Abstract
Global histories commonly attribute the secularization of the state exclusively to Europe. However, the church state conflict over these issues has been an important thread in much of Latin America. In Mexico, questions about the role of religion and the church in society became a major political conflict after independence. Best known for the Mexican case are the disputes over the constitution of 1857, which laid down the freedom of religion, and the Cristero Revolt in the 1920s. However, the history of struggles over secularization goes back further. In 1835, the First Republic ultimately failed, because of the massive protests against the anticlerical laws of the government. In the paper, this failure is understood as a genuine religious conflict over the question of the proper social and political order, in which large sections of the population were involved. Beginning with the anticlerical laws of 1833, political and religious reaction in Mexico often began with a pronunciamiento (a mixture of rebellion and petitioning the authorities) and evolved into conflicts over federalism vs. centralism.
Highlights
The nineteenth century, in many respects, was a century of fundamental changes (Hobsbawm 1996), whereas in some world regions, the importance of colonialism rose, for example in Africa and parts of Asia, in the Americas it ended at least in its formal terms
Religion was an important part of people’s lives in Mexico, as it was in other parts of the world in the nineteenth century
For many Mexicans, religion contributed to their collective identities and was present in their daily routines, as well as in politics
Summary
The nineteenth century, in many respects, was a century of fundamental changes (Hobsbawm 1996), whereas in some world regions, the importance of colonialism rose, for example in Africa and parts of Asia, in the Americas it ended at least in its formal terms. Earlier historical studies on religion and politics in Mexico looked at their topic under the perspective of modernization theory, analyzing state efforts of secularization and often focusing in particular on the several laws of the Reforma between 1855 and 1863, with special emphasis on the Constitution of 1857 rather than on the early nineteenth century (Bastian 1998; Blancarte 2013) They made the effort in the first place to clarify the relationship between state and church after independence with its central problems (Staples 1976). The role of emotions in the early national period has not yet been paid much attention in the historiography of the period, but Anne Staples provides insights into the fear of a non-religious society that was propagated by members of the high clergy in the 1830s and 1840s (Staples 2009) When it came to anticlerical politics in 1833, the perception of Mexicans about the future of the social order played an important role on how they acted. These perceptions will be a focus of the present analysis
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