Religion and Authority: The Church-State Crisis of the Mid-Nineteenth Century

In this essay, Erika Pani makes a detailed analysis of the complex secularization process Mexico underwent in the midnineteenth century, putting the crisis and eventual rupture between Church and State into context. She begins by discussing the contribution of Mexico’s religious authorities to the reforms and transformations within the Catholic Church under Pope Pius IX and his controversial Syllabus of Errors and the impact the revocation of the Pope’s temporal powers had on the Catholic world. Finally, the author analyzes the dispute between liberals and religious authorities in Mexico, which she views more as a battle to define Catholicism than a simple struggle between those who were in favor of secularizing public life and those who clung to the union between the throne and the altar.