Masonería en México | Freemasonry in Mexico

Mexican revolutionists Benito Juarez, Ignacio Ramirez, and Porfirio Diaz were all Freemasons, as were most of their close associates. Through their efforts, all Church property was confiscated, and even today no church or religious organization is permitted to own any property in Mexico whatsoever. Every church of whatever denomination, as well as every monastery and convent, is owned by the Mexican government, which permits congregations to use the premises for religious purposes. Technically, even the wearing of a clerical collar or religious habit violates Mexican law. Novelist Evelyn Waugh describes the role of the lodge in recent Mexian history:

The first instrument of this policy was Joel Poinsett, who came to Mexico at the establishment of its independence, first as United States agent, later as accredited minister; the means he chose, perhaps the only efficacious means he could have chosen, was the establishment of a rival secret society - the Yorkish Rite to oppose the dominent Scottish Rite.

The Yorkish Rite, introduced by Poinset, was the natural rallying point for those who had been disappointed in the shareout of benefits; it was made up of the lawless elements of the Revolution - the Villas and Zapatas of the revolution of 1910 - and was republican, proletarian and fiercely irreligious in character. Five lodges were organized with local chiefs. Soon the two Rites were divided not only by political views but by personal vendettas. For fifty years the history of Mexico becomes a series of coups and plots, assassinations and executions; of embezzlement and bribery; the learned and charitable institutions were sacked to provide funds for rival gangs; the work of three centuries of civilized rule was obliterated in a generation, leaving the nation bankrupt, discredited abroad and divided by irrreconcilable hatred at home.

Christianity and American Freemasonry
Ignatius Press 1958, 1987, 1998