Fr. Joe Dizon of Solidarity Philippines says: "We don’t find it a problem. We preach good citizenship and if the law provides that we have to pay taxes, then, we have to. Basta anything provided by the law, we will agree."

Should the churches be taxed?

Let’s look at what happened between the Church and State in the country through which our first colonial masters ruled us, the Viceroy of Mexico.

The Roman Catholic Church’s role in Mexican history started earlier than it did in Philippine history, When Hernán Cortés landed on the coast of Mexico in 1519, he was (as was Ferdinand Magellan in 1521 in the Philippines) accompanied by priests. Spanish territories were conquered in the name of the cross as well as the crown.

The main difference in our histories was that the Mexicans were able to free themselves of the colonial master much earlier. Here, the Great White Father from America took over from Mother Spain and, basically, adopted whatever was the Spanish colonial rule.

(What follows was gleaned from the Internet.)

In Mexico, on March 11, 1857, a new constitution was adopted that denied all ecclesiastical entities the right to own real estate and abolished most remaining ecclesiastical privileges. On July 12, 1857, President Benito Juárez confiscated all church properties, suppressed all religious orders, and empowered the state governors to designate what buildings could be used for religious services. Mexico’s first religious civil war was fought between 1857 and 1860 in reaction to this.

The constitution of 1917 highlighted and institutionalized many of the nineteenth-century secular reforms. It included at least five articles that affected all religious groups, regardless of denomination. These articles, which remained in effect until 1992, appeared to preclude any national role for the Roman Catholic Church. Article 3 forbade churches from participating in primary and secondary education. Article 5 prohibited the establishment of religious orders. Article 24 mandated that all religious ceremonies occur within church buildings. Article 27 gave the state ownership of all church buildings.

Article 130 stated that the Roman Catholic Church lacks legal status; ecclesiastical marriages have no legal standing; state legislatures can determine the maximum number of clergy operating within their boundaries; and operation of church buildings requires explicit government authorization.

Article 130, Section 9 read: "Neither in public nor private assembly, nor in acts of worship or religious propaganda shall the ministers of the religions ever have the right to criticize the basic laws of the country, of the authorities in particular or of the government in general; they shall have neither an active nor passive vote, nor the right to associate for political purposes."

Beginning in 1926 and continuing until the late 1930s, various federal and state administrations strenuously enforced these constitutional edicts and related laws. Their actions paved the way for the second Mexican religious war, the bloody Cristero Rebellion of 1926-29 in western Mexico.

During this period, the governor of Sonora ordered all churches closed, officials in the state of Tabasco required priests to marry if they were to officiate at mass, and the Chihuahua government allowed only one priest to minister to the entire statewide Roman Catholic population.

Church-state conflict officially ended with the administration of Manuel Ávila Camacho (1940-46). With the notable exception of Article 130, Section 9, the government tacitly offered non-enforcement of key constitutional provisions in exchange for the Roman Catholic Church’s cooperation in achieving social peace.

By the early 1980s, however, this unspoken consensus supporting the legal status quo had eroded. The Roman Catholic Church regarded the constitution’s anticlerical provisions, especially those governing ecclesiastical political activity, as anachronistic. It demanded the right to play a much more visible role in national affairs. At the same time, the church became increasingly outspoken in its criticism of government corruption.

(During President Ramos’ visit to Mexico, I realized that priests could still not wear their priestly robes outside of their churches and that the physical churches themselves were still regarded as Mexican government property, which the State only allowed the priests to use for the services it offered the parishioners.)

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The Virgin of Guadalupe has long been a symbol enshrining the major aspirations of Mexican society.

According to Roman Catholic belief, in December 1531, the Virgin Mary appeared on three occasions to a Christian Indian woodcutter named Juan Diego on the hill of Tepeyac, six kilometers north of Mexico City’s main plaza.

She spoke to him in the Náhuatl language and identified herself by the name of Guadalupe. The Virgin commanded Juan Diego to seek out Bishop Juan de Zumárraga and to inform him of her desire to have a church built in her honor on that spot. After two unsuccessful visits to the bishop’s house, Juan Diego returned to Tepeyac and was ordered by the Virgin to pick up some roses, carry them on his cloak, and attempt to make a third visit to the skeptical bishop.

Once in the bishop’s office, Juan Diego unfolded his cloak to present the roses, and an image of a mestizo Virgin had been miraculously imprinted upon it. Bishop Zumárraga acknowledged the miracle, and a shrine was built on the site of the appearances.

Today, two neighboring basilicas of Our Lady of Guadalupe are at the foot of Tepeyac hill. The first basilica, which was dedicated in 1709 but now is closed to services, accommodated 2,000 worshipers; the new ultramodern basilica, inaugurated in October 1976, accommodates up to 20,000 people. Juan Diego’s original cloak with the mestizo Virgin image imprinted on it hangs above the altar of the new basilica.

Devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe remains strong even as other aspects of Mexican society have changed. The UNAM national opinion poll found, for example, that nine out of ten Mexicans continue to ask intercessions from the Virgin or a saint.