Why were they attending Mass so often?What position did the Church take on National events?

Padre Gabriel, the replacement after Padre de Jesus was arrested, gives a revolutionary sermon. The family spends the rest of the day in Salcedo attending masses. The church as an institution has "thrown in its lot with the people," and the SIM is noticing. The next Sunday, prostitutes attend mass and disrupt it; the next week, the contents of latrines are dumped in the confessional before Sunday morning.