Religion and Politics in Contemporary Mexico
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Addison De Witt (1998) has suggested that if Northern Ireland presents a case of religious fanaticism dominating politics, Mexico presents one of politics dominating religious fanaticism. MexicoÆs popular culture is Roman Catholic, but its politics and its state are largely secular, with vast majorities demonstrating both immense respect for the Catholic Church and firm opposition to the political involvement of religious leaders or symbols (Mexican Protestants & politics, 2001). In the past ten years or so, despite MexicoÆs expressed desires to keep church and state separate, the two institutions have become more and more inextricably tied together in MexicoÆs traditional or indigenous communities. Recently, with the election of Vicente Fox as MexicoÆs first non-Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) president in more than 70 years, a degree of ôquasi-officialö approval for Roman Catholic policies and concerns has begun to emerge in Mexico (Mexican Protestants & politics, 2001). While it would be incorrect to argue that the secularization of Mexican politics and economics is about to end, it is true that during the past ten years, religious institutions in Mexico have begun to express their views and act more publicly with respect to the critical issues of poverty, inequality, globalization, and economic development. In the early 1990s, Arthur Jones (1993) asserted that Roman Catholic officials in Mexico were reluctant to protest economic inequality and poverty bec
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and control over the Mexican state would not be shared by indigenous peoples and the poor (Chiapas bishops callà, 1999). While the views of Ruiz and others sympathetic to the Zapatista cause (and the plight of many poor Mexicans from the Roman Church and the smaller Protestant sects in MexicoÆs rural regions) represent a sector of the Church, they were not then and are not now necessarily representative of the more conservative elements of the Church hierarchy. Sharp divisions between the rich and poor û manifested not only in terms of the population as a whole, but also manifested by the members of the Catholic Church itself û have continued to polarize MexicoÆs Church hierarchy and its electorate.
Revolution in the Chiapas and elsewhere has been fed by poverty (Coleman & Coleman, 1994). Any number of Roman Catholic priests have joined, overtly or covertly, with the rebels û at least to the degree of providing verbal support for the rebelsÆ cause, offering to mediate between the rebels and the government, and helping to establish lines of communication between the rebels and the government.
The situation was viewed as critical by Jesuit Superior General for Mexico, Father Mario Lopez Barrio, who rebuked the Mexican governme
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Some common words found in the essay are:
President Fox, Roman Catholic, Vera Lopez, Catholic Church, Mexican Protestants, Coleman Coleman, Virgin Guadalupe, Bishop Ruiz, Catholic Reporter, Church Protestant, catholic church, zarembo 2001, mexican government, roman catholic, national catholic reporter, jones 1993, national catholic, indigenous peoples, bishop ruiz, catholic reporter, coleman coleman, protestants politics 2001, mexican protestants politics, bishops callà 1999, coleman coleman 2000,
Approximate Word count = 1904
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page)
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