After a period of violent open conflict over religious matters, Church-State relations returned to a modus vivendi while the anticlerical constitutional framework remained in place. Expansion of Catholic participation in the establishment of religious educational institutions and the creation of a conservative political party, the National Action Party with no direct ties to the Church was an important characteristic of the late twentieth century. A new constitutional framework was created in 1992, which reiterated the separation between the Catholic Church and the state and lifted most but not all restrictions on religious freedom and the activities of the Catholic Church in Mexico.