This act, comparatively mild as it was, and temporary as it might have been considered, did not satisfy the clergy, even in this moment of national peril. They resorted to the spiritual weapons which they reserved for extreme occasions. They fulminated excommunications; and published dreadful threats of punishment hereafter for the crime that had been committed by placing an impious hand upon wealth which they asserted belonged to God alone. This conduct of the religious orders had its desired effect not only among the people, but among the officers of government; for the chief clerk of the finance department, Hurci, refused to
sign the law, and it was sometime before a suitable person could be found to put the law in operation. Santa Anna adroitly kept himself aloof from the controversy, and wrote from San Luis, that he merely desired support for the army, and that in other questions, especially those touching the clergy, he had no desire to enter, but would limit himself to the recommendation, that neither the canons, nor the collegiate establishment of Guadalupe, should be molested, inasmuch as he entertained the greatest friendship for the one, and the most reverential devotion for the other.
But the executive, fixed in its intention to liberate the property held in mortmain, took every means to carry the law into effect, and experienced the utmost resistance from the incumbents, especially when the property happened to belong to the female sex, which is always averse from intercourse or dealings with persons who are regarded as inimical to the church.