Anti-Catholicism in the Mexican Revolution, 1913-1940
Anti-Catholicism in the Mexican Revolution, 1913-1940
Anti-Catholicism in the Mexican Revolution, 1913–1940 examines anti-Catholic leaders and movements during the Mexican Revolution, an era that resulted in a constitution denying the Church political rights. Anti-Catholic Mexicans recognized a common enemy in a politically active Church in a predominantly Catholic nation. Many books have elucidated the popular roots and diversity of Roman Catholicism in Mexico, but the perspective of the Church’s adversaries has remained much less understood.
This volume provides a fresh perspective on the violent conflict between Catholics and the revolutionary state. The zeal with which anti-Catholics pursued their goals—and the equal vigor with which Catholics defended their Church and their faith—explains why the conflict between Catholics and anti-Catholics turned violent, culminating in the Cristero Rebellion (1926–1929).
Collecting essays by a team of senior scholars in history and cultural studies, the book includes chapters on anti-Catholic leaders and intellectuals, movements promoting scientific education and anti-alcohol campaigns, muralism, feminist activists, and Mormons and Mennonites.
Jürgen Buchenau is the Dowd Term Chair of Capitalism Studies and a professor of history and Latin American studies at UNC Charlotte. David S. Dalton is the Ruth G. Shaw Associate Professor of the Humanities in Spanish and Latin American Studies at UNC Charlotte, where he is also the director of the Latin American Studies program.
List of Illustrations
Timeline of Events
Acknowledgments
Introduction. The Role of Anti-Catholicism in the Mexican Revolution
Jürgen Buchenau and David S. Dalton
Section I. Anti-Catholicism in Government
Chapter One. Plutarco Elías Calles: Patriarch of Revolutionary Anti-Catholicism
Jürgen Buchenau
Chapter Two. Lawyers, Guns and Money: Revolution, Religion, and Authoritarianism in Tabasco, Mexico, 1920–1936
Sarah Osten
Chapter Three. Educating Anti-Catholicism: Manuel Gamio, Indigenismo, and Secular Redemption
David S. Dalton
Section II. Popular Anti-Catholicism
Chapter Four. A Gendered Anticlericalism: Feminist Intellectuals, Sexuality, and the Mexican Revolution
Elissa J. Rashkin
Chapter Five. “Desfanatizar y Desalcoholizar la Población:” The Interrelated Anti-Catholic and Anti-Alcohol Campaigns
Gretchen Pierce
Section III. Alternatives to Catholicism
Chapter Six. The Germ of Fanaticism: Anti-Catholicism, Scientism, and Tabasconization, c. 1925–1935
Ben Fallaw
Chapter Seven. From Heaven to Earth: Rivera, Siqueiros, and the Mexican Muralist project
Héctor Jaimes
Chapter Eight. Immigrant Religious Communities in an Anti-Catholic Context: Mormons and Mennonites Petition the Mexican State, 1928–1936
Rebecca Janzen
Afterword. The Ever-Cooling Worlds of Mexican Anti-Catholicism
Matthew Butler
Glossary
List of Contributors
