Abstract

LUNA ARGUDIN, María. Revolutionary Efforts and Religious Problems in the Constituent Congress of 1916-1917. A study of Parliamentary Dynamics. Secuencia [online]. 2017, n.99, pp.65-92. ISSN 2395-8464.  https://doi.org/10.18234/secuencia.v0i99.1416.

The Constituent Congress of 1916-1917 discussed an extensive program to secularize Mexican society, through which delegates attempted to eliminate the clergy’s political and social influence. The assembly soon divided into two broad coalitions. One defended individual guarantees and the stiffening of Reform Laws, while the other sought to transform Mexican culture to eradicate superstition and fanaticism, which they regarded as features of catholicism. This article analyzes the political groups into which the assembly was divided, the alliances and coalitions formed by the delegates, and the external pressures -both national and those resulting from the Great War- to which they were subjected. It does so to reconstitute the parliamentary dynamics that made it possible to achieve consensus between the delegates to redefine freedoms of teaching and conscience and the relationships between the public authorities and religious associations.

Keywords : anticlericalism; catholic Church; Constituent Congress; 1917 Constitution; Mexican revolution.