ABSTRACT
During the so-called “forgotten years” of 1848–1853 the efforts of Mexican clerics and statesmen to minimize long-standing tensions between the Catholic Church and the state did not meet with success. This chapter examines some of the reasons that contributed to this failure, including the troubled arrival of Monsignor Luigi Clementi, the first papal delegate in Mexico. Clementi failed to obtain immediate recognition from both the Mexican government and the Archbishop of Mexico, thus hindering the Vatican’s plans to rely on high-level diplomatic channels to solve existing differences between Church and state. The 1848–1853 period also saw the gradual emergence of a younger, particularly intransigent generation of Mexican bishops who resisted government attempts to negotiate a solution to matters they regarded as of the exclusive jurisdiction of the clergy. These and other developments insured that Church-state relations would break out in open hostility during the Reforma.
