Cristero War: Encyclopedia II - Cristero War - Diplomacy and the uprising

Cristero War - Diplomacy and the uprising

Before and after the successes had by the rebels and the support of Bishop Orozco y Jiménez, the Mexican bishops supported the Cristeros. The bishops were expelled from Mexico after Father Vega's savage attack on the train, but continued to try and influence the war's outcome from outside the country

The U.S. ambassador to Mexico, in October 1927, was Dwight Whitney Morrow. He initiated a series of breakfast meetings with Calles where the two would discuss a whole range of problems, from the religious uprising, to oil and irrigation. This earned him the nickname "ham and eggs diplomat" in U.S. papers. Morrow wanted the conflict to come to an end both for humanitarian reasons, and to help find a solution to the oil problem in the U.S. He was aided in his efforts by Father John Burke of the National Catholic Welfare Conference. The Vatican was also actively suing for peace.

Calles' term as president was coming to an end and president-elect Álvaro Obregón was scheduled to take office on December 1. However, he was assassinated by a Catholic radical two weeks before he was to take office, gravely damaging the peace process.

Congress named Emilio Portes Gil interim president in September, with an election to be held in November 1929. Portes Gil was more open to the Church than Calles had been, allowing Morrow and Burke to reinitiate their peace initiative. Portes Gil told a foreign correspondent on May 1 that "the Catholic clergy, when they wish, may renew the exercise of their rites with only one obligation, that they respect the laws of the land."

The next day, exiled Archbishop Leopoldo Ruíz y Flores issued a statement that the hierarchy had elected to suspend worship because it "was not able to accept laws that are enforced in my country." That is, the bishops would not demand the repeal of the laws, only their more lenient application.

Morrow managed to bring the parties to agreement on June 21, 1929. The pact he drafted, called the arreglos (arrangements) would allow worship to resume in Mexico and granted three concessions to the Catholics: only priests who were named by hierarchical superiors would be required to register, religious instruction in the churches (but not in the schools) would be permitted, and all citizens, including the clergy, would be allowed to make petitions to reform the laws. But the most important part of it was that the church would recover the right to use its properties, and priests recovered their rights to live on such property. Legally speaking, the church was not allowed to own real estate, and its former facilities remained federal property. However, the church took control over them, and the government never again tried to take these properties back. It was a convenient arrangement for both parties and Church support for the rebels ended.

The arreglos led to an unusual end to the war. In the last two years, many more anticlerical officers who were hostile to the federal government for other reasons had joined the rebels. When the arreglos were made known, only a minority of the rebels went home, those who felt their battle had been won. As the rebels themselves were not consulted in these talks, most of them felt betrayed and some continued to fight. The church then threathened rebels with excommunication, and gradually the rebellion died out.

The officers, fearing that they would be tried as traitors, tried to keep the rebellion alive. This attempt failed and many were captured and shot, while others escaped to San Luis Potosí, where General Saturnino Cedillo gave them refuge.

On June 27, the church bells rang in Mexico for the first time in almost three years.

The war had claimed the lives of some 90,000: 56,882 on the federal side, 30,000 Cristeros, and numerous civilians and Cristeros who were killed in anticlerical raids after the war's end. As promised by Portes Gil, the Calles Law remained on the books, but no organized federal attempts to enforce it were put into action. Nonetheless, in several localities, persecution of Catholic priests continued based on local officials' interpretations of the law. The anticlerical provisions of the Constitution remain in place as of 2005, though they are no longer enforced.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Diplomacy and the uprising", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki