page_title: History of the Catholic Church in Mexico
section_title: Salinas, the Vatican, and reform of the constitution
hierarchical_section_title: History of the Catholic Church in Mexico / Changing church-state relations, 1980–2000 / Salinas, the Vatican, and reform of the constitution
caption_attribution_description: Español: Fotografía de la Gobernadora Dulce María Sauri recibiendo al Papa en Mérida Yucatán en agosto de 1993
context_page_description: The history of the Catholic Church in Mexico dates from the period of the Spanish conquest and has continued as an institution in Mexico into the twenty-first century. Catholicism is one of the two major legacies from the Spanish colonial era, the other being Spanish as the nation's language. The Catholic Church was a privileged institution until the mid nineteenth century. It was the sole permissible church in the colonial era and into the early Mexican Republic, following independence in 1821. Following independence, it involved itself directly in politics, including in matters that did not specifically involve the Church.
  In the mid-nineteenth century the liberal Reform brought major changes in church-state relations. Mexican liberals in power challenged the Catholic Church's role, particularly in reaction to its involvement in politics. The Reform curtailed the Church's role in education, property ownership, and control of birth, marriage, and death records, with specific anticlerical laws. Many of these were incorporated into the Constitution of 1857, restricting the Church's corporate ownership of property and other limitations.
context_section_description: The 1988 election in Mexico was a watershed event. For the first time there were three viable candidates for the presidency, Carlos Salinas de Gortari, an economist and technocrat from the dominant PRI; Manuel Clouthier, a charismatic figure of the PAN; and Cuauhtemoc Cárdenas, the son of President Lázaro Cárdenas, who split from the PRI to form a leftist coalition. The election was again widely seen to have fraudulent results, with Salinas winning, but with the smallest margin ever. Cárdenas and Clouthier and their supporters protested the election results, but Salinas took office in December 1988. Salinas transformed Church-State relations in Mexico during his term and the Vatican and the PAN became important players in that transformation.
  Religion was an issue in the 1988 elections, with the leftist newspaper La Jornada surveying the prospective candidates about their stance on religious freedom in Mexico. Technocrat Carlos Salinas de Gortari declined to answer the survey and Mexican bishops were concerned about Salinas's attitude toward Church-State relations. The presidential election took an unexpected turn, with the bolting of Cuauhtemoc Cárdenas from the Institutional Revolutionary Party to become a candidate. Mexican bishops urged Mexican voters to "overcome apathy" and fight electoral fraud by participation in the election. The election result of a Salinas victory was almost universally considered to be fraudulent. The Mexican bishops did not make public statements about the election results. Behind the scenes the apostolic delegate to Mexico, Prigione, Mexican bishops, and government officials had a series of secret meetings that hammered out the outlines of a new Church-State relationship. At this point, the PRI needed an ally to shore up its wavering grip on power, and the Church proved to be such an ally. It has been considered a quid pro quo agreement. Sometime during the presidential campaign, the PRI had indicated to the Church that a Salinas victory would be beneficial to the Church. A delegation of the leadership of the episcopal hierarchy attended the inauguration of Salinas on December 1, 1988.
  In his inaugural address, Salinas de Gortari announced a program to "modernize" Mexico via structural transformation. "The modern state is a state which ... maintains transparency and updates its relation with political parties, entrepreneurial groups, and the church." His declaration was an articulation of the direction of change, but not list of specifics.
  The implementation of reforms entailed amending the constitution, but before that overcoming opposition on the Left and also in the Catholic Church itself. After considerable debate, the Mexican legislature voted for these fundamental revisions in Church-State policy.
  The Constitution of 1917 had several anticlerical restrictions. Article 5 restricted the existence of religious orders; Article 24 restricted church services outside of church buildings; Article 27 empowered the State over fundamental aspects of property ownership and resulted in expropriation and distribution of lands, and most famously in 1938, the expropriation of foreign oil companies. Article 27 also prevented churches from holding real property at all. For the Catholic hierarchy, Article 130 prevented the recognition of the Church as a legal entity, denied to clergy the exercise of political rights, and prevented the Church from participating in any way in political matters.
  The Church had contested all these restrictions from the beginning. With the possibility of changed relations between Church and State, "the main demand of the Catholic hierarchy was centered on the modification of Article 130" to recognize the Church as a legal entity, restore political rights to priests, and to end restrictions "on the social actions of the Church and its members." The initial reaction to changing the constitution was quite negative from members of the Institutional Revolutionary Party who saw anticlericalism as an inherent element of post-Revolution Mexico. It was clear that given the contested 
caption: Governor Dulce María Sauri receiving the Pope in August 1993
exif: {"Image Software": "Picasa 3.0", "Image ExifOffset": "50", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0210", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2009:04:14 04:54:33", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "158", "EXIF ImageUniqueID": "2a53a513db2b49cc2b92c3760e39033c"}