In the Mexican national imagination, there is only room for heroes and villains. Benito Juárez (1806-1872), former president, is the popular hero. Hernán Cortés (1485-1547), the Spanish conqueror, is the villain who destroyed the glorious Aztec empire. Mexican Independence consecrated Father Morelos (1765-1815) and Father Hidalgo (1753-1811) as the fathers of the nation.
This spirit was well captured by the English writer Graham Greene (1904-1991), in his work “The Power and the Glory”, from 1940. The book tells the story of the Cristera War (1926-1929), a bloody conflict that opposed the Church and the State, as a result of anti-clerical laws imposed by the latter. Greene explores the ambiguity of the relationship, starting with a persecuted priest and an officer hired to kill him.
In Mexican history, this relationship was sometimes open, sometimes “nicodemic”, as the Mexicans call it, referring to the Pharisee who met Jesus Christ hidden at night. It is significant, for example, that Mexico only reestablished official relations with the Vatican in 1992.
The ubiquity of Catholicism
In 1531, in present-day Mexico City, the first apparition of Our Lady of Guadalupe took place. The Virgin manifested herself to an indigenous Aztec, who then converted to Christianity. Here began the long and passionate devotion of many Mexicans. The Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe is the second most visited in the world, second only to Saint Peter’s, in the Vatican.
After the Cristera War, the anticlerical provisions were revoked, but the Church lost some of its political power. The following decades consolidated the hegemony of the PRI (Institutional Revolutionary Party), which had a distant relationship with the Church, and the PAN (National Action Party), the Catholic party, became an agreed opposition.
Catholicism still tends to become the subject of debate and candidates are held accountable for their convictions. In 2000, former president Vicente Fox (1942-2001) even used Our Lady of Guadalupe as a campaign symbol and was criticized. Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who has just elected his successor, Claudia Sheinbaum, is affiliated with the “National Regeneration Movement” which, in its acronym in Spanish, is “MORENA”, an undisguised allusion to “La Virgem Morena”, a nickname that many Mexicans give to the its patron saint.
The election functioned as a referendum on Obrador’s administration and Claudia became the first female president of Mexico, the same case as Dilma Rousseff here in Brazil, who publicly congratulated her, as well as Lula, Maduro, Daniel Ortega and Miguel Díaz-Cane. Sheinbaum is avowedly feminist, a movement that is one of the strongest voices of anti-Catholicism. As mayor, she was responsible for opening the first trans clinic in Mexico, which offers psychological support and hormonal treatment. His position regarding the Catholic Church remains unclear.
History of religious persecution
In July 2023, the organization Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) placed Mexico, along with Argentina and Chile, as a country in the “under observation” category, with regard to religious freedom. And in February this year, following a survey by the NGO Missão Portas Abertas, cases of vandalism against places related to faith rose by almost 600%, compared to the previous year.
Jose Antonio Rosas Amor is general director and founder of the Latin American Academy of Catholic Leaders and states that there is a historical challenge ahead: “The relationship between the Church and the State was very conflictive in the 20th century. Over time, it became pacified, but for current times it is insufficient.” For him, the change must be constitutional: “We need to update our constitution so that the relationship is without ideological prejudices”.
Regarding the history of violence in the country, José regrets that it continues to occur: “The last election was the bloodiest in history: many candidates were blackmailed, kidnapped and murdered. Mexico has been considered by analysts as the “country of the disappeared”. José does not believe that it is persecution by the State against the Church, as the violence also affects other groups. Furthermore, he remains optimistic in relation to Claudia Sheinbaum: “We are willing to collaborate with the future government and we agree with their concern for the poorest”. And, in relation to the Church, he says that “we do not intend to be a hegemon, but we also do not want to hide the treasure it has”
In “The Power and the Glory”, hope is the hidden character who resists in the midst of war. A few remain in faith, despite everything indicating a lack of it. “Hope was an instinct that only the human mind could kill. An animal would never know despair.” In other words, it is what makes us human and why man must continue.
André Luiz Corrêa He is a writer, graduated in Law, and Catholic
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