<P> The issue of the role of the Catholic Church in Mexico has been highly divisive since the 1820s . Its large land holdings were especially a point of contention . Mexico was guided toward what was proclaimed a separation of church and state by Benito Juárez who, in 1859, attempted to eliminate the role of the Roman Catholic Church in the nation by appropriating its land and prerogatives . </P> <P> In 1859 the Ley Lerdo was issued--purportedly separating church and state, but actually involving state intervention in Church matters by abolishing monastic orders, and nationalizing church property . President Benito Juárez confiscated church property . He disbanded religious orders and ordered the separation of church and state at Constitution of Mexico . </P> <P> In 1926, after several years of the Mexican revolutionary war and insecurity, President Plutarco Elías Calles, an atheist and leader of the ruling National Revolutionary Party, enacted the Calles Law, which eradicated all the personal property of the churches, closed churches that were not registered with the State, and prohibited clerics from holding a public office . The law was unpopular; and several protesters from rural areas, fought against federal troops in what became known as the Cristero War . After the war's end in 1929, President Emilio Portes Gil upheld a previous truce where the law would remain enacted, but not enforced, in exchange for the hostilities to end . </P> <P> Ever since, the Catholic Church has remained active through the National Action Party . The party gained a major foothold in 2000 when President Vicente Fox was elected, ending 70 years of unbroken rule from the Institutional Revolutionary Party . </P>

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