Catholic Church in the United Kingdom was not yet a reality, particularly in Ireland, where the Protestant Ascendancy was still in full force. The Treaty of Union of 1707, like the Act of Settlement, had stated that no "Papist" could succeed to the throne. Restrictions on the civil rights of Catholics only began to change with the passing of the Papists Act 1778, which allowed them to own property, inherit land and join the British Army, although even this measure resulted in the backlash of the Gordon Riots of 1780, showing the depth of continuing anti-Catholic feeling. After 1790, a new mood emerged as thousands of
History of the Catholic Church in Mexico by the governor of Coahuila and formerly part of the Díaz government, Venustiano Carranza. The Constitutionalists took their name from their support of the liberal Constitution of 1857, deeming the Huerta government illegitimate. Because the Catholic Church and the National Catholic Party had supported Huerta, they were a target of the liberal Constitutionalists. As with liberals in the nineteenth century who sought to reduce the Catholic Church's power, the Constitutionalist were not necessarily anti-Catholic or atheists. As one scholar assessed the Constitutionalists’ position "there seems to be no reason to reject the protestations of Mexican officials that the reform was