 The overthrow of the dictator Porfirio Díaz unleashed disorder, with many contending factions and regions.The Catholic Church and the Díaz government had come to an informal "modus vivendi" in which the state formally maintained the anticlerical articles of the liberal Constitution of 1857 but failed to enforce them.Having a change of leadership or a wholesale overturning of the previous order was a potential danger to the Church's position.