Revolutionary and Not-So-Revolutionary Negotiations in Catholic Annulment, Bigamy, and Divorce Trials: The Archdiocese of Mexico, 1929–40

Abstract

In January 1932, the archbishop of Mexico, Pascual Díaz y Barreto, issued a circular to archdiocesan priests concerning ecclesiastical marriage. Díaz reminded the clergy of their duty to familiarize themselves with, and instruct the faithful in, the parameters of sacramental marriage, beginning with the definition of “ordinary marriage” found in canon law (canon 1094). Díaz then bemoaned the “situation to which we [priests] have been reduced” and exhorted the clergy to remedy it.1 The “situation” to which he alluded was a web of legal, social, and historical changes affecting the concept of marriage, and more specifically, the status of the Church and sacramental marriage in Mexico. Indeed, Díaz’s phrase encompassed Church leaders’ anxieties as they addressed the irregularities in religious practice and record-keeping associated with the Revolution, later anticlerical harassment, and the cristero rebellion. Díaz’s anxiety was further provoked by growing migration, both internally and to the United States, which made it difficult to locate people when ascertaining their eligibility for marriage. Most seriously, the revolutionary Divorce Law (1917) and Civil Code (1928) constituted serious conceptual and practical threats to Catholic marriage. The legislation applied principally to civil marriage, an institution created during the 1850s Reform: but, when compounded with constitutional assertions of state supremacy over the Church—not to mention changing gender roles, forms of socialization, and social mobility—Díaz concluded that there was a crisis. The evidence lay in the irregular, if not immoral, practices of the laity concerning Catholic marriage.KeywordsMexico CityCivil CodeChurch LeaderCivil MarriageMexican FamilyThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.