page_title: Church–state relations in Argentina
section_title: Early times
hierarchical_section_title: Church–state relations in Argentina / Early times
caption_attribution_description: Façade of Buenos Aires Cathedral
context_page_description: The first conflicts between the Roman Catholic Church and the Argentine government can be traced to the ideas of the May Revolution of 1810. The Tribunal of the Inquisition was suppressed in the territories of the United Provinces of the River Plate on 1813-03-23, and on 4 June the General Assembly declared the state "independent from any ecclesiastical authorities existing outside its territory".
  The framers of the 1853 Constitution, who were in many cases influenced by Freemasonry, found a middle way between an officially Catholic country and a secular society, by allowing religious freedom while keeping economic support for the Church, and employing the patronage system, by which the President selected triplets of bishop candidates that the Pope could approve.
  This system was abolished in 1966, during the dictatorial rule of Juan Carlos Onganía, and replaced by a Concordat which gave the Vatican the attribution of appointing and removing bishops, leaving the President only with the right to object the appointments.
context_section_description: During the first twenty years after the May Revolution, the new state did not establish official diplomatic relations with the Vatican. The Papacy did not wish to create a conflict with the Spanish Crown by showing support for the South American revolution; in 1825, Pope Leo XII denounced it. During the government of Martín Rodríguez (1820–1824), there was a (failed) project to transfer the clergy to state control and abolish tithing in favour of state financial backing for the Church.
  Juan Manuel de Rosas destroyed the possibility of re-establishing relations when, in 1837, he dictated that no civil or ecclesiastic authority in Buenos Aires Province must acknowledge or obey pontifical documents dated after 1810-05-25 without an authorization granted by the foreign relations department.
  After Rosas's fall, Justo José de Urquiza proposed the Holy See to create a diocese of the littoral provinces, to avoid the intervention of the bishopric of Buenos Aires, but the Vatican did not accept the Concordat proposed in 1857.
caption: Metropolitan Cathedral of Buenos Aires, Argentina.
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