Plutarco Calles Anticlerical Policies

The anticlerical policies and direct actions of Plutarco Elías Calles and his government explicitly lead to violence against the Church and the clergy which escalated into the Cristero Rebellion. Anticlericalism had been previously established under the Mexican Liberal government and Constitution of 1857, however, though strategic political leadership, a peace between the Catholic Church and the government was maintained. Tensions between the ecclesiastical and secular factions simmered under the surface after the Revolution of 1910 but when Calles came to power, the unstable peace disintegrates. Further laws and legislation against the Church and the clergy were put into place by the newly revised Constitution of 1917. Under the President

Due to Calles’s parents’ death in his childhood, he was sent to live with his paternal uncle and aunt in Hermosillo, Mexico. It was here that Calles had the opportunity to attend one of the best public schools in the area, Coleigo de Sonora. Sonora was established in 1889 in opposition of the town’s Catholic school. Calles went to school during the period when the idea of positivism had taken hold as a new social revolution and he was greatly influenced by the philosophy. Positivism is a European doctrine that believes all things in the natural world can be explained by science and excludes any theological or metaphysical elucidations. It is this factor and the fact that Calles uncle was an atheist, that one could understand how Calles positivist education led to his authoritarian populist views. However, there is an idea sponsored by Enrique Krauze, a Mexican historian, that Calles resents the Catholic Church because he felt stigmatized since he was born out of wedlock and was not baptized until Calles was a toddler. Historian, Jürgen Buchenau, disagrees with this theory because of the area in which Calles was born, it was not uncommon for children to be born out of wedlock. And in regards to the late baptism, Buchenau states that because of the geological location of Sonora there were very few priest and churches so many children were not baptized until

This ability to be resolute made Calles such a force to be reckon with was as he dealt with all things in absolutes. George Wheeler Hinman, Jr., agrees with this assessment in his article “Calles or Chaos,” where he claims, speaking of the government’s role in education “But his judgement, whether warped or not, is final. One of the hardest things to get out of anybody in Mexico is a final judgment.” One of Calles most important features was the ability to make decisions on political issues without worrying about the future repercussions of said decision. This personality trait aided him in creating a very rigid government when it came to political policies. However, Calles used this unwavering decision making caused Calles to be absolute when dealing with matters concerned with the Church. An example of this resolution shows in his Law Reforming the Penal Code, which set the consequences for failure to follow the articles set forth by the 1917