Los TECOS

''Los TECOS'' is a Mexican secret society associated with integrism and national Catholicism. Founded in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico in the early 1930s, it traditionally operated a major degree of influence over the staff faculty and student youth of the Universidad Autónoma de Guadalajara. An outgrowth of the aftermath of the Cristero War and the disputes in Mexico over the introduction of Marxism into the state-ran education system, the organisation developed along staunch anti-communist lines, as well as positioning itself as opposed to what it claimed was a "Judeo-Masonic conspiracy."

The organisation grew further during the 1950s and played a leading role in the World Anti-Communist League, essentially leading the Latin America branch of the operation. Like the communists who they opposed, ''Los TECOS'' developed a number of front groups, with mass membership (not bound by the oaths of the secret society), which it sought to control and direct from behind the scenes. These groups were typically student, rightist Catholic and anti-communist groups, some engaged in violence with the far-left militants, while others were concerned with propaganda and more subtle lobbying.

''Los TECOS'' spawned a number of branches in different states of Mexico. One of these, in Puebla, was known as ''El Yunque''. This organisation, while sharing the same Catholic ultra-conservative worldview, split with ''Los TECOS'' in the early 1960s in a bitter feud over the religious question of the Second Vatican Council. ''Los TECOS'' and a number of their spiritual advisors, including the Jesuit priest, Fr. Joaquín Sáenz y Arriaga, were pioneers in forming the sedevacantism thesis, while ''El Yunque'' upheld the post-Concillar Vatican City-based claimants to the Papacy from Pope Paul VI onward as legitimate. Provided by Wikipedia