Cultural Importance
The cathedral has been a focus of Mexican cultural identity, and is a testament to its colonial history. Researcher Manuel Rivera Cambas reported that the cathedral was built on the site sacred precinct of the Aztecs and with the very stones of their temples so that the Spaniards could lay claim to the land and the people. Hernán Cortés supposedly laid the first stone of the original church personally.
It once was an important religious center, exclusive for the prominent families of New Spain. In 1864, during the Second Mexican Empire, Emperor Maximilian of Habsburg and Empress Charlotte of Belgium (later known as Maximiliano and Carlota of Mexico) were crowned at the cathedral, at their magnificent arrival to the head city of their reign.
Located on the Zocalo it has, over time, been the focus of social and cultural activities, most of which have occurred in the 20th and 21st centuries. The cathedral was closed for four years while President Plutarco Elías Calles attempted to enforce Mexico's anti-religious laws. Pope Pius XI closed the church, ordering priests to cease their public religious duties in all Mexican churches. After the Mexican government and the papacy came to terms and major renovations were performed on the cathedral, it was reopened in 1930.
The cathedral has been the scene of several protests both from the church and to the church, including a protest by women over the Church's exhortation for women not to wear mini-skirts and other provocative clothing to avoid rape, and a candlelight vigil to protest against kidnappings in Mexico. The cathedral itself has been used to protest against social issues. Its bells were rung to express the archdiocese's opposition to the Supreme Court upholding of Mexico City's legalization of abortion.
Probably the most serious recent event occurred on 18 November 2007, when sympathizers of the Party of the Democratic Revolution attacked the cathedral. About 150 protesters stormed into Sunday Mass chanting slogans and knocking over pews. This caused church officials to close and lock the cathedral for a number of days. The cathedral was reopened with new security measures, such as bag searches, in place.
Read more about this topic: Mexico City Metropolitan Cathedral
Famous quotes containing the words cultural and/or importance:
“The men who are messing up their lives, their families, and their world in their quest to feel man enough are not exercising true masculinity, but a grotesque exaggeration of what they think a man is. When we see men overdoing their masculinity, we can assume that they haven’t been raised by men, that they have taken cultural stereotypes literally, and that they are scared they aren’t being manly enough.”
—Frank Pittman (20th century)
“The child thinks of growing old as an almost obscene calamity, which for some mysterious reason will never happen to itself. All who have passed the age of thirty are joyless grotesques, endlessly fussing about things of no importance and staying alive without, so far as the child can see, having anything to live for. Only child life is real life.”
—George Orwell (1903–1950)