Rebirth in Mexico

"Faith is stronger than law," said Archbishop Luis Maria Martinez, drawing deeply on his cigarette. "Despite what has happened in the past, we are really not doing too badly." Outside, a brown-cowled Franciscan hurrying along the plaza bore out the Archbishop's point, for this was Mexico City, capital of a country whose 38-year-old constitution 1) forbids monastic orders, and through a statute also bans any kind of religious garb in public; 2) declares all churches, rectories and convents government property, and 3) gives state legislatures the power to determine the number of clergymen permitted to each creed. But Mexico's laws against religion are getting to be dead-letter.

One day last year old Revolutionary General Miguel Flores Villar--who in his day saw priests hunted down and convents burned--spotted a fully garbed Sister of Charity bustling through Mexico City and ordered the police to arrest her. They did because they had to, but at the police station Sister Guadalupe Colon was immediately released. The incident was typical of the state's changing attitude toward religion.

The Conversion. The seeds of anticlericalism are deep in Mexican soil. Hernando Cortes (1485-1547) fought and finagled his way through Mexico in the name of Christ as well as for the sake of conquest. The twelve humble Franciscans (later nicknamed "The Twelve Apostles") who followed the conquistadors' reign of terror were more successful missionaries. At the sight of the ragged friars padding doggedly through the mountains, the Indians sighed, "Motolinia, motolinia [Poor, poor fellows]." Generations of such brave, tough motolinias from Spain finally converted Mexico.* But on the Indians' simple faith, the Roman Catholic Church in Mexico grew fat and feckless. Prelates exacted tremendous fees, gobbled up land and abused their ecclesiastical powers, e.g., one archbishop excommunicated a group of pulque brewers for adulterating their product. Republican thought was ruthlessly suppressed; following the American Revolution, the church censored all discussion of the U.S. Constitution.

In 1810 came the inevitable uprising (actually touched off by a priest, Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla), and for 50 years Mexico was a chaos of violence, weakness and naive hope. Under the iron dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz, the clergy briefly regained its privileges, but the revolutionary constitution of 1917 again swept the church aside in one angry, Marx-muscled blow. By 1928, only 197 priests were permitted in Mexico--out of 4,593 some four years before. One provincial governor tried to force priests to marry. Revolutionary generals rode into churches on horseback, smashing altars, and many churches were converted to movie houses.

The Road Back. But the campaign against the church was not a success. Indians were apt to cut off the ears of the government agents sent to incite them against their priests. Slowly, the cloud of terror lifted. President Lazaro Cardenas (1934-40) was a far-leftist politically, but he quietly called off the anticlerical crusade, and the church began to build its way back.

Today, church schools, which not long ago had to conduct their work under cover, are in open operation (though they still carry the names of Mexican patriots instead of saints' names). There are 34 seminaries training some 2,000 young priests. In Mexico City alone, about 20 new churches have been completed in the past year; 23 more are under construction. (The estimated 500,000 Mexican Protestants are also doing better than they used to; they never met as much government opposition as the Catholics, but their proselytizing ran into sharp hostility, particularly in rural areas.) Mexico's churches have not been so crowded in living memory, and among the worshipers are far more men than in the old days, when it was not considered quite macho (manly) for a man to be seen in church alongside the womenfolk.

Spry little Archbishop Martinez, 73, is given a major share of credit for this improvement in the church's fortunes. Much in demand at Mexico City cocktail parties, where he handles his quota of martinis, the chain-smoking Archbishop might long since have been a Cardinal in a land less nervous about princely trappings. He still watches his step. When the Archbishop drops in on President Adolfo Ruiz Cortines (about once a month), secrecy surrounds the meetings, which are politely called "accidental" when they have to be called anything at all.

"The only thing that remains now," says tactful Archbishop Martinez, "is to change the constitution. But this is not yet possible."

* Turning point was Dec. 12, 1531, when an Indian peasant named Juan Diego reported a vision of the Virgin Mary and showed his cloak on which there was an image of a dark-skinned Madonna above a crescent moon. The Virgin of Guadalupe became the patroness of Mexico, and on the site of the Aztec temple to Mother-Goddess Tonantzin, Mexicans built the basilica that became their national shrine.

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