One of the results of the Mexican Revolution of 1910 was a major loss of power, influence and wealth for the Roman Catholic "church." Ever since the 1920s, Catholic priests and nuns have not been allowed to wear their distinctive garb in public, and foreign priests have been kept out of Mexico.

Rome has always wanted to regain her hold on Mexico, and events of the past few years are definitely working in the Vatican's favor. A national economic collapse combined with soaring crime and ever-present corruption and graft have created a widespread sense of despair in Mexico. It's exactly the kind of situation where Romanism can make a comeback and even flourish.

"Like a giant waking from a long sleep, Mexico's Catholic church is beginning to stir," reports the British magazine The Economist. Speaking to a crowd of 30,000 in Mexico City, national archbishop Norberto Rivera Carrera declared that the nation's decline was because of "economic and political theories that have proved incapable of saving mankind."

Rivera was attacking the supposedly "free market" Mexican system. In reality, it was the failure of a bribe-addicted government that caused the nation's current woes. The archbishop's real complaint is that he and his allies are not running the show.

Many Mexican priests are fervent supporters of "liberation theology," a noxious hybrid of Catholicism and Marxism. The Economist noted that Mexican bishops and other Catholic higher-ups also "disliked the free market (though they rarely specify what would be better)." Perhaps that's because their idea of a "better" system would be a Vatican dictatorship or the genocidal Catholic tyranny of Croatia from 1941 to 1945.

The Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) has ruled Mexico as a one-party dictatorship since the 1920s. Real opposition to the PRI has finally emerged in recent years, but the second-place National Action Party (PAN) may not be much of an improvement.

It is no secret that the PAN is quite sympathetic to Romanism. While the party says they are pro-freedom and against bloated, all-encompassing government, the PAN has won just one state governor's race and several mayoral elections. No one can say what the PAN would do if they gained power at the national level.

What can Mexican Bible believers expect if Rome succeeds in regaining her former influence? Southern Mexico is still very much dominated by the Vatican, and a veteran American missionary provided a report on the situation there.

He wrote, "You have heard the news reports about the trouble in the state of Chiapas, including the massacre of 45 women and children. It appears that much of this is related to the attempts by the Catholic church to establish areas of autonomy from the federal government in that part of the country.

"Many of the priests and bishops in Chiapas are under the influence of Marxist liberation theology. They have hopes of again establishing a type of sacral society where there would be no freedom of religion except to those who belong to their church."

The missionary concluded, "It is alarming that the recent massacre is being blamed in part on a village where many of the people are non-Catholic...two independent Baptist churches in the town are being blamed."

Despite slick PR and pleas for ecumenical "brotherhood," Roman Catholicism's goal of world domination remains unchanged. The reconquest of Mexico would be a major triumph for the Vatican.