Pelagio Antonio de Labastida y Dávalos

Early Life and Career

Labastida was born into a wealthy family of partial Basque heritage in Zamora, the youngest son of Manuel Luciano Labastida and María Luisa Dávalos Ochoa. He entered the Seminario Conciliar of Morelia in 1830, later becoming a professor and director there; his classmates included Clemente Murguía, future archbishop of Michoacán, and Melchor Ocampo, future foreign minister of the Republic. Ordained in 1839, he gained a reputation as a conservative orator who preached against liberal and democratic ideas and against the Freemasons.

By 1854 he was a canon in Morelia, and from the pulpit he denounced the doctrines of liberals Melchor Ocampo and Miguel Lerdo de Tejada as heretical. Following a Conservative triumph and on the nomination of Antonio López de Santa Anna, he was consecrated bishop of Puebla in July 1855 in the cathedral of Mexico City. In December 1855 he used diocesan funds to support the revolt of Antonio Haro y Tamariz, because the federal government had ordered the sale of some of the diocese's real estate.

After the Liberals returned to power in 1857, Labastida went into exile in Europe, where he backed the Conservative government. The Conservatives regained power in 1859 under General Miguel Miramón, who recalled him to Mexico. He was later exiled to Europe again. In 1862 he visited Maximilian of Habsburg in Trieste, and early the following year he went to Italy to meet Pope Pius IX.

The French intervention

On March 18, 1863, the pope named him archbishop of Mexico. After the French invasion, General Forey entered the capital on June 10, 1863, and convoked a Council of Notables to discuss founding an empire. Agreement on an empire was reached, but disagreement arose over who should receive the crown; Labastida proposed Maximilian of Austria, and the proposal was adopted by acclamation. On June 21, 1863, the Council of Notables named Labastida, together with Juan Nepomuceno Almonte and José Mariano Salas, to the Regency of the Empire, which sent a commission to Europe to offer the crown to Maximilian.

Labastida was removed from the regency on November 17, 1863, due to differences with François Achille Bazaine, commander of the French troops, over Bazaine's intention to apply the Napoleonic program on ecclesiastical property. His replacement was Juan Bautista de Ormaechea, bishop of Tulancingo.