Mexico City’s cathedral was closed Monday after leftist protesters stormed into the world-renowned religious landmark, and church officials said it would not reopen until city authorities can guarantee security.Dozens of supporters of former leftist presidential candidate Andres Manuel López Obrador entered the building bordering the capital’s Zocalo square on Sunday, scuffling with faithful and overturning pews.
The conflict reignited tensions between the church and some members of Mexico’s leftist Democratic Revolution Party who accuse Cardinal Norberto Rivera of overstepping Mexican law by intervening in politics, including supporting President Felipe Calderón’s election campaign last year.
Archdiocese of Mexico spokesman Hugo Valdemar Romero said there have been 24 similar but smaller incidents since the 2006 election, which López Obrador’s followers allege was stolen. Election officials deny the allegation.
“The cathedral will remain closed as a security measure, and a sign of protest against the fact that these people entered, attacked parishioners and profaned a sacred space,” Romero said.
Democratic Revolution officials, which dominates Mexico City politics and is the largest opposition party in Congress, insisted they did not instigate the protest.
City officials recently increased security at the cathedral at Rivera’s request, and Mexico City Mayor Marcelo Ebrard said Monday the city would immediately boost police presence further.
Sen. Rosario Ibarra said López Obrador’s followers were angered on Sunday by an extended tolling of the cathedral’s bells that drowned out her speech to a rally in the Zocalo.
“Could it be that they don’t want the people to hear what I have to say?” Ibarra recalled telling the crowd. “We should check.”
Church officials described the bells as a normal call to Mass, but Ibarra said it lasted about 15 minutes.
The disruption delayed Sunday Mass, frightened some parishioners out of the building, forced priests to take refuge in the sacristy and left one elderly parishioner slightly injured, according to Father Ruben Avila, who is in charge of the cathedral.
“The whole cathedral shook with their shouting, and they pushed the parishioners within a few meters (yards) from the door of the sacristy,” Avila said in an account posted on the archdiocese’s Web site.
Romero said it was the first time the cathedral had closed since 1926, when tensions over Mexico’s harsh anti-clerical laws broke out into armed conflict between the government and Catholic rebels with the bloody 1926-29 Cristero War. All churches in the country were closed during the conflict.
Those laws were eased by reforms in 1992 that allowed churches to own property and priests to wear clerical garb in public.
Ebrard said the church had no right to close the cathedral because the historic building was expropriated by the government, along with other church property, in the 1800s.
“This is an act of intolerance because nobody can close a national monument,” Ebrard said.
Churches in Mexico can now own properties they acquired after the 1992 reforms, but are only allowed to occupy church buildings that existed before that.
Romero defended the church’s right to close the cathedral.
“The cathedral is state property, but as a religious association we have the right to determine what religious rites are held there,” he said. “And because the site was profaned, we can declare the suspension of the rites.”
No related posts.
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.