Page:Mexico in 1827 Vol 1.djvu/374

344 Clergy of all classes before any step is taken to relieve them from its effects. This object is now attained: a feeling in favour of an independent National Church, has become very general; and, in the beginning of this year, motions were made in the Legislatures of Zacatecas and Durango, urging the Congress to assume the right of Patronage, without waiting for a Concordat with the See of Rome. I have little doubt that due attention will be paid to this recommendation in the sessions of 1828, if, indeed, it be not acted upon before the close of the present year.

The long interregnum which has taken place in many of the Bishoprics, has facilitated the introduction of some very useful reforms; but it has encouraged, at the same time, a spirit of innovation, on the part of some of the States, which, but for the intervention of the General Congress, would have been carried very far. In Guadalajara, for instance, the State Legislature decreed the confiscation of the whole of the Church property in that State, pledging itself to make a suitable provision for the Ministers of Religion at the public expense. This project was even sanctioned as an Article of the Constitution of the State (the 7th); but the Clergy, having refused to take the oath upon such terms, and resisted, by a threat of excommunication, an attempt on the part of the Civil Authorities to oblige them to submit, the question was referred to the General Congress, which, on the 22d of December