Cristero War - Socialist Education and Incidents Against Rural Teachers

Socialist Education and Incidents Against Rural Teachers

As it was mentioned above, the Calles law was repealed after Lázaro Cárdenas became president. Cárdenas earned respect from Pope Pius and befriended Mexican Archbishop Luis María Martinez, a major figure in Mexico's Catholic Church who successfully persuaded Mexicans to obey the government's laws in a peaceful manner. The church refused to back Mexican insurgent Saturnino Cedillo's failed revolt against Cardenas, despite the fact that Cedillo endorsed more freedom for the church as well.

Cardenas' government continued to suppress religion in the field of education during his administration (1934–40). Congress amended Article 3 of the Constitution in October 1934 to include the following introductory text (textual translation): "The education imparted by the State shall be a socialist one and, in addition to excluding all religious doctrine, shall combat fanaticism and prejudices by organizing its instruction and activities in a way that shall permit the creation in youth of an exact and rational concept of the Universe and of social life." This amendment was invalidated by future President Manuel Ávila Camacho and was officially repealed from the Mexican Constitution in 1946. Constitutional bans against the church would not be enforced anywhere in Mexico during Camacho's presidency.

The promotion of socialist education met with strong opposition in some parts of academia and in areas formerly controlled by the Cristeros.

Pope Pius XI also published the encyclical Firmissimam Constantiam on 28 March 1937, expressing his opposition to the "impious and corruptive school" (paragraph 22) and his support for Catholic Action in Mexico. This was the third and last encyclical published by Pius XI making reference to the religious situation in Mexico.

Many of those formerly associated with the Cristeros took up arms again as independent rebels, and they were followed by some other Catholics, but this time unarmed teachers were among the main targets of independent rebel-associated atrocities. Government supporters were quick to blame these on the whole mass of the Cristero movement.

Rural teachers did not take up arms, but some of them refused to leave their schools and communities, and many had their ears cut off. This is the reason why those teachers who were murdered and had their corpses desecrated are often known as maestros desorejados ("teachers without ears") in Mexico.

In some of the worst cases, teachers were tortured and murdered by the former Cristero rebels. It is calculated that almost 300 rural teachers were murdered in this way between 1935 and 1939, while other authors calculate that at least 223 teachers were victims of the violence between 1931 and 1940, including the assassinations of Carlos Sayago, Carlos Pastraña and Librado Labastida in Teziutlán, Puebla, hometown of future president Manuel Ávila Camacho; the execution of a teacher, Carlos Toledano, who was burned alive in Tlapacoyan, Veracruz; and the lynching of at least 42 teachers in the state of Michoacán: J. Trinidad Ramírez in Contepec, Pedro García in Apatzingan, Juan Gonzalez Valdespino in Huajumbaro, José Rivera Romero in Ciudad Hidalgo, María Salud Morales in Tacambaro; et al. The atrocities by the rebels and associated Catholics against rural teachers have been criticized in essays and books published by the Ibero-American University in Mexico, a college run by the Jesuit order of the Catholic Church.