El Papa Will Find a Different Mexico

If you were to judge Mexico’s religiousness by the enthusiasm generated by Pope John Paul’s visit to this country, which is scheduled to start today, you would conclude that Catholicism remains as strong as ever. But even the Pope’s visit emphasizes the changes that have taken place in Mexico’s religiousness over the past few years.

Mexico remains a heavily Catholic country. Census figures show that 90% of all Mexicans consider themselves Catholic while fully 92% have been baptized in the church. Ricardo Ampudia, author of the book “The Church of Rome,” claims that Mexico is the world’s most heavily Catholic country.

But for some, Mexico’s Catholicism has gone soft; Mexican Catholics are not as willing as they were to follow the dictates of the church. Others claim that it has become political. Pope John Paul’s pastoral visit to Mexico, says Monica Uribe, a historian who specializes in church issues, is “an attempt to redefine orthodoxy” for Catholics in Mexico and in the rest of the Americas.

Although Mexico remains solidly Catholic, Protestant groups have been making inroads in some areas of the country. In the heavily Indian Chiapas, the country’s poorest state and scene of the Zapatista uprising of 1994, 30% of the population is already Protestant. The recent violence in that state has often been a consequence of religion as much as of political differences.

The religiousness of nominally Catholic Indian communities is, in fact, quite different from the Catholic Church’s standard. It involves practices and beliefs that date back to old Indian traditions. The church’s hierarchy has traditionally chosen to disregard the distinctiveness of Indian Catholicism. This is partly a consequence of a paternalistic attitude toward Indians. But, according to Uribe, it is also a result of “pragmatism”; the Catholic Church does not want to lose Indian communities that, 500 years after the Spanish conquest, remain poorly evangelized.

The Catholic Church’s flexibility toward Indians stands in sharp contrast to its hardening position vis-a-vis “new age” religiousness. This term is used by orthodox Catholics to refer to an attitude increasingly prevalent among middle-class Mexicans--and in fact common in many developed countries--of considering themselves Catholic without actually conforming to established dogma.

Mexican Catholics are growing increasingly distant from the church’s rules. Many attend mass only for weddings and funerals, use contraceptives, divorce, engage in extramarital sex and even resort to abortions. They take only what they want from the dogma without thinking that they are less Catholic for doing so. “They want to have their ownready-made Catholicism,” says Rodrigo Guerra, a Catholic philosopher. But the pope is determined to send the message that you cannot go against Catholic dogma and ethics and still consider yourself a good Catholic.

Another point in which Catholicism in Mexico is different today is its involvement in politics. Although Mexico is heavily Catholic, the government did not formally recognize the existence of the church between 1853 and 1992. Extreme anticlerical rules were the law of the land. The Catholic Church was not allowed to own property or schools, Catholic priests and nuns were prohibited from wearing clerical garments, foreign priests entered Mexico under false pretenses and priests and nuns were not only banned from political activism but they were not even allowed to vote.

After the Cristero War, a violent conflict that pitted the Catholic Church against the government in 1926-29, a modus vivendi was reached. The Catholic Church did what it had to do to attain its worldly aims, like owning property and operating schools, while the government pretended that it did not know.

The 1992 reform of Mexico’s constitution changed all this. The Catholic Church was officially recognized, and it got full civil and political rights. But one consequence is that the church has become increasingly political. Bishops and priests frequently use the pulpit to issue political statements. Perhaps the most extreme case has been that of Samuel Ruiz, bishop of San Cristobal de Las Casas in Chiapas, a strong supporter of the Zapatista rebellion.

Mexicans, who in 1979 were the first non-Italian people to welcome John Paul II, continue to be rabid fans of the pope. Yet it is clear they take their religion differently. And it is not only the faithful; the Catholic Church has also changed. The pope’s 1979 visit was an austere event driven by the people’s fervor. The 1999 trip is a media happening financed by an impressive array of corporate sponsors.

When asked why the pope’s visit had become so commercial, Cardinal Norberto Rivera, archbishop of Mexico, laconically responded that John Paul “is a modern man.” Mexicans have also become more modern, and they are changing their deep but complex relationship with the Catholic Church and its dogmas.