The Separation Of Church And State In Mexico

Thomas Paine, famous author of Common Sense, once wrote that “One good schoolmaster is of more use than a hundred priests”. In Mexico in the early 1800’s the caudillos ruled the country with an iron fist. Benito Juarez comes to help free Mexico of these ruthless leaders and their conservative views this would spread to other Latin countries. Separation of church and state was a main view of the new liberal movement of the 1850’s. Liberals asked for many for things when fighting for liberty but all of them were connected to the main goal of separating church and state. Even though separation of church and state was accomplished through laws it did not work in practice.

In 1840 there was a new beginning in the fight for liberty the new liberals had emerged as a

powerful force within the revolution.

Every political and moral decision the caudillos made had been for the benefit of themselves or the church. Frank Safford tells us in his article “A New Generation of Liberals” that this new generation of liberals was young in the since of its age but also that their social beginnings were different than those who preceded them. With the independence of their respective countries (Mexico in particular) the expansion of secondary education, which was a ramification of the new constitution, a lot of young liberals began to reach a point were social mobility was necessary and even earned but was blocked by the church and church officials. In Chile we

see that young men began to challenge the monopolies of power which had been brought to fruition by the old colonial powers and institutions specifically the church. We see in Mexico and other countries that laws passed with the new constitutions of their countries protecting the people from experiencing a country that has the church make its decisions. We see in Safford’s article that “Some Spanish American republics” experienced an “inflammation of church- state issues” as late as 1870 well beyond the years in which the young generation began their crusade to separate the two and even well past the years of the constitutions changing their relationship with each other. We can clearly see politicians and leaders such as Felicite de Lamennais preach the separation of church and state and even inspire a whole generation of people in Chile, New Granada and Peru in around 1850 but it would take over 20 years for his words to come close to fruition. Even with this new generation of liberals beginning to fight we still see that the church has a strong strangle hold on the community we see this especially in Chile.

Francisco Bilbao was a social leader in Chile who preached that church and state should be separated. The problem with Francisco was that he was the first to actually condemn the church of not actually being the representation of Jesus Christ. In his article “Generational Warrior” that he wrote a book called “Chilean Socialability” and not only was he condemned for his words which is very non democratic and robbing the man of his liberty of free speech but he was not condemned by the government but by the church through the government. Bilbao was one of the first people to actually respond to the church with its problems. He talks about how the priests preached that “all power comes from god” and “ submit yourself to his power”, not only is this a submissive way to live almost completely the same as life in a monarchy but also as Bilbao says it’s the “glorification of slavery”.
Bilbao was a whole new level of revolutionary calling the church out and even accused Paul (the all mighty founder of the catholic church) of creating an aristocracy out of the church. All of this lead to an official indictment, not a church indictment but a government indictment influence by the church. After all the work we see to separate church and state, liberals working and preaching separation of state, we have laws that promote education lay and religious, not just religious anymore, and still we see the church having the power to legally indict someone for what they called “blasphemy”. Bilbao was an open catholic before he left the country after the end of the trial he says “I am not a blasphemer because I love God”, so the catholic church went after a catholic man who had some problems with the church and felt as though he should speak up on those problems one major one being it’s stranglehold over the government as a result the man would be indicted that sounds like a monarchy. That would end up being his down fall as you can see he was the first to actually point out more than just the separation of church and state but to also attack the church and the way it operates itself and the church took offense to that. They would end up taking this case to trial, which is ridicules but goes to prove a point that even with the work the separation of church and state did not work in practice. Bilbao would end up losing the trial badly as he chose to represent himself against the biggest organization ever to be created, if you don’t understand how bad this went just imagine the movie “Spotlight” but instead of having multiple people sue the church it’s just one person with a catholic judge and an all catholic jury. Bilbao would be exiled by the church, he would be exiled by the church, here we see another situation were the church could ban a man from a country. Once again we see an abuse of power of the government to expel a man from his own home country.
Lastly, we see the liberals of the time push for new laws for education. Education helped break the glass ceiling created by the catholic church on social mobility. Helen Depar tells us in her article “Liberalism and Anti Clericalism” that in 1863 a law went into effect to punish clergymen as regular people if they broke the law but this law was met with rage and was eventually amended then completely removed. So here we are in 1863 and the clergy can still get away with anything and the government would allow it, the countries had laws and constitutions but the clergymen still had power over the normal citizen and in some cases immunity to the point where it over powers whatever government was in place at the time. So now the church was in a good place as this was a time period were the opposition could say that these laws worked as for years here after 1865 the church and the government were on the same page for the first time in decades but that didn’t last very long. The church would lead a charge against education and would inflame the old problems of the past with it. The church understood that lay education would help people finally break that glass that kept people away from social and political mobility. Education was progress and the church hated progress Pope Pius IX wrote “Quanta Cura” a book in which he condemns progress in education and technology. During this time period in the late 1860’s Pius would ban books from the country or anything else that would go against the church and its stagnant views. One more example of how the church would continue pose a threat toward anyone who would speak against them and the government.