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Content: Intended
      to raise revenue and promote the development of markets, its actual effects
      on properly ownership are disputed, but it seems to have raised little
      revenue for the government. The Ley Lerdo was adopted as part of the Constitution
      of 1857. It was later superseded by decrees confiscating church property. LEY IGLESIAS, a Mexican law regulating the cost of church sacraments,
      named for Jose Maria IGLESIAS, its principal author. The law was
      promulgated 11 April 1857, while its author was minister of justice
      under President
      Ignacio COMONFORT. The law stipulated that the poor were not to be
      charged for baptisms, marriage banns, weddings, or burials. All who
      earned no more
      by their honest toil than would provide for their daily subsistence
      were to be considered poor. All others could be charged reasonable
      fees. The Comonfort administration had earlier taken from the church
      the responsibility
      for registering births, marriages, adoptions, and deaths. Registration
      of these events and the administration of cemeteries were turned
      over to civil officials, but these changes were not technically part
      of
      the Ley
      Iglesias.