Berkley Center

I thought it would be easy to discern the influence of religion in Mexican civic life. After all, 89 percent of Mexicans claim Roman Catholicism as their religion, and I myself am attending Iberoamericana University, a Jesuit institution. I expected a very straightforward situation. However, I have quickly realized that the roadside shrines and public religious processions are misleading indeed, merely whitewashing the contradictions and paradoxes of Mexican civic-religious life.

For example, the end of September marked the fifteenth anniversary of the reestablishment of diplomatic relations between Mexico and the Holy See. President Benito Juarez formally cut ties with the Vatican in 1861, following the ill-fated “reign” of the Emperor Maximilian; I was surprised to learn that (official) relations remained almost non-existent between the predominantly Catholic country and the Church until 1992. A recent editorial in El Universal points to the reestablishment of relations as a “step towards democratic normalization” for Mexico, as well as an almost cathartic victory over the legacy of Mexico’s troubled past with the Church. The author, Julián López Amozurrutia, goes on to highlight a very salient issue within contemporary Mexican politics: the difficulties of maintaining the secular character of the state while simultaneously guaranteeing freedom of religion and freedom of expression. That is to say, politicians and policymakers in Mexico are confronted with a people steeped in religious tradition—who, at best, fear any expression of religion on the part of their civic leaders, and staunchly oppose any civic participation by their religious leaders.

The public perception of former president Vicente Fox and his party, the Partido Acción Nacional (PAN), is largely influenced by this dynamic. The first president in Mexico’s history from a Christian Democratic party, Fox practiced his Catholicism very publicly, an act which was met with displeasure from some and surprise from nearly all. In fact, today the memory is still strong. Three separate acquaintances of mine have told me, in passing, about Fox’s famous (or perhaps infamous, depending on one’s perspective) reception of Pope John Paul II in 2002, in which the president kissed the Pope’s hand. His regular attendance at church and his use of religious phrases in official speeches were also widely noted, either to condemn or to celebrate. However, the unease inspired in some by this sudden, perceived reemergence of religion in the public sphere was evidently not sufficient to dissuade voters from electing another PANite, Felipe Calderon, as president in 2006.

The role of religion in Mexican society is of course still very strong, which conceivably contributes to the wide base of support that the PAN enjoys. For instance, the abortion debate is currently raging in the capital. The mayor of Mexico City, who is of the more liberal Partido Revolucionario Nacional (PRI), has given his support to a bill that would remove some of the restrictions on abortions in the capital; the practice has been legal (for women within their first trimester) since last April. Despite the overwhelmingly-Catholic identification here, a survey conducted in 2000 shows that a majority of citizens (79 percent) support some kind of abortion rights for women. However, perhaps more as a reflection of Church doctrine and less of the desires of its constitutents, the PAN remains strongly opposed to the practice.

Like their politicians, Mexican citizens have been subjected to an unsustainable relationship between religion and the public sphere. As in any other secular state, there is a constant tension between the city of God and the city of man, but the Mexican psyche is also influenced by the legacy of colonialism and the abuses of the Church during Mexico’s early history. Over the last century, the result has been the attempted political negation of one entire facet of Mexican identity—Catholicism—via its total expulsion from the public discourse. The country is now in the process of transitioning away from this untenable condition towards a healthier relationship between religion and politics. The results of this process remain to be seen, but I doubt that Mexico will ever completely reconcile itself to its past, and thus to its present.