Page:Vol 6 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/604

584 and ecclesiastical jurisdictions. Several salutary measures were adopted, and there was some prospect of their successful execution, when Santa Anna resumed the executive authority and undid what had been done to reform both the clergy and the army. However, the reforms partially remained in force, but not those connected with the patronato. The plan of Iguala was no longer a shield for the church's temporalities. In 1835 there arrived in Mexico two bishops in partibus infidelium, appointed by the pope de motu proprio, with an entire disregard of Mexico's right of patronage. This question remained in [sic]statu quo, until, upon the resignation of Archbishop Fonte of the mitre of Mexico in 1838, the choice of his successor was made by the Roman pontiff in 1840, from a list presented by the chapter of the diocese under an act of the Mexican congress. The right of the national government on the subject of nominations of bishops was further sustained in an act of congress of April 16, 1850.

The clergy had invariably disclaimed all intervention as a body in the political disturbances of the country. It might not be always easy to disprove this assertion, but their struggle for power became clear and well defined in the act proclaimed at Guadalajara in 1852, known as the Plan del Hospicio, which bore the signatures of high ecclesiastical dignitaries. The clergy supported Santa Anna in power, believing thus to secure their own; but the revolution of Ayutla put an end to their golden dreams by overthrowing the dictator.