Liberty in Mexico: Writings on Liberalism from the Early Republican Period to the Second Half of the Twentieth Century

2. Declaration to the Inhabitants of the United States of Mexico on Freedom of Worship

372 Citizen benito juárez, interim ConStitutional preSident of the mexiCan united StateS, to all the inhabitantS i deClare: Exercising the comprehensive powers with which I have been invested, I have seen fit to decree the following: Art. 1. The laws protect the exercise of Catholic worship and of the others established in the country as the expression and result of religious liberty, which, as a natural right of man, has not and cannot have limitations other than the right of another and the requirements of public order. In everything else, the separation between the state, on the one hand, and religious beliefs and practices, on the other, is and will be complete and inviolable. For the implementation of these principles it will be observed what the laws of the Reform and this document have declared and determined. Art. 2. A church or religious society is formed of the men who have voluntarily desired to be members of it, declaring this decision by themselves or through their parents or guardians whose dependents they are. Art. 3. Each one of these societies has the liberty to regulate, by itself or by means of its priests, the beliefs and practices of the religion that it professes and to specify the conditions with which it admits men to its association or removes them from it, provided that neither by these measures nor by their application to individual cases that might occur is it influenced by any misdeed or transgression prohibited by the laws, in 2 Declaration to the Inhabitants of the United States of Mexico on Freedom of Worship, December 4, 1860 Original title: “Bando por el que se decreta la libertad de cultos, 4 de diciembre de 1860.” Source: Benito Juárez, Presidente interino constitucional de los Estados-Unidos mexicanos , á todos sus habitantes, hago saber, que, con acuerdo unánime del consejo de ministros . . . (Veracruz: s.p.i., 1860). to CitizenS on freedom of worShip : 373 which case the procedure and verdict that those laws prescribe will take precedence and the general intent be carried out. Art. 4. The authority of these religious societies and their priests will be purely and absolutely spiritual without any coercion of another kind, whether it be exercised over men faithful to the doctrines, counsels, and rules of a religion, whether over those who, having accepted these things, might later have a change of mind. Popular action is granted to accuse and denounce violators of this article. Art. 5. In the civil order there is no obligation, punishment, or coercion of any type with respect to purely religious matters, misdeeds, and offenses. As a consequence, no judicial or administrative procedure because of apostasy, schism, heresy, simony, or any other ecclesiastical offenses will take place, even if some church or its directors demand it. But if some misdeed or offense contained in the laws now in force is attached to them and not repealed for this reason, the appropriate public authority will know of the case and will resolve it without taking into consideration its status and quality in the religious order.This same principle will be observed when the indicated misdeeds or offenses might come about from an act judged proper and authorized by any religion whatsoever. As a consequence, the declaration of ideas on religious points and the publication of papal bulls, briefs, rescripts, pastoral letters, commands, and any writings whatsoever that also treat of those matters are things to be enjoyed in complete liberty unless order, peace, or public morality is attacked by them, or private life, or in whatever other way the rights of a third person or when some crime or offense is provoked; for in all these cases, leaving aside the religious element, the laws that prohibit such abuses will be applied irremissibly, keeping in mind what is laid out in Article 23. Art. 6. In the internal economy of the churches and the administration of the wealth whose acquisition the laws permit to religious societies , these societies will have, in what corresponds to the civil order, all the powers, rights, and obligations of any legitimately established association . Art. 7. Any recourse to force is abolished. If some church or its directors carries out an individual act reserved to public authority, the author or authors of this illegality will suffer respectively the punishments that the laws impose on those who separately or as a body commit it. 374 : ConStitutional Government...