A Hundred Years of Constitutional Struggle for the Freedom of Religious Teaching in Schools: The National Union of Parents

Abstract

During the Constitutional Assembly of 1917, Mexican Catholics were expectant about the introduction of some articles involving the Catholic Church. One of them, the more controversial, was article 3rd, the drafting and enactment of which was not exempt from numerous interventions and claims, both from the Catholic hierarchy and the laity. This paper addresses the role that played the National Union of Parents (UNPF), secular, paraeclesial organization, external to the dominant group actor and whose objective was to fight for the freedom of education, understood as the freedom to teach religion in the schools. It recognized the ecclesiastical authorities who maintain very close links and “absolute obedience”. Its members were Catholic belligerents, mostly lawyers. Since its beginning, it defended the respect to the family as the essential basis of social coexistence, the right of parents to choose their children’s education, as well as freedom of education, understood as the opposition to official secularism. The struggle for freedom of education became his main motivation; repeal the secularism was the way to achieve this freedom.