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The Catholic Church asks AMLO and the PRD not to "Ignite" Mexico

Probably just fanned the flames. PRD and PRI hate the Catholic church, the Mexican Constitution, written by the PRI in essence, severely restricts the Church and churchmen, since they were on opposite sides in the *last* revolution.

In Mexico, one gets married in two separate ceremonies, if one wants to get married in a religious ceremony that is. It's a political statement whether one has the religious or the civil ceremony first. Our first exchange student had her civil ceremony first, but did not consider herself married, and more importantly neither did her somewhat imposing father, until after the Church ceremony. The civil ceremony was conducted in her home, with only immediate family members present. The religious ceremony, which my family attended, was conducted in a church built around 1600 IIRC. The reception followed the Church wedding, and the honeymoon followed that.

I learned quite a bit about the suppression of the Catholic Church during the Mexican Revolution -- and afterwards -- when I spent some time in Puebla and Cholula, Mexico, about 75 miles or so east of Mexico City. Puebla-Cholula is the center of the Catholic Church in Mexico, going all the way back to the Conquista, since the area was a center for Meso-American Indian religious worship. There are a total of 366 churches and chapels in the two cities. One can go to mass in a different one each day of the year, even if it's leap year.

I toured Puebla's "Secret Convent" which was a refuge for nuns, and many priests, from the revolution and heard some rather frightening tales when I visited. Their experience of repression during the worst years of the Mexican Revolution is something they are very keen to remind everyone of and I learned a lot.

I also read a very interesting work of history by a Mexican historian named Luis González called San Jose de Gracia: Village in Transition, and I've still got the book somewhere around here. It's written about a small village in the Mexican state of Michoacán that traces its history over a couple of hundred years. It includes an entire chapter on the Cristeros rebellion during the Mexican Revolution, when many of the local villagers, who had pretty much been left out of the revolution, drew the line when the government decided to repress the Catholic Church in their area and fought back. They ended up fighting to a draw, since the government realized it wasn't worth the trouble and it made them very unpopular in the area. But there is quite a bit in that chapter that gives insight into the way many Mexicans attach themselves to the church and of the way the "revolutionaries" saw the church as an enemy.

I wonder how many people remember that the original Mexican Revolution to escape Spanish rule began with one Father Hidalgo?