Mexico actually had an interesting history with churches.

In the 1920s, Mexico seized church property and turned many of them into museums and storage facilities. Much of the education was done at churches and Mexico opened up public schools to take kids out of the church. Priests couldn’t even legally wear their religious garb outside of the church, so you wouldn’t see priests in public.

There was actually a rebellion over these measures where over 90,000 people died, most of which were on the federal side. The religious rebels actually killed an atheist teacher and blew up a passenger train.

Dozens of priest would be killed and some states had no priests. Churches also had no right to free speech and couldn’t own land. Ultimately, in the 1940s, agreements were made not to enforce provisions. But churches couldn’t own land until 1992 and even then it’s very limited.

Does Mexico love its priests…I mean…on the surface, sure. But it’s a relationship that’s complicated.

That said, I personally hate the priests I’ve interacted with in Mexico. My cousin came to the U.S. to work and saved up money. Upon his return, the neighbor and priest said my cousin got his daughter pregnant. My cousin was in the U.S. for years. The girl was a few months pregnant and he tried to force a shotgun wedding. It did not go as he planned.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-clericalism_in_Mexico#Calles_presidency_and_Cristero_War