MEXICO CITY, Mexico, December 15, 2005 — The Bible Society of Mexico is engaged in a battle with authorities in Mexico City over the Bible Monument which it unveiled recently in the historic old part of the capital.
The Monument was officially unveiled - for the second time this year - on October 31, after a long process of discussion which seemed to have overcome opposition to it from the Cuauhtémoc authority. (Cuauhtémoc, part of the Federal District of Mexico City, is controlled by the Democratic Revolutionary Party).
A week later, however, a gang of workmen arrived, saying they had orders to remove the Monument. When the Bible Society asked the Cuauhtémoc authority the reasons for the orders, they were told that the Monument did not meet the specifications agreed for its location and size. The Society's General Secretary, the Rev. Abner López, denies this is so and says the monument is standing in exactly the place which the authorities had indicated.
The head of the Cuauhtémoc authority refused a request by Mr. López for a meeting, but, together with a committee of evangelical churches, he had a meeting with some less senior officials.
The General Secretary said afterwards that the meeting had revealed the officials' ignorance about the planning procedures the Society had gone through over the past three years. One of the pretexts offered for the Monument's removal was the fact that some of the officials who authorised it were no longer in the same jobs, he added.
Wednesday November 23 saw a gathering of more than seven thousand believers celebrating the National Day of Prayer for Mexico in the Zócalo. This huge public square, bordered by the Presidential Palace, the Cathedral and the Aztec Templo Mayor, is the centre of Mexico's religious and political life. On that day some 700 representatives and members of Mexico's evangelical churches held a march to the Zócalo from the Bible Monument to join the other believers. Both on the march and in the square itself the demonstrators shouted their demands to the authorities to comply with the law, to end discrimination and religious intolerance and to give treatment to religious minorities comparable with that granted to Mexico's majority church.
As a result of the demonstration the authorities have now opened negotiations. Although they are still planning the removal of the monument, they have decided to postpone this by six months.
Bible Society supporters and the evangelical Christian community have rejected this move. In a statement, the Society said that it seemed to have been prompted by the prevalence of an outdated Marxist anti-religious fervour.
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