The Mexican Church and the Rebellion of the Polkos

O-N January 11, 1847, Valentin G6mez, Farias, vice president of Mexico, signed a law which authorized the government to appropriate ecclesiastical property and goods to the maximum value of fifteen million pesos.' One third of this sum was to be taken from the regular and secular clergy within the archbishopric. The purpose of this radical measure was to obtain the funds which General Antonio L6pez de Santa Anna had insisted were necessary if he was to continue to prosecute the war against the invading United States army. In spite of the military danger, both public and clerical reaction to the law was immediately hostile, and within four days rumors of imminent armed rebellion to force repeal of the law were reported in the press.2 Faced with this threat, G6mez Farias moved a regiment and a battalion of the National Guard, suspected of revolutionary intentions, to barracks located at some distance from the National Palace.3 Then on January 16 the clergy, who had been openly condemning this latest assault on the wealth of the Church, were forbidden by the government to make political speeches. Still the bishops and their chapters in every Mexican diocese continued to denounce the law in numerous representations hurriedly dispatched to the central government and to the Congress.4 Furthermore, the proclerical press lost no time in rousing