Foster to Therefore I order that it be printed, published, circulated, and due obedience given thereto. Given in the palace of the national government, in Mexico , on the 14th of December, 1874 . SEBASTIAN LERDO DE TEJADA, December 22, 1874

No. 408. Mr. Foster to Mr. Fish.

Sir: The subject which has occupied the most attention and occasioned the most animated discussion of the session of the federal Congress which adjourned on the 15th instant, has been the passage of a law enforcing the constitutional amendments, known as the “laws of reform.” These amendments were transmitted with my dispatch No. 52, September 30th, 1873.

The law just passed by Congress prohibits all religious exercises and demonstrations outside of the churches, and in some respects regulates them within the churches; prescribes the manner, and limits the extent of ownership in church property; defines and prohibits all monastic orders and religious communities; prescribes the relations and obligations of ministers of religion; defines the judicial oath; regulates the marriage rite, and prohibits compulsory labor and all restraint of personal liberty. A copy and translation of this law are herewith inclosed.

The chief cause for the very rigorous opposition which this law encountered in Congress and the public press was that it contemplated the suppression of the Sisters of Charity, (of San Vicente de Paul,) the only remaining religious order existing in the country. The official journal, in defending the action of the government, uses the following language:

Congress has only carried out the constitutional precepts. The Sisters of Charity were authorized by a law issued under abnormal circumstances for philanthropic objects. These circumstances no longer exist, and in passing an organic law of the constitution it would not be possible to permit the existence of said community when the constitution itself expressly forbids the existence of corporations of a religious character, whatever their form and tendencies. That which, consequently, is prohibited is, that the Sisters of Charity continue living together as a community or corporation; but the persons who form said community may continue to reside in the country if they choose, and can continue to act in their philanthropic sphere, isolated, that is to say, provided they do not obey the regulations of a monastic order.

In observance of the law, the Sisters of Charity have discontinued the charitable institutions in this city under their charge, and it is announced that all the members of the order in this republic will leave the country.

I am, &c.,