Cathedral to reopen today

With some gracious remarks directed toward the Federal District government and the PRD political party of Lopez Obrador, church officials announced that the Metropolitan Cathedral will reopen today after six days of closure. The government and the church agreed on a plan that will provide security for the cathedral without turning it into a "bunker," according to news reports.

La Jornada's account is here.

The Cathedral was ordered closed after a group of protesters burst in to demand that its bells be silenced. The ringing of those bells was apparently disrupting a big political rally outside--a rally called by Lopez Obrador, who continues to insist he is the rightful president of Mexico.

Lopez Obrador and his allies were relatively quick to disavow the disruption of religious services, although some also grumbled that the ringing of the bells may have been done on purpose, to disrupt their event or even to provoke an angry reaction that would make them look bad. Some even went so far as to suggest that the people who burst into the Cathedral were part of the whole plot to discredit them.

The whole episode was an interesting illustration of the delicate balance of power between church and state in Mexico. For much of its history, the Mexican church hierarchy allied itself with the powerful, wealthy rulers of the country, helping to crush rebellious priests like Miguel Hidalgo. The church also opposed the revolution that began in 1910 but this time found itself on the losing side. The government that emerged from the Revolution imposed stiff controls on the church to curb its power and influence--curbs stiff enough to provoke a bloody coda to the Revolution when devout Catholics rose up in an unsuccessful effort to try to overthrow the new regime.

Today, a lot of people left-of-center remain suspicious of the Church, but a lot of people are still devout Catholics. It appears that the PRD was not above stirring up the anti-Church sentiments of some of its followers, but was also leery of appearing to be too extreme in its anti-church stance.

For its part, church officials seemed to enjoy the opportunity to exploit the cathedral incident, but they stopped short of saying or doing anything that would have put them in direct opposition to Lopez Obrador and his followers.

The bottom line: after a lot of huffing and puffing, everything went back to normal.