Calles
was inaugurated on November 30, 1924, and lost no time plunging
Mexico into the most severe religious crisis of her history. The
1917 Constitution contained articles which practicing Catholics
considered intolerable -- among them were provisions outlawing
monastic orders, prohibiting religious organizations to own property
and reducing clergy to the status of second-class citizens by
taking away their right to vote. Obregón disliked Catholicism
but was a practical man who followed a policy of applying the
articles selectively -- with rigor in areas where the Church was
weak, leniently or not at all in regions where the Church was
strong.
Calles,
by contrast, was a fanatic determined to extirpate every trace
of Catholicism from Mexico. On June 14, 1926, he signed a decree
known officially as "The Law Reforming the Penal Code"
and unofficially as the "Calles Law."
clipped from: coloquio.com 