The initiative of a mexican senator to eliminate the separation between Church and State that prevails in the country from a century and a half ago has cautioned the political class and the citizenry. Mexico was the first country in the world whose Constitution established secularism by the state, to the mid-NINETEENTH century, but in the last few months have opened up unprecedented relationships with the Churches, encouraged by the president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who, however, now rectified itself to slow down the proposal of the senator from your own party, María Soledad Luevano.

In your project to modify the Law of Religious Associations and Public Worship, Luevano delete the text “the principle of historical separation of the State and the Churches”, and introduces the possibility that the confessions are the owners of means of communication, the advent of conscientious objection to various professionals and to strengthen cooperation with the political power in various areas, among many other things.

The president, by rectifying its trajectory confessional, in close relationship with the evangelists, and the catholics, answered: “That subject should not be touched, I say with great respect to the senator, who has all of his right, and belongs to an independent power, but I think that it is already resolved for more than a century and a half. The separation of the State and of the Church already settled”. Suddenly, the Government has been in a position complicated.

this Is the first time that this president used to cite God in their conferences and to wear a scapular of the Virgin of Guadalupe in the pocket, mentioned the key words: separation of Church and State. In its first year of Government, the approach to the religions has had chapters highlights, which began with his inauguration between incense and chanting indians.

Somewhat later, the government of López Obrador printed 10 million copies to distribute free of Primer Moral of Alfonso Reyes, a prominent catholic thinker of the last century whose precepts are already a bit outdated. With the reissue of these values, aims at the Administration of mexican to seek the “welfare of the soul” and help to quell the violence. The evangelical Churches collaborated in the distribution of the booklet. “Lopez Obrador wants support from the confessions to restore values in the population, but it is that the Church is also responsible for the social crisis, with their sexual scandals, the handling murky money and power,” recalls Bernardo Barranco, co-authored with Roberto Blancarte of the book entitled, AMLO and religion. The secular state is under threat, published by Grijalbo.

The president met with several confessions to the beginning of the year, whose leaders raised their interest in the property of means of communication, something that is not allowed in Mexico. Not without a scandal. In February, we launched a commission to draft a Constitution Moral, “the other scandal, because the State is not who to impose any moral, in addition, all the Constitutions are inspired by those principles,” criticizes Ravine. That commission was numb, but there it is. Among the initiatives polemics it also highlights the modification of a regulation to allow the co-operation between the Churches and the State, one of the flags of the president, who has helped these powers in their attempt (failed for now) to restore the social peace in a country ravaged by violence.

it Is well known the friendship of Lopez Obrador with Arturo Farela, at times become a kind of confessor for real. Farela is an evangelist, ultra-conservative who has cultivated relationships with several representatives of mexico, but that openly supported AMLO in his career towards the presidency, something that is not allowed in Mexico: the religious may not manifest itself politically in the electoral campaign. The leader evangelist has placed two of their children in the Government, something that has not been stranger to the media. And sometimes, the supernatural Farela has been involved in rallies with the president.

These gestures have sown the concern. Many mexicans see it threatened the secular State that the world looked with awe and admiration to the mid-NINETEENTH century. The separation of Church and State had no formal reflection in France until 1905, as we are reminded by the historian of the Institute of Legal Research of the UNAM Pauline Capdevielle, while in Mexico the Church has not had a juridical existence until 1992.

The party of the Virgin

the approaches to the religion as he saw coming with the campaign of the now president of mexico. The electoral system in this country reserve a few seats in Parliament for people who do not need to be voted on, but that they belong to a list that the citizens know before you go to the polls. In the ranks of Lopez Obrador, several of these were evangelists recognized. Are braces that are negotiated beforehand. “In 2006, the difference of votes between Calderón and López Obrador was barely two football stadiums full in a country of 130 million inhabitants. In the following campaign, the current president sought the support of the Party Social Gathering, evangelical conservatives that would have guaranteed him points,” recalls Cliff.

The Latin american region has registered a significant decline of catholicism, especially in Brazil and Chile. Mexico and Paraguay show a smoother descent. In Mexico, around 83% were manifest catholic and the devotion of guadalupe moves to the country. But striking is the increase of the evangelists, a religion “that not only intervenes in the spiritual life of its faithful, but in their social situation and material. That prosperity theology is also prone to directing the voting behavior with a vote disciplined that is golden ground for candidates,” explains Ravine.

Brown, the game big box that rose to power to Lopez Obrador, was founded the 12th of December, the day of Guadalupe, the same date on which he began his campaign, and under this acronym stands for Movement of Regeneration National appears in reality the name of the virgin: Brunette. In Spain it is also called so, Morenita, although it is commemorated on a different date.

To López Obrador, he has been seen praying with the evangelists, eyes closed, jaws tight. Like indigenous ceremonies and confesses to be a believer of jesus Christ, the liberator of the poor, he says. Therefore, both catholics and evangelists are wary of their faith, and it is not easy to determine which religion ascribes to if is that is true to some. “I think that more than a homo religiosus is a political animal that, as was said by The Necromancer kneels where the people are driven,” says Barranco.

Its dangerous relations with the religion we have now in a difficult place. Not a few are those who see in danger the knowration of Church and State that cost Mexico the bloody guerra Cristera in the twenties (and the other two in the NINETEENTH century, with a backdrop of catholic). All were defeated ambitions christian. In Mexico, the priests were not able to go with a cassock on the street (there were bets on who would accompany the Pope John Paul II in his car in 1979); the cathedrals are state property and the economic affairs of the bishops are channeled through civil society organizations.

“But this initiative of law raised can not now be seen as something isolated, but as a result of the latest measures taken by the Government and the consequent empowerment of the confessions. I think that the president is backtracking because it considers that these policies may be counterproductive”, said Capdevielle. Ravine also believes that the approach to the spiritual “are opening cracks, internal and external, that threaten the opportunities of the course project of the left-wing Government” and the image of modernity that Mexico showed the world century and a half ago.

Juárez has stirred in his grave

The separation of Church and State has in Mexico an indisputable reference point: Benito Juarez, who participated in the war of Reform which defended the Constitution of 1857, which upheld the secular State. Mexico wanted to be emancipated from a past colonial and imperial under the influence of the catholic Church, who were stripped of their possessions and their powers social. Some messages in the social networks these days suggest that the initiative seeks to recover for the confessions the lost ground will remove in his grave to Juarez, one of the symbols most widely used by president López Obrador.

The mexican people have spilt blood, sweat and tears in religious struggles fratricidal to consolidate secularism. In the days of the PRI the shackles of the catholic Church were loosening, although in the speeches he continued to force secularist. Until the reform of 1992, the Church was frankly relegated to civil life, but the whole of the second half of the TWENTIETH century the denominations were rearming and reclaiming public space.The PRI played so hypocritical with the matter. The ministers were not even to the church at the wedding of their children, but under the water everything was different. And in the schools of nuns were withdrawn from the crucifixes and all the imagery to receive the visit of the inspector who did not want to suspect anything. To be, and everything was coming back to his place.

The researcher Pauline Capdevile, co-author of several books on secularism, believes that an important gap in the secularization of the state occurred with the presidency of Vicente Fox and the very catholic National Action Party. “He was sworn in in 2000 with a crucifix and prayed to the Virgin of Guadalupe”, something that he criticised the opposition for violating the Constitution.

Experts such as Bernardo Barranco of the opinion that the mexican people now have more freedoms to legal entities, such as the cult, while the secularization progresses. “Before the catholic culture weighed more, the Church had in their bases to hundreds of thousands of attached. Did not exist legally, but its cultural weight was very strong. Now you have more field of action but their foundations are weak,” he says.

Capdeville, however, shows his concern for these religious initiatives and not rely so much on this supposed secularization of social. Although the legislation is still robust.

similar Opinion argues the historian Patricia Galeana. Believes that the mexican Constitution guarantees a Secular State that “there is always that stronger.” “Ignacio Ramirez, the liberal mexican who was a constituent of the first Constitution of Mexico abolished the confessional State, in 1857, wrote years later that he had to always be on the alert because of a recurring basis will produce pressures to re-establish a confessional State. History teaches that the greatest danger is in ignoring what has been won with much effort. Historical gains last as long as we know to defend,” he says by e-mail.

on The 12th of December, the devotion to the virgin of Guadalupe has left disturbing images of dying penitents who arrived from all over the country to the sanctuary while the children were leaving the school on a day that is not a public holiday for them. The influence of the Church in the public halls is felt, they complain about some teachers. The Churches want to lay in the laws of the conquests that are percolating through the cracks left by the public power.