Mexico - Religions

According to the 2000 census, about 88% of the Mexican population is at least nominally affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church and about 6% are Protestant. Christian denominations represented include Presbyterians, Jehovah's Witnesses, Seventh-Day Adventists, Mormons, Lutherans, Methodists, Baptists, and Anglicans. There are small Greek and Russian Orthodox communities. There are also small numbers of Jews, Buddhists, and Muslims. While professing the Roman Catholic faith, a number of indigenous people include strong pre-Hispanic Mayan elements in their religion.

Following an amendment to the constitution adopted in 1991, ecclesiastical corporations now have legal rights and can acquire property. All church buildings, including schools, however, remain national property. Priests now have political rights, and religious control over both public and private education prohibited earlier under the 1917 constitution has been restored. Roman Catholicism has increased greatly in activity since the 1940s; there have been religious processions and considerable construction of new churches in major cities. The bitter anticlericalism of the Mexican Revolution, of the 1917 constitution, and of the administration of President Plutarco Elías Calles (1924–28) had lessened by the 1960s. In 1992, full diplomatic relations with the Vatican were established.