MEXICO CITY (AP) - Breaking a century-old taboo against mixing politics and religion, a group of Roman Catholic lawmakers gathered for a Mass to honor St. Thomas More, the newly christened patron saint of politicians.
By tradition - and law - Mexico's elected officials are barred from attending religious functions in an official capacity. But Norberto Rivera, Mexico's top cardinal who celebrated the Mass, has publicly urged politicians not to be afraid to profess their faith.
``Man can't separate himself from God just as the political cannot be separated from the moral,'' Rivera told about 80 congressmen and senators from Mexico's three largest political parties Thursday. ``Your lives show us that the government is, above all else, an exercise in virtues.''
Most of the lawmakers in attendance were quick to say they came as private citizens and were therefore not violating laws separating church and state. To emphasize the point, many came with their wives and children.
Labor Secretary Carlos Abascal was the only member of President Vicente Fox's cabinet to attend. Abascal has drawn political fire for using his office for religious purposes, recently incensing critics when he tried to have some of the books his daughter read in school banned on moral and religious grounds. And Fox's conservative National Action Party is considered to have an allegiance with the Catholic Church.
Mexico has no official religion and has often adopted an antagonistic view toward its churches - even though nine out of every 10 Mexicans are baptized Roman Catholic.
Beginning in the 1850s, all religious groups were stripped of their legal status, banned from running schools, owning property and participating in politics. Subsequent laws banned processions and forbade clergy from wearing religious garb in public.
Tough limits were imposed on the church in 1917 after the Mexican Revolution, leading to the Cristero War of the 1920s in which tens of thousands died fighting over restrictions on religion.
The government began to soften its views on religion in 1980, after the first of Pope John Paul II's three visits to Mexico, when then-President Jose Lopez Portillo broke with tradition and went to the airport to welcome the pontiff.
In subsequent months, Mexico established formal diplomatic relations with the Vatican and in 1992, a constitutional amendment restored the legal status of all religious groups.
Mexican law still bars clergy from running for office or using their positions to back any political candidate. Fox, a Roman Catholic, furthered the religious cause by openly attending Mass on Sundays after he became president in December. Aides said the president could not find room in his schedule to attend Thursday night's Mass, however.
The Mass was the first with political overtones since the early 1850s, archdiocese spokesman Gerardo Lopez said.
Rivera urged Mexico's politicians to follow St. Thomas More's example and remain faithful to the church's principles. Pope John Paul II named More the patron saint of politicians in October.
More served as chancellor of England under King Henry VIII. In 1535, after a dispute with the Catholic Church over his divorce from Queen Catherine of Aragon, the king ordered More beheaded for refusing to recognize the crown as the official head of the Church of England.
AP-NY-06-22-01 0559EDT
Copyright 2001 The Associated Press.