“Situation is normal,” Mexican President Plutarco Elías Calles insisted in 1926 — even as churches across Mexico were preparing for the suspension of all public worship. Priests hurried to administer the sacraments and the faithful crowded into parishes for their last public Mass for some time. Baptisms surged, confessions stretched late into the night, and an uneasy urgency settled over Catholic life.
The crisis — soon to erupt into the Cristero War — had been years in the making. The Mexican Constitution of 1917 imposed sweeping anticlerical restrictions: churches were stripped of legal status, religious education was banned, religious orders suppressed, public worship outside churches forbidden, and clergy placed under strict government control.
Read Full Article »