"[23] The Constitution also provided for mandatory registration of all churches and religious congregations and forbade priests to involve themselves in politics or inherit from anyone other than close relatives.

[41] It also allowed each state to control the number of priests in its territory (some reduced it to zero), forbade the wearing of religious garb outside of church premises, and excluded offenders from a trial by jury.

[27][46][47] The Catholic Church and the Díaz government had come to an informal modus vivendi in which the state formally maintained the anticlerical articles of the liberal Constitution of 1857 but it failed to enforce them.

[5][52][53][54][55] After president Francisco I. Madero was overthrown and assassinated in a February 1913 military coup which was led by General Victoriano Huerta, supporters of the Porfirian regime were returned to their posts.

When Calles and his Labor Party came to power in 1924, the administration believed that the Church was challenging its revolutionary initiatives and legal basis and resolved to strictly enforce the Constitution's secularist articles.

To confront the Church's influence, laws were brought into force to execute on the constitutional provisions, which triggered a ten-year-long religious conflict in which thousands of armed civilians were killed by the Mexican Army.

For instance, wearing clerical garb in public, outside church buildings, earned a fine of 500 pesos (then the equivalent of US$250), and priests who criticized the government could be imprisoned for five years.

[68] To help enforce the law, Calles expropriated church property, expelled all foreign priests and closed monasteries, convents and religious schools.

On 14 July, Catholic bishops endorsed plans for an economic boycott against the government, which was particularly effective in west-central Mexico (the states of Jalisco, Michoacán, Guanajuato, Aguascalientes, and Zacatecas).

The rebellion eventually came to an end following a settlement brokered by the American Ambassador Dwight W. Morrow, with financial relief and logistical assistance provided by the Knights of Columbus.

[97] On 14 August, government agents staged a purge of the Chalchihuites, Zacatecas, chapter of the Association of Catholic Youth and executed its spiritual adviser, Father Luis Bátiz Sainz.

Led by 27-year-old René Capistrán Garza, the leader of the Mexican Association of Catholic Youth, the region would become the main focal point of the rebellion.

Bands of rebels moving in the "Los Altos" region northeast of Guadalajara began seizing villages and were often armed with only ancient muskets and clubs.

The most successful rebel leaders were Jesús Degollado, a pharmacist; Victoriano Ramírez, a ranch hand; and two priests, Aristeo Pedroza and José Reyes Vega.

As if to prove that the rebellion was not extinguished and to avenge his death, Vega led a raid against a train carrying a shipment of money for the Bank of Mexico on 19 April 1927.

[129][105][126][125] With close ties to the Church and the clergy, the De La Torre family was instrumental in bringing the Cristero Movement to northern Mexico.

[130][101] The Cristeros maintained the upper hand throughout 1928, and in 1929, the government faced a new crisis: a revolt within army ranks that was led by Arnulfo R. Gómez in Veracruz.

[114] In October 1927, the American ambassador, Dwight Morrow, initiated a series of breakfast meetings with Calles at which they would discuss a range of issues from the religious uprising to oil and irrigation.

[133] Two weeks after his election, Obregón was assassinated by a Catholic radical, José de León Toral,[134][135][136] which gravely damaged the peace process.

The next day, the exiled Archbishop Leopoldo Ruíz y Flores issued a statement that the bishops would not demand the repeal of the laws but only their more lenient enforcement.

[138] Only priests who were named by hierarchical superiors would be required to register; religious instruction in churches but not in schools would be permitted; and all citizens, including the clergy, would be allowed to make petitions to reform the laws.

In 1992, the Mexican government amended the constitution by granting all religious groups legal status, conceding them property rights, and lifting restrictions on the number of priests in the country.

[147] Established by California railroad mogul and Knight John B. Frisbie, a resident of Mexico City, the first chapter would be made up of mostly Irish and Irish-Mexicans before more Mexicans would join the organization.

[147] The Knights of Columbus would start out in western states, an area where the Catholic Church was widespread, such as Puebla, Hidalgo, Michoacán, Guanajuato, and Jalisco, before spreading to Nayarit, Veracruz, Coahuila, Durango, and Chihuahua.

The American Knights collected more than $1 million to assist exiles from Mexico, fund the continuation of the education of expelled seminarians, and inform U.S. citizens about the oppression.

[151][152] In addition to lobbying the American public, the Knights met United States President Calvin Coolidge and pressed him for US intervention on behalf of the rebels.

[183][157][184] The Mexican Congress amended Article 3 of the Constitution in October 1934 to include the following introductory text: "The education imparted by the State shall be a socialist one and, in addition to excluding all religious doctrine, shall combat fanaticism and prejudices by organizing its instruction and activities in a way that shall permit the creation in youth of an exact and rational concept of the Universe and of social life.

Pope Pius XI also published the encyclical Firmissimam constantiam on 28 March 1937, expressing his opposition to the "impious and corruptive school" (paragraph 22) and his support for Catholic Action in Mexico.

[194] The Catholic Church has recognized several of those who were killed in the Cristero War as martyrs, including Miguel Pro, a Jesuit who was shot dead without trial by a firing squad on 23 November 1927, for his alleged involvement in an assassination attempt against former President Álvaro Obregón, though his supporters maintained that he was executed for carrying out his priestly duties in defiance of the government.

[221][better source needed] Furthermore, some religious relics have been brought to the United States from Jalisco and are currently located at Our Lady of the Mount Church in Cicero, Illinois.