MEXICAN CHURCH

Associated Press - direct feed | July 29, 2002 | John Rice

[NYer]

MEXICO CITY (AP) _ A young, vigorous Pope John Paul II came to Mexico on his first foreign trip and seized the heart of a nation at a time when laws barred outdoor religious ceremonies and even forbade priests to wear clerical garb in the street. He donned a sombrero at a bullfighting ring, strummed a guitar with mariachis and became the first pontiff to visit the most revered religious center of the hemisphere: the shrine to the Virgin of Guadalupe, the Roman Catholic patroness of the Americas.

By some counts, 20 million people turned out to see the pope in 1979, showering him with flowers, cheers and song. ``It was love at first sight,'' said Eduardo Aguilar, who runs a church-affiliated cultural institute.

As John Paul returns Tuesday on his fifth visit, the deep affection remains, though much else has changed. He is now physically bent by illness. But his church has been energized as anti-religious laws from Mexico's revolutionary days have been abolished, and the new president, Vicente Fox, openly professes his Catholic faith.

Once-timid church leaders are now outspoken _ if consciously nonpartisan _ on economic, political and moral issues in a nation with more Catholics than any but Brazil. ``Indirectly, they brought about Fox's victory'' _ by crusading against election fraud in the 1980s and by urging the faithful to vote and demand clean politics, said Roderic Camp, a government professor at Claremont McKenna College who has studied the Mexican church.

During John Paul's papacy, which began in 1978, the Mexican government has restored relations with the Vatican after a 125-year break and repealed what for decades had been some of the world's most draconian anti-religion laws, passed to rein in a church that for centuries had ruled as part of the colonial power structure, owned much of Mexico's land and allied itself with foreign invaders and domestic dictators. Many say most of the recent changes would have happened even without the Polish pope.

By the time of John Paul's first visit, the government had long since stopped enforcing the most onerous of the anti-religion laws and had settled into an odd, if hypocritical, peace with religion. President Jose Lopez Portillo's government required the pope to come to Mexico as a private citizen on a tourist visa in 1979. Yet Lopez Portillo asked the pontiff to secretly say Mass and to consecrate a chapel at the presidential residence. When the government finally abolished the anti-religion laws in 1992, ``it was the system itself that reformed, and not the church,'' said Roberto Blancarte, a leading scholar on church issues.

The growing activism of the church grew largely out of Pope John XXIII's Second Vatican Council in the 1960s. ``There were real transformations ... in the way of understanding the relationship of the church with society,'' Blancarte said. Aguilar agreed, but said ``it is John Paul II who came to harvest'' the changes, and to accelerate them. ``It would have taken about 30 years more'' to achieve the same changes under a less active and charismatic pontiff, he said. Aguilar said the pope stimulated a sustained increase in numbers of youths entering Catholic seminaries in Mexico and created a notably younger church leadership. ``They are bishops who are much more open to debate, to listen,'' he said. Camp said many of those bishops are socially conservative, if often surprisingly liberal on politics and economics.

The Marxist tinge that once clung to the region's ``liberation theology'' has largely been exterminated under a pope who suffered under a communist system, though conservative Mexican bishops _ and the pope himself _ can be scathing about the free market. After that landmark 1979 trip, the pope returned to Mexico in 1990, 1993 and 1999, each time drawing millions of people in what he calls ``always faithful Mexico,'' even if Protestant denominations are eroding what was once a Catholic monopoly. Eighty-eight percent of Mexico's 100 million people now describe themselves as Catholic.

Aguilar noted that the pope once credited Mexico with ``opening the doors to Poland,'' so he could make the early trips that many say helped topple the Soviet bloc. After a state with strongly anti-clerical laws such as Mexico had found a way to welcome him, Aguilar said, ``the Polish hierarchy had no arguments'' to keep him from visiting.

AP-ES-07-29-02 1301EDT

[NYer]

Aguilar agreed, but said ``it is John Paul II who came to harvest'' the changes, and to accelerate them. ``It would have taken about 30 years more'' to achieve the same changes under a less active and charismatic pontiff, he said.

FYI and discussion

[patent]

The Marxist tinge that once clung to the region's ``liberation theology'' has largely been exterminated under a pope who suffered under a communist system, though conservative Mexican bishops _ and the pope himself _ can be scathing about the free market. After that landmark 1979 trip, the pope returned to Mexico in 1990, 1993 and 1999, each time drawing millions of people in what he calls ``always faithful Mexico,'' even if Protestant denominations are eroding what was once a Catholic monopoly. Eighty-eight percent of Mexico's 100 million people now describe themselves as Catholic.

This is what I was referring to on the other thread. Many of these Protestant converts are in the regions where liberation theology, marxism, and revolution were preached together. These things seem to have become more important to many than their Catholic faith was, so when the Pope wouldn't tolerate it anymore, they converted. I suspect that the inroads Protestantism is making will be at least somewhat permanent, but the current crop of converts will be very fickle.

patent

[Desdemona]

Part of what has made JPII so beloved is his travels. That he cares enough to travel to see his flock means a lot to everyone. That he does this is obvious frailty, this time, makes it even more special.

I don't know what to make of modern converts. They don't seem to be very strong of mind.

[nickcarraway]

Bump