Lady_of_Guadalupe

18 Am I Not Your Mother? were activated by a series of penal laws called the “Calles Laws” after President Plutarco Elías Calles (1924–28), who signed them and rigorously enforced them. Among these federal laws were prohibitions on priests criticizing the government, bans on clerical attire in public, and restrictions on property ownership and education. Some local laws went even further, as in the State of Tabasco, which limited the number of priests for the entire state to one. To protest these bigoted laws, the bishops of Mexico suspended public worship in Mexico on August 1, 1926. This ban stayed in place until 1929, and during this time the Cristero War raged. During this time, Martínez was serving as an auxiliary bishop of Morelia, where he had been appointed in 1923. The earliest of Archbishop Martínez’s contributions to this collection (“Tepeyac in an Era of Religious Persecution”) was delivered at the conclusion of this painful Article 27 turned over Church property to the state; Article 37 jeopardized one’s citizenship if he disobeyed the Constitution at the behest of a member of the clergy; and Article 130 banned foreign-born priests, gave local governments the authority to limit the number of the clergy, took away the clergy’s right to vote, prohibited the clergy from speaking critically of the government, limited the clergy’s ability to inherit property, banned the public wearing of clerical garb, and rescinded the right to a trial by jury for anyone accused of infractions of these laws.

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