Beginning with the Spanish Conquest, the Catholic Church occupied a privileged place within Mexican society. The institution had a significant voice within the government and even went as far as performing several essential governmental functions. With the establishment of the independent Mexican government, though, this relationship between church and state significantly changed. The shift was embodied in the passage of a number laws that drastically limited not only the power of the Church but its ability to function within society and the freedoms of its clergy. The scope of these anticlerical laws included restrictions on individual freedoms such as the clergy’s right to vote as well as restrictions on institutional workings. Despite these efforts by the state to exclude the Catholic Church from political life, the Church continued to have a significant impact on the lives of its followers