In the course of the long struggle between Mexican conservatives and liberals, the issue of the fate of the church was the first preoccupation of both parties. The Liberal president, Don Benito Juárez, had cut the Gordian knot by seizing the church's landed wealth. Thereafter, from 1859 to 1867, Mexico's conservatives bent their efforts to the repeal of Juárez's Reform Laws. Liberals staked their future upon their maintenance.
In April 1864, before quitting Europe for Mexico, Maximilian and his consort, Empress Charlotte, had visited Rome. That visit excited a great deal of speculation in the diplomatic world because it was thought that Maximilian might attempt to lay the foundation for a concordat through personal negotiation. Instead, the new sovereign merely asked the Pope to send a nuncio to Mexico to open negotiations as soon as possible. He had also taken the occasion to establish a Mexican Legation at the Vatican and to name Ignacio Aguilar as his envoy at that court.