Page:Mexico, Aztec, Spanish and Republican, Vol 2.djvu/156





relations existing between the Mexican church and the Papal throne were interrupted by the revolution. Spain and her monarchs had ever been distinguished and faithful defenders of the Catholic church, and had maintained its power carefully throughout all their American possessions. The pope therefore regarded the revolution not only as unfavorable to the interest of his allies, but as calculated in all probability to introduce ecclesiastical as well as political liberty into regions of which his ministers possessed the entire dominion. Hence the famous encyclical letter of his Holiness of the 24th of September, 1824, directed to the Heads of the American church, in which he anathematizes the doctrines and principles upon which the revolution was founded. But, yielding in the end to circumstances, and probably reassured by the article in the first constitution of Mexico—not yet promulgated when his letter saw the light—by which the Catholic faith was permanently confirmed as the national religion, to the exclusion of all others, he received the rebellious nation once more into his flock, as soon as the Mexican government sought readmission. This reconciliation was negotiated upon the same terms that existed during the Spanish dominion.

Even from the epoch of Iturbide's rule this delicate subject had engaged the attention of the rulers, and in 1825 an envoy was sent