rights, granting voting rights to religious ministers and lifting restrictions on the number of priests in the country.[3] However, religious ministers cannot be elected to public office, the government does not provide any financial contributions to religious organizations and they can not participate in public education.

Although historically the Catholic Church has dominated the religious landscape of the country, according to the Catholic News Agency, there is a growing community of atheists and non-religious people.[4][5]

Contents

Religion and Politics

This section may contain previously unpublished synthesis of published material that conveys ideas not attributable to the original sources. See the talk page for details. (September 2009)
The Street Gazzete: Anti Clerical Manifestation. Posada's satires depict the tension between the Church and the citizens.

Since the time of the Spanish conquest, the Catholic Church has had a prominent position in the way virtues and morals are supposed to be implemented and has helped in the shaping of a large population's cultural identity. The article 3 of first Mexican constitution of 1824 stated for example that: The Religion of the Mexican Nation, is, and will be perpetually, the Roman Catholic Apostolic. The Nation will protect it by wise and just laws, and prohibit the exercise of any other whatever.[1]

However, during the middle of the 19th century there were many reforms in regards of the Church power on political matters. The current status of religious freedom reflects the historic tensions between the Catholic Church and the modern State. For most of the country's nearly 300 years as a Spanish colony, the Catholic Church involved itself heavily in politics. In the early national period, the Church's vast wealth and political influence spurred a powerful anti-clerical movement, which found political expression in the Liberal party. The Catholic Church supported rebel Conservatives in the mid-19th century and later welcomed the country's occupation by a French army.[6] Robert Haberman of the Mexican Labour Party writes:

"By the year 1854, The Church gained possession of about two-thirds of all the lands of Mexico, almost every bank, and every large business. The rest of the country was mortgaged to the Church. Then came the revolution of 1854, led by Benito Juárez. It culminated in the Constitution of 1857, which secularised the schools and confiscated Church property. All the churches were nationalised, many of them were turned into schools, hospitals, and orphan asylums. Civil marriages were obligatory. Pope Pius IX immediately issued a mandate against the Constitution and called upon all Catholics of Mexico to disobey it. Ever since then, the clergy has been fighting to regain its lost temporal power and wealth."[7]

When Vicente Fox took power in 2000 many people feared the secularism in the country would be damaged as it was the first time in decades that Mexico had an avowedly Catholic president.[8]

Turn of the 19th to 20th century collaboration with Porfirio Diaz earned the Church the enmity of the victors in the Mexican Revolution. Consequently, severe restrictions on the Church were written into the country's present constitution, the Constitution of 1917. This constitution is the first one in the world to set out social rights, serving as a model for the Weimar Constitution of 1919 and the Russian Constitution of 1918.[9][10][11][12] Nevertheless, like the Spanish Constitution of 1931, it has been characterized as being hostile to religion.[13] The 1917 Constitution outlawed teaching by clergy even in private schools, gave control over Church matters to the state, put all Church property at the disposal of the state, outlawed religious orders, outlawed foreign born priests, gave states the power to limit or eliminate priests in their territory, deprived priests of the civil rights to vote or hold office, prohibited Catholic organizations which advocated public policy, prohibited religious publications from commenting on public policy, prohibited clergy from religious celebrations and from wearing clerical garb outside of a church and deprived citizens of the right to a trial for violations of these provisions.[14][15] The anticlerical resolutions above were included in the Mexican Constitution of 1917 as a consequence of the support given by the High Mexican Catholic Clergy to the dictatorship of Victoriano Huerta.[16][17][18][19][20]

The Federal Government's attempt to enforce the restrictions of the 1917 Constitution in the 1920s led to violent repression and an open revolt by Catholic peasants in the Cristero Rebellion (1926–29). Tensions between the Church and the State eased after 1940, but constitutional restrictions were maintained even as enforcement became progressively lax over the ensuing decades. The Government established diplomatic relations with the Holy See during the administration of President Carlos Salinas, and the Government lifted almost all restrictions on the Catholic Church in 1992. That year the Government ratified its informal policy of not enforcing most legal controls on religious groups by, among other things, granting religious groups legal status, conceding them limited property rights, and lifting restrictions on the number of priests in the country. However, the law continues to mandate strict restrictions on the church and bars the clergy from holding public office, advocating partisan political views, supporting political candidates, or opposing the laws or institutions of the State. The Church's ability to own and operate mass media is also limited. Indeed, after the creation of the Constitution the Catholic Church has been acutely hostile towards the Mexican government. As Laura Randall in his book Changing Structure of Mexico points out, most of the conflicts between citizens and religious leaders lie in the Church's overwhelming lack of understanding of the role of the state's laicism. "The inability of the Mexican Catholic Episcopate to understand the modern world translates into a distorted conception of the secular world and the lay state. Evidently, perceiving the state as anti-religious (or rather, anti-clerical) is the result of 19th-century struggles that imbued the state with anti-religious and anti-clerical tinges in Latin American countries, much to the Catholic Church's chagrin. Defining laicist education as a 'secular religion' that is also 'imposed and intolerant' is the clearest evidence of episcopal intransigence."[21] Others, however see the Mexican state's anticlericalism differently. Recent President Vicente Fox stated, "After 1917, Mexico was led by anti-Catholic Freemasons who tried to evoke the anticlerical spirit of popular indigenous President Benito Juarez of the 1880s. But the military dictators of the 1920s were a more savage lot than Juarez."[22] Fox goes on to recount how priests were killed for trying to perform the sacraments, altars were desecrated by soldiers and freedom of religion outlawed by generals.[22]

Demographics

As many students of Latin American religion have pointed out, it is substantially different to describe oneself as religious or culturally religious and to practice one's faith literally. In the case of Mexico the decline of religious influence of the Church is specially mirrored by the decline of church attendance among its citizens. Church attendance itself is a complex, multi-layered phenomenon that is subject to political and socio-economic factors. From 1940 to 1960 about 70% of Mexican Catholics attended church weekly while in 1982 only 54 percent partook of Mass once a week or more, and 21 percent claimed monthly attendance. Recent surveys have shown that only around 3% of Catholics attend church daily, however 47% percent of them attend church services weekly [23] and, according to INEGI, the number of atheists grows annually by 5.2%, while the number of Catholics grows by 1.7%.[24][25]

Timeline of events related to atheism or anti-clericalism in Mexico

This section is in a list format that may be better presented using prose. You can help by converting this section to prose, if appropriate. Editing help is available. (September 2009)

Mexican atheists and agnostics

Mexican writer and free-thinker El Nigromante was hailed as the Voltaire of Mexico due to his outspoken criticism of religion

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c Federal Constitution of the United Mexican States (1824)
  2. ^ Article 130 of Constitution
  3. ^ "Mexico". International Religious Report. U.S. Department of State. 2003. http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2003/24499.htm. Retrieved 2007-10-04.
  4. ^ Catholic News Agency Rise of atheism in Mexico
  5. ^ Aciprensa - Mexico still Catholic... but atheism is on the rise
  6. ^ Mexico - Religious Freedom Report 1999
  7. ^ David Marshall Brooks, The Necessity of Atheism, Plain Label Books, 1933, ISBN 1603031383 Page 154
  8. ^ "Candidate Vicente Fox contributed to this perception by sending a letter in May 2000 to religious authorities of various churches in which he presented a list of ten promises ranging from defending the right to life from the moment of conception until natural death (which meant a condemnation of abortion and euthanasia), to granting religious associations access to communication media. Many of those promises were hard to keep because no political party had an absolute majority in the Congress elected on July 6, 2000. Nonetheless, Fox's 'ten promises' were regarded by many as a proof of the alliance between the Catholic Church and candidate Fox." Laura Randall (2006) Page 433
  9. ^ a b Akhtar Majeed, Ronald Lampman Watts, and Douglas Mitchell Brown (2006). Distribution of powers and responsibilities in federal countries. McGill-Queen's Press. p. 188. ISBN 0773530045, 9780773530041. http://books.google.com.mx/books?id=rwaNmEXho5QC&q=%22out+social+rights%22#v=snippet&q=%22out%20social%20rights%22&f=false.
  10. ^ a b Yoram Dinstein (1989). Israel Yearbook on Human Rights 1982, Volume 12; Volume 1982. Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. p. 14. ISBN 0792303628, 9780792303626. http://books.google.com.mx/books?id=s-2QV44tZNIC&q=social+rights+mexico+weimar#v=snippet&q=social%20rights%20mexico%20weimar&f=false.
  11. ^ a b Gerhard Robbers (2007). Encyclopedia of World Constitutions. Infobase Publishing. p. 596. ISBN 00816060789, 9780816060788. http://books.google.com.mx/books?id=M3A-xgf1yM4C&q=%22mexican+constitution%22+%22social+rights%22#v=snippet&q=%22mexican%20constitution%22%20%22social%20rights%22&f=false.
  12. ^ a b Harry N. Scheiber (2007). Earl Warren and the Warren Court: the legacy in American and foreign law. Lexington Books. p. 244. ISBN 0739116355, 9780739116357. http://books.google.com.mx/books?id=v72YmbDEBz4C&q=social+constitution+mexico#v=snippet&q=social%20constitution%20mexico&f=false.
  13. ^ Maier, Hans and Jodi Bruhn Totalitarianism and Political Religions, pp. 109 2004 Routledge
  14. ^ Ehler, Sidney Z. Church and State Through the Centuries p. 579-580, (1967 Biblo & Tannen Publishers) ISBN 0819601896
  15. ^ Needler, Martin C. Mexican Politics: The Containment of Conflict p. 50, Greenwood Publishing Group, 1995
  16. ^ a b John Lear (2001). Workers, neighbors, and citizens: the revolution in Mexico City. U of Nebraska Press. p. 261. ISBN 0803279973, 9780803279971. http://books.google.com.mx/books?id=u3udWEqwRoQC&q=huerta+high+clergy#v=snippet&q=huerta%20high%20clergy&f=false.
  17. ^ a b Ignacio C. Enríques (1915). The religious question in Mexico, number 7. I.C. Enriquez,. p. 10. http://books.google.com.mx/books?id=HcpmAAAAMAAJ&q=shameless+clergy+forsook#search_anchor.
  18. ^ a b Robert P. Millon (1995). Zapata: The Ideology of a Peasant Revolutionary. International Publishers Co. p. 23. ISBN 071780710X, 9780717807109. http://books.google.com.mx/books?id=H4Ns7fLUZ9gC&q=huerta+catholic+clergy+#v=onepage&q=huerta%20catholic%20clergy&f=false.
  19. ^ a b Carlo de Fornaro, John Farley (1916). What the Catholic Church Has Done to Mexico. Latin-American News Association. pp. 13–14. http://books.google.com.mx/books?ei=aKcnTZu2Doyr8AaW4NXwAQ&ct=result&id=bM9WAAAAMAAJ&dq=huerta+urrutia+clerical&q=urrutia+#search_anchor.
  20. ^ a b Peter Gran (1996). Beyond Eurocentrism: a new view of modern world history. Syracuse University Press. p. 165. ISBN 0815626924, 9780815626923. http://books.google.com.mx/books?id=_IZpnL4XW3sC&q=clergy+supported+huerta#v=snippet&q=clergy%20supported%20huerta&f=false.
  21. ^ Laura Randall, Changing structure of Mexico: political, social, and economic prospects, (M.E. Sharpe, 2006) ISBN 0765614049 Page 435
  22. ^ a b Fox, Vicente and Rob Allyn Revolution of Hope p. 17, Viking, 2007
  23. ^ [1]
  24. ^ Aciprensa
  25. ^ Catholic News Agency
  26. ^ Jaime E. Rodríguez O., Kathryn Vincent (1997). Myths, misdeeds, and misunderstandings: the roots of conflict in U.S.-Mexican relations. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 5. ISBN 0842026622, 9780842026628.
  27. ^ Ricardo Flores Magón, Chaz Bufe, Charles Bufe, Mitchell Cowen Verter, Dreams of freedom: a Ricardo Flores Magón reader (AK Press, 2006) ISBN 1904859240
  28. ^ David A. Shirk (2005). Mexico's New Politics. Lynne Rienner Publishers. ISBN 1588262707. http://books.google.com/books?id=WOBRb0wKpocC&pg=PA58&lpg=PA58&dq.
  29. ^ Krauze, Enrique. Mexico: Biography of Power. A History of Modern Mexico, 1810-1996. HarperCollins Publishers Inc. New York, 1997. Pages 403
  30. ^ Scheina, Robert L. Latin America's Wars: The Age of the Caudillo, 1791-1899 p. 33 (2003 Brassey's) ISBN 1574884522
  31. ^ a b Van Hove, Brian Blood-Drenched Altars Faith & Reason 1994
  32. ^ Ruiz, Ramón Eduardo Triumphs and Tragedy: A History of the Mexican People p.393 (1993 W. W. Norton & Company) ISBN 0393310663
  33. ^ Philippe Levillain The Papacy: An Encyclopedia p. 1208, 2002 Routledge
  34. ^ Nathaniel Weyl, Mrs. Slyvia (Castleton) Weyl (1939). The reconquest of Mexico: the years of Lázaro Cárdenas. Oxford university press. p. 322. http://books.google.com.mx/books?id=9UkVAAAAYAAJ&q=almost+300+rural+teachers#search_anchor.
  35. ^ John W. Sherman (1997). The Mexican right: the end of revolutionary reform, 1929-1940. Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 43 to 45. ISBN 0275957365, 9780275957360. http://books.google.com.mx/books?id=h29VKMtmzzcC&q=cristeros+teachers#v=snippet&q=cristeros%20teachers&f=false.
  36. ^ Carlos Monsiváis, John Kraniauskas (1997). Mexican postcards. Verso. p. 132. ISBN 0860916049, 9780860916048. http://books.google.com.mx/books?id=c3Hftbmoy9AC&q=cristero+rape+teachers#v=snippet&q=cristero%20rape%20teachers&f=false.
  37. ^ Christopher Robert Boyer (2003). Becoming campesinos: politics, identity, and agrarian struggle in postrevolutionary Michoacán, 1920-1935. Stanford University Press. pp. 179 to 181. ISBN 0804743568, 9780804743563. http://books.google.com.mx/books?id=wij7fa771i0C&q=cristeros+teachers#v=snippet&q=cristeros%20teachers&f=false.
  38. ^ Marjorie Becker (1995). Setting the Virgin on fire: Lázaro Cárdenas, Michoacán peasants, and the redemption of the Mexican Revolution. University of California Press. pp. 124 to 126. ISBN 0520084195, 9780520084193. http://books.google.com.mx/books?id=poCw5DcQF5cC&q=cristeros+teachers#v=snippet&q=cristeros%20teachers&f=false.
  39. ^ Cora Govers (2006). Performing the community: representation, ritual and reciprocity in the Totonac Highlands of Mexico. LIT Verlag Münster. p. 132. ISBN 3825897516, 9783825897512. http://books.google.com.mx/books?id=4y4KnORm320C&q=cristeros+teachers#v=snippet&q=cristeros%20teachers&f=false.
  40. ^ Mabry, Donald J. "Mexican Anticlerics, Bishops, Cristeros, the Devout during the 1920s: A Scholarly Debate." Journal of Church and State 20, 1: 82 (1978).
  41. ^ a b Tuck, Jim, "Mexico's marxist guru: Vicente Lombardo Toledano (1894–1968)" Mexconnect, October 9, 2008
  42. ^ Mexico: Church State Relations Country Studies Series by Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress June 1996
  43. ^ Philip Stein, Siqueiros: his life and works (International Publishers Co, 1994), ISBN 0717807061, pp176
  44. ^ a b c d e f g h Goodrich, Luke, "Mexico's Separation of Church and State" OffNews March 18, 2010, originally published in the Wall Street Journal
  45. ^ Humanist Studies - Atheists To Hold Global March in Mexico, Spain and Peru
  46. ^ Atheists take to the streets in Mexico - Philadelphia Atheists
  47. ^ High Beam - Atheist take their views and issues to the streets
  48. ^ Calderon calls non believers likely to become addicts
  49. ^ La Jornada: No creer en Dios hace a la juventud esclava de narcos - Felipe Calderón
  50. ^ Lamenta Felipe Calderón muerte de Jackson por 'consumo de drogas'
  51. ^ La juventud no cree en Dios porque no lo conoce: Calderón
  52. ^ ABC New York
  53. ^ Ateos responden a Calderón
  54. ^ Ateísmo desde México
  55. ^ "I don't believe in god, but I believe in destiny." "Our working relationship involves a lot of dialogue...we have very different viewpoints on certain things, like Alejandro's Catholicism and the fact that I'm an atheist." Filter Magazine
  56. ^ Sense about science
  57. ^ "Guillermo Kahlo was an educated, atheist, German-Jewish immigrant, who had come to Mexico as a young man and become an accomplished photographer, specializing in architectural photography". Samuel Brunk, Ben Fallaw, Heroes & hero cults in Latin America, (University of Texas Press, 2006), ISBN 0292714378 Page 174
  58. ^ "Her father Guillermo, from whom Frida inherited her creativity, was an atheist". Patrick Marnham, Diego Rivera Dreaming with His Eyes Open: A Life of Diego Rivera, (University of California Press, 2000), ISBN 0520224086 Page 220 [2]
  59. ^ "Marcos' revolutionary weddings were breaking the Church's monopoly on matrimonial services, and the Subcommander's presiding over them was perceived by the diocese as both an encroachment on Church prerogatives and as sacrilege. Marcos and the bishop were diametrically and vehemently opposed on certain issues, in particular birth control. Marcos believed whole-heartedly in it. The guerrillas were issued contraceptive devices at a clinic in Morelia which the government had helped found and fund. Nor was the encouragement and distribution of contraceptives restricted to the guerrillas themselves. Marcos believed that one of the major contributing factors to hardship and poverty was its overpopulation. Finally, according to one source at least, Marcos was becoming increasingly intolerant regarding questions of faith, even going so far as to preach atheism" Nick Henck, Subcommander Marcos: The Man and the Mask, (Duke University Press, 2007) ISBN 0822339951 Page 119
  60. ^ The War Against Oblivion : The Zapatista Chronicles 1994 - 2000
  61. ^ "Hasta ahora no profeso religión ni tengo razón para profesarla puesto que no creo en ninguna forma teológica". Juan O'Gorman, Autobiografía, (UNAM, 2007) ISBN 9703235557 [3]
  62. ^ "God is an excuse, a foggy abstraction that everyone uses for his own benefit and moulds it to the extent of his convenience and interests". Fernando Vallejo during the ceremony of the Rómulo Gallegos Prize in Venezuela
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