Patricia Lopez Zaragoza

From Philosopedia

Lopez Zaragoza, Patricia (20th Century)

Lopez is President of Mexico’s Asociación Mexicana Ética Rationalista.

She spoke at a 1992 inaugural meeting in Toronto of the Coalition for Secular Humanism and Freethought as well as in 1995 at the dedication of the Center for Inquiry in Amherst, New York. “Sowing the Seeds of Secular Humanism in Mexico” (Free Inquiry, Summer 1994) details the plan being evolved to promote humanism in a country of practicing Catholics, many under the influence of an extremist right-wing sect, the Opus Dei.

Lopez’s description of secular humanism in Mexico is found in English in International Humanist News (June 1995). Her original article was published in the Mexican quarterly, Razonamientos.

In 1996, speaking in India at the Fourth World Atheist Conference, Lopez said

• To spread humanism throughout our countries is a great responsibility, since we can see every day how fundamentalist and theist ideas try to take over the many facets of daily life. This is a great problem in underdeveloped countries like India and Mexico, that openly declare themselves as secular states. . . . We must work for freedom from irrationality and superstition for even the humblest and most marginalized of all human beings.

Also in 1996, she was instrumental in planning the Humanist World Congress in Mexico City, at which she was a participant as well as organizer. {New Humanist, February 1996, April 1996; December 1996}