The Role and the Mission of the Catholic Church in Mexico
Paul V. Murray, The Role and the Mission of the Catholic Church in Mexico.
Mexico, privately printed, 1963; 2nd edition, 1972). [excerpts]
An address delivered by Paul V. Murray, January 6, 1963.
When independence did come about, it was churchmen who helped make it possible. Some
bishops and other leading clergymen helped Col. Agustin Iturbide to unite his troops with
the few insurgent forces still in the field in 1820 and to convince other forces still
loyal to Spain to declare for independence. In the mother country, a revolt had caused
Ferdinand VII to accept the radical Constitution of 1812 which was later enforced in New
Spain in strongly anti-clerical fashion. I think it can be safely said that more than for
any other reason, it was the threat to religion in Mexico that caused the clergy to
support Iturbide and thus cut forever the political ties that bound the country to Spain.
When Iturbide and Vicente Guerrero led the victorious troops into Mexico City on
September 27, 1821, a new era began. For the Church, however, it was to prove a sad day.
The ecclesiastical fabric had been torn asunder. Ruins were everywhere. The missionary,
educational, and social work, built up at such great cost, was practically at a
standstill. Very shortly, Iturbide was proclaimed Emperor and Archbishop Fonte, the
titular leader of the Mexican Church, in protest left for Spain, never to return. His see
remained without a successor until 1838. Herein lay the roots of many of the disasters
that were to come.25
VI. The Church in the New Republic, 1823-1857
Iturbide abdicated and went into exile in 1823; and the next year,
Mexico received its first constitution, modelled to some extent on that of the United
States. A casual observer might say that the Church was in an invulnerable position
because Article I established Catholicism as the only religion to be tolerated. But
appearance[s] were deceiving. Very shortly, the continued activities, flavored with
unseemly bickering unworthy of good priests, carried on by such clergymen as the erratic
Dominican, Fray Servando Teresa de Mier: the intriguing Miguel Ramos Arizpe; and the
openly anti-clerical and rebellious Dr. José Maria Mora and Fathers Alpuche and Marchena,
gave increasing scandal to the faithful. Here we can see how costly was the lack of a
strong leader in the archepiscopal see. Many nominal Catholics in the government were
eager to take over the authority once held by the Viceroy under the Patronato. Others gave
vent to heretical, Jansenistic or even deistic ideas. 26
The situation became more complicated with the appearance of the
first American Minister to represent our government in Mexico. An intelligent and astute
man, Joel Roberts Poinsett favored what he considered republicanism as against a feeling
for monarchy that was still current in Mexico, especially with those who directed and
moved the Scottish Rite lodges of Masonry. To offset their influence, the Minister secured
from the United States a charter for York Rite lodges which, before the end of the decade
had seized political power in the first real palace revolution under the republic. A third
Masonic group--the National Rite lodges--also made its appearance at this time.
Historians, especially those who have specialized in ecclesiastical history, are in fairly
general agreement that it was during the 1824-1830 period that the Masonic groups began to
work on definite plans to remove the Church from its preeminent position in Mexican life.
Just as in Europe, properties would be confiscated, the bishops would be exiled, the
religious orders of men and women would be suppressed, education laicized, and the
government declared free of all clerical influence. The first attempts to accomplish some
of these objectives during 1823-33, failed for the most part: but from that time on it can
be said that a group that would eventually be known as the Liberal party, had made its
appearance and would work for the success of the anti-clerical--I think we must also say
anti-Catholic, although many people try to deny it--plans already noted.27
At just about the time that the Liberal movement began to take form,
the modern Mexican hierarchy received its first member in the person of Francisco Pablo
Vásquez, canon of the Puebla cathedral, who had been sent to Rome several years earlier
to negotiate the appointment of bishops for the new republic. Two Spanish prelates were
still alive, but had left Mexico. Before the end of the twenties, all the others were dead
and the Mexican Church was left leaderless. Four Popes reigned during a brief period of
nine years; and the tendency was to wait and see if Spain would recover her American
possessions before the Papacy took the decisive step of appointing new bishops. Eventually
Vásquez was consecrated in Rome and, upon his return, he consecrated the bishops who were
to lead the country in the new and trying times.28
Unfortunately for all of Mexico, the period from 1828 to 1857 is one
of continuous revolution, barracks revolts, bandit raids. In 1836, Texas was lost to the
republic; and after the war with the United States, the country was reduced by more than
half its territory through the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. It cannot be said that the
Church did more than hold its own during these years but the growing power of the
Liberals, obviously moving towards an all-out attack on the ecclesiastical establishment,
foreshadowed what was to com[e]. 29
VII. The Church and the Liberal Revolution, 1857-1876
The revolution of Ayutla, which in 1855 overthrew General Antonio
López de Santa Anna, the most remarkable political chameleon this country has known,
brought the Liberty party to power. Very rapidly laws were passed, invading the Church's
traditional prerogatives relating to ecclesiastical courts, the control of
income-producing properties and the collection and disposition of clerical fees. In 1856,
the Liberals organized a convention and in February of 1857 promulgated the Constitution
which remained in force until l9l7. It abolished clerical privileges, forbade the
acqui[si]tion of income-producing property, abolished the compulsory observance of
religious vows, denied the clergy the right to public office, proclaimed the government's
right to intervene in matters of worship, and established the freedom of conscience, press
and education. Complete religious freedom was not granted but the full content of the
legislation was sufficiently anti-Catholic for Pope Pius IX to denounce the document and
to declare that all who swore to uphold it would be excommunicated.30
There was a rising against the government and the Chief Justice of
the Supreme Court, Benito Juárez, became president by constitutional provision. For the
next three years, the terrible War of the Reform raged in the country. In July and August
of 1859, although bottled up in the port city, the Juárez government promulgated new
legislation, the so-called Reform Laws, from its stronghold in Veracruz, confiscating all
the properties of the Church, establishing civil marriage, taking over the cemeteries,
etc. Aided considerably by help from the United States, the Liberals triumphed and
returned to power. The bishops and some other ecclesiastics were exiled and the Juárez
government proceeded to dispose of the properties of the Church, previously proclaimed by
the Liberals as being so vast that their sale would solve most of the treasury's financial
and economic problems. Proof that such was not the case is not material for this paper but
in a matter of almost months, the patrimony of the Church was dissipated, religious orders
dispersed, and the treasures of three centuries taken under government custody. Once again
it must be said that the story of the dispersal of art objects, church ornaments, and
libraries makes sad reading for most of us today. No similar accumulation has been
possible since, partly because changed economic conditions, partly because of restrictive
legislation of a most extreme kind. 31
I include the ephemeral Empire of Ferdinand Maximilian of Austria
under the section devoted to the Liberal Revolution for good reasons. The young Habsburg
and his Belgian wife, although brought out by Catholic conservatives who thought a
monarchy might unite the Mexicans and stop the relentless march of the United States under
its banner of Manifest Destiny, proved to be at least as liberal as Juárez and his
colleagues. On the other hand, after his arrival in 1864, Maximilian promptly showed his
utter contempt for the Mexican clergy and treated in a high-handed insulting manner the
papal nuncio sent to discuss the terms of a Mexican concordat with the Vatican. His
pretensions were such that if Pius IX had acceded to them, the Mexican Church would have
been reduced to a position just as subservient as it had known in the times of the ancient
Habsburgs and the Bourbons. No concordat was ever signed, Maximilian alienated both
clerical and lay support, and the end was his execution at Querétaro in June, 1867, while
Charlotte went insane and lived on in Europe in that state until 1927. From 1867 till now
it can be said that no group representing nineteenth conservative principles has ever been
important in the political life of the country.32
Once again, Juárez returned in triumph, once again the bishops and
many priests either went into exile or into hiding. Amnesty was soon granted but the more
radical wing of the Liberal party clamored for extreme measures. Juárez did not satisfy
their desires to any great extent during the five years he continued to serve as
president. When he died in July, 1872, of a heart attack, his successor, Sebastian Lerdo
de Tejada, sponsored the constitutionalizing of the Veracruz Reform Laws, the complete
secularization of education, the expulsion of most of the Jesuits still in the country,
and the exclaustration of the Sisters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul. This order, which
had come to Mexico some thirty years before, chose to leave the country rather than give
up the common life. Over 400 Sisters made their way to France, leaving behind the
thousands whom they had served in hospitals, asylums and schools. 33
One bright spot in this period was the founding of a lay
organization known as La Sociedad Catolica. It worked to organize schools, give
catechetical instruction, visit prisons, raise money for objects of worship in poor
churches, and for the beginnings of a Catholic press. Although it pretty well ceased to
function after about 1878, it would seem that its work was taken up and carried on by the
new ecclesiastical organization that began to function more cohesively after the election
of Don Porfirio Díaz in 1876.34
Although I am sure you know a good deal about Protestant missionary
activities in Mexico and will most probably hear more about contemporary work during your
visit, I believe that a few brief references should be made to the beginning of such
activities. If we are to reach new levels of understanding, we shall have to know more
about what happened in the past to create frictions which exist in an acute form down to
the present.
It would seem that the first activity grew out of James Thompson's
selling of Bibles for the British and Foreign Bible Society around 1827. Later, more
Bibles were distributed when the American armies invaded Mexico during the War of 1846-48;
and Protestant chaplains held services for troops during the invasion. Historians of the
various missionary groups list Melinda Rankill, in the Matamoros area, Dr. Prevost in
Chihuahua, and a Mrs. Charmy de Garduza in Veracruz as being engaged in evangelical work
by about 1857. A group of Catholic priests left their church at approximately the same
time in support of the new legislation and are therefore known as the
"Constitutionalist Fathers." Some formed their own church and others appear to
have affiliated with the Episcopalians. By the decade of the sixties, Thomas M. Westrup
ordained a Baptist minister, made Monterrey his headquarters; after this time, both
Baptists and Methodists are to be found in the northern parts of the country. We are told
that there was some Protestant activity during Maximilian's Empire as Félix Eloin, his
secretarv, was a Protestant; and residents of the capital who so desired were allowed to
attend Reformed services conducted by chaplains of the French forces.
After the triumph of Juárez, the Rev. H. Chauncey Riley purchased
from the government a portion of the great church of San Francisco in 1868 and there
conducted Episcopalian services. At about the same time, a Methodist group headed by Dr.
William Butler, bought another part of the same property (on Gante street, where it still
remains). Under Juárez, Lerdo de Tejada, and Porfirio Díaz, the Protestants came in
ever-increasing varietv and numbers. Without entering into further statistical detail, I
simply list the denominations which I have seen identified as having centers in various
parts of Mexico before the turn of the century. These are the Baptists, Presbyterians,
Mexican Episcopal, Evangelical Quakers, Methodist Episcopal, Congregational, Plymouth
Brethren (an autonomous group in Veracruz, not the American branch), and the Seventh Day
Adventists. In closing these observations on the missionary movements which came largely
from the United States; I think it well for us to understand that Protestant-Catholic
dialogues carried on here must be preceded by careful preparation and preliminary studies
of a historical nature. The whole field is in such need of study and I hope you will give
it serious consideration during your stay here. 35
VIII. The Church and the Díaz Dictatorship, 1876-1911
Porfirio Díaz was one of the notable men of the last half of the
nineteenth century. Although classed with the more radical wing of Liberal party when he
came into power, he very early grasped the need to adopt a conciliatory attitude towards
previously warring elements if Mexico were to have peace. Like Juárez before him, Díaz
had left the Oaxaca seminary for the study of law but then chose the army as a career
rather go into politics as Juárez had done. Grand Master of the Lodge of the Valley of
Mexico, he never made any attempt to change the legislation which kept the Church in its
straitened position. Being a realist, however, he found ways to allow the Church to
exercise its functions in such a way that, little by little, some of its former emimence
was restored as it built hospitals, seminaries, schools and orphanages. Many new dioceses
were created and even two new religious orders were founded by Mexicans. At the same time,
other orders, such as the Society of the Sacred Heart, the Christian Brothers, the
Marists, the Salesians, the Redemptorists and others joined in giving the Church the
reenforcements needed to face a new epoch. There is no doubt that Díaz brought peace to
the country but the crass materialism, which showed its grosser forms in both the United
States and Europe in the same period, began to grow in Mexico. Too, the philosophy of
Positivism, imported from Comte's classroom in Paris by Gabino Barreda and implanted in
Mexico by him at the invitation of Juárez, began to give the country an entirely new
intellectual orientation. By the time that Díaz was ready to let a new university open
its doors in 1910--it was founded by gathering together schools of preparatory studies,
law, medicine, letters, etc.--the country was heartily sick of Positivism; but it had done
its work in helping to corrode the spiritual life of Mexico. It had been helped, one must
add, by. an expanding educational system in which both a sceptical and an agnostic
spirit successfully barred spiritual considerations from the curriculum. 36
To the Catholic Church belongs the glory, long denied it by its
opponents, of having begun the first serious studies of social problems in the country, of
having suggested practical remedies, of helping build the organizations that actually got
laws passed in the social field before the third phase of the Revolution of 1910 developed
legislation of the same type. The appearance of Pope Leo III's challenge to socialism,
communism, and materialistic capitalism in the encyclical Rerum Novarum (1891),
became the touchstone of the Catholic social movement. Local and parish organizations, led
by far-seeing bishops and priests, sponsored national congresses which debated such topics
as a living wage, alcoholism, land reform, conditions on the haciendas, the position of
the workers, protection of women and children, the need for spiritual content in
education. An articulate and valiant Catholic press, led by laymen of spirit and prestige,
helped focus attention on the lower depths of Mexican life while sycophants and foreigners
helped to convince the aging President that the surface glitter of his regime was more
important than what lay just below the surface. In time, these social and political
debates culminated in the founding of the Partido Católico Nacional, the only
organization of its kind in all Mexican history. It showed great strength in central
Mexico and managed to elect deputies and senators to several state legislature after
Madero had overthrown Díaz in 1911. The disasters consequent to the Huerta betrayal of
Madero in 1913 helped to sweep away the Catholic party: and all similar organizations were
forbidden by the Constitution of 1917 under which we live. 37
To summarize: The Church experienced a vigorous revival during the
Porfirian epoch. While nowhere near so strong as it had been in colonial times, it
developed many outstanding clerical and lay leaders and once again made important
contributions to the social, intellectual and political life of the country. Many Catholic
sources state that the seeds of spiritual revival began to bear fruit in the middle-aged
and the young, just about the times the Revolution of l910 burst upon the scene. And it
was well that men and women of tempered steel were ready for the test, that a courageous
clergy and an equally couragous laity were prepared to face what came. That the Catholic
Church did not disappear as a vital force in Mexican life was due, in great part, to the
training these men and women had received and the faith that they had strengthened and
that was to be tried, as never before, during the dark days of revolutionary destruction
and of implacable persecution which lay ahead.
25. There is an excellent presentation of
the period in W. S. Robertson, Iturbide of Mexico (Durham, 1952). Sosa, op.
cit. [F. Sosa, El Episcopado Mexicano (Mexico, 1897)] has a sketch of
Fonte's life. Cuevas and Bravo Ugarte have much on these topics.
26. A summary of the leading Church-State
events in the first decade of independence is in Paul V. Murray, "The Church and the
First Mexican Republic, 1823-1830," in Records of the American Catholic
Historical Society (Philadelphia, March, 1937), Vol. XLVIII, No. 1, pp. 1-89.
27. Diplomatic episodes are treated, mostly
from the American point of view, in J. Fred Rippy, The United States and Mexico
(2nd. ed., New York, 1931) and in J. M. Callahan, American Foreign Policy in Mexican
Relations (New York, 1932). Masonic materials are in L. J. Zalce Rodriguez, Apuntes
para la Historia de la Masonería en Mexico, 2 tomos (Mexico, 1950) and in F.
Navarrete (pseud. for Fr. J. Garcia Gutíerrez, La Masonería en la Historia y en las
Leyes de México (Mexico, 1957).
28. See Cuevas and Bravo Ugarte.
29. Still the best source is J. Smith,
The War With Mexico, 2 Vols. (New York, 1919). Best Mexican sources are Apuntes
para la Historia de la Guerra entre Mexico Y los Estados Unidos (Mexico, 1848) and J.
W. Roa Barcena, Recuerdos de la Invasion Norte-Americana, 1846-1848 (Mexico,
1883). The Church-State differences at this time need more profound study than they have
received.
30. Good sources are W. H. Callcott, Santa Anna (Norman,
1936), and Liberalism in Mexico, 1857-1928 (Stanford 1928); W. V. Scholes, Mexican
Politics During the Juárez Regime, 1855-1872 (Columbia, Mo., 1957); and the volumes
by Mecham, Cuevas and Bravo Ugarte already cited.
31. The most voluminous life of Juárez in English is Ralph
Roeder's Juárez and His Mexico, 2 Vols. (New York, 1947) by a man who is not a
specialist in the field. Only recently has there been much critical writing on the
Benemérito. See also Magner, Cuevas, Bravo Ugarte, Schlarman and Scholes. My own Tres
Norteamericanos y su participacion en el desarrollo del Tratado McLane-Ocampo, 1856-1860
("Revista Estudios Historicos," Guadalajara, 1946) establishes connections
between American policy in Mexico and support of Liberal anti-Church plans.
32. Standard source on much of Empire
history has been E. C. Corti, Maximilian and Charlotte of Mexico, 2 Vols. (New
York, 1928) but it is strongly pro the rulers and anti-Church. A better guide for insights
into the true issues at stake is J. Garcia Gutierrez, La Iglesia Mexicana en el
Segundo Imperio (Mexcio, 1955). I believe Fr. G. Gutierrez was the outstanding
Church-State scholar in Mexico til his death in 1959. G. Decorme's Historia de
la Compañia de Jesús en la Repíblica Mexicana durante el Siglo XlX, Tomo
I (Guadalajara, 1914) and Tomo Il (Guadalajara, 1921) is an important source not usually
consulted.
33. Best source on Lerdo to date is Frank A. Knapp Jr.'s The
Life of Sebastian Lerdo de Tejada, 1823-1889 (Austin, 1951). Decorme's work, cited in
Note 32, has much of value for the period.
34. I know of no special study of La Sociedad
Catolica but it published a Memoria (Mexico, 1887) and a magazine called La
Sociedad Catolica, printed in the capital, which endured from 1869 till at least
1877.
35. It is unfortunate that the most
extensive study of Protestant missions yet remains unpublished. It is J. E. Helms'
"Origins and Growth of Protestantism in Mexico to 1920" (Ph.D. Dissertation, U.
of Texas, Austin, 1955). L. R. Gandee's M.A. thesis as Mexico City College -- "The
Introduction and Nineteenth Century Development of Protestantism in Mexico" (Ms.,
Mexico, 1949) also has valuable material. G. Baez Camargo and K. Grubb's Religion
in the Republic of Mexico (London & New York, 1935) is hardly calculated to
advance a spirit of ecumenism so far as Mexican Catholics are concerned. Many books by
early missionaries could be cited to show that they were often untactful and impudent in
their actions and in their writings.
36. The most ambitious history of the
Porfirian period ever attempted is Historia Moderna de Mexico, 6 tomos
(Mexico, 1955-1963), done under the direction of and with the partial authorship of Daniel
Cosio Villegas. [NOTE: Now -1972- completed in 10 volumes.] An earlier important work is
José C. Valades, El Porfirismo, Historia de un Régimen, 3 tomos (Mexico,
1941). Three unpublished studies on the Church in the period that deserve mention are K.
M. Schmitt, "Evolution of Mexican Thought on Church-State Relations, 1876-1911"
(Ph.D. Dissertation, Ms., University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 1954); D. J. Tarrant,
"The Catholic Church in Mexico: A Survey, 1877-1910" (M.A. Thesis, Ms., Catholic
University of America, Washington, 1954); Alice M. Murray, "Díaz and the Church: The
Conciliation Policy, 1876-1900," (M.A. Thesis, Ms., Mexico City College, Mexico,
1959). A special monograph on the period is much needed.
37. Scattered references to the Church's
attitude towards social problems in the Díaz decades can he found in works cited earlier
and in those in Note 36. However, the best summary I have seen is C. Hernandez, "Some
Aspects of the Mexican Catholic Social Congresses, 1903-1906," (M.A. Thesis, Ms.,
Mexico City College, Mexico, 1959). Just recently we have had the valuable El Porque
del Partido Catolico Nacional by Bishop Franciseo Banegas Galvan, published (1960) in
Mexico. It supplements the Hernandez paper.
