Revolutions in Mexican Catholicism: Reform and Revelation in Oaxaca, 1887 – 1934

Abstract

This book is a rich regional history of Mexican Catholicism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Partly as a response to the recent call by historian José Andrés-Gallego to revisit the history of Mexican Catholicism both “as a complex organization and as a way of life,” Edward Wright-Rios brings together the religious perspectives of ecclesiastical authorities, parish priests, and laypeople around the promotion of local devotions (p. 6). He argues that, in the wake of the anticlerical “reform laws” of the 1850s and 1860s, clergymen and parishioners in the Archdiocese of Oaxaca sought to spur a revival of Catholicism through “their common interest in founding, fueling and managing devotions” (p. 4). Religious revitalization in Oaxaca took place at the institutional and popular level. In this view, the Oaxacan Church witnessed two “revolutions,” one administered by Catholic pastors and the other one sustained by women and indigenous peoples.Wright-Rios opens with an examination of the reform program undertaken by Oaxaca’s Archbishop Eulogio Gillow (1887 – 1922). In line with Vatican dictates to bring about a modernization of Catholicism, the Oaxacan prelate assumed the task of transforming popular religiosity and sparking a Catholic renewal among Oaxaca’s population. In addition to destroying the secular power of the Mexican Church, the liberal anticlerical laws of the middle of the nineteenth century altered the foundations of local devotion. As the century drew to a close, male-dominated religious brotherhoods, whose activities largely resided outside the realm of archdiocesan mandates, emerged as the locus of communal religion among indigenous peoples. Gillow encouraged the formation of “canonically structured organizations” to bring these local associations under the control of the clergy, establish devotions managed by the church, and implant a sacrament-driven form of Catholicism. Women, who had played a secondary role within religious brotherhoods, flocked to the church-sanctioned lay associations, thus gaining a crucial voice in the public sphere and becoming key agents in the archbishop’s reform plan.The impact of Gillow’s project was limited at best, particularly in the countryside. The “spirit of association” that accompanied church-sponsored lay organizations found few converts among the indigenous population. Indigenous religious brotherhoods generally retained their autonomy. But neither the prelate nor the clergy under his command were willing to directly confront them. They recognized that a renewed Oaxacan church ultimately depended on preexisting religious structures for the maintenance of popular piety. Churchmen adopted a policy of compromise, “turning a blind eye to heterodox practice, or otherwise accommodating it” (p. 202). Conflict and negotiation stood at the center of Oaxacan popular religiosity.As Wright-Rios indicates, Oaxacan parishioners remained Catholics “in their own way.” The author documents the gulf between Gillow’s modernizing agenda and popular religious sensibilities by examining two apparition movements: the Lord of the Wounds and the Virgin of Ixpantepec. Through their devotion to the Lord of the Wounds, women and indigenous groups sought to reshape rural Catholicism in such a way that it escaped the patriarchal order and control of ecclesiastical authorities. Despite its “heterodox” character, most parish priests tolerated this devotion and its main promoter, Bartola Bolaños. In an illuminating chapter, Wright-Rios investigates the apparition of the Virgin of Ixpantepec in the late 1920s. Women such as Matilde Narváez, major advocate of the Virgin of Ixpantepec, interpreted this Marian apparition as a sign of an impending divine punishment for the modern error of secularism. Although Gillow’s successor, José Núñez, refused to officially recognize this devotion, Narváez and her supporters perceived themselves as central characters in the church’s revitalization campaign.Wright-Rios raises important issues about the history of Mexican Catholicism in the aftermath of the anticlerical reform. Specialists and nonspecialists will find enlightening Wright-Rios’s argument that the history of Latin American Catholicism cannot be understood without situating it in the age of modernity. This work also redirects our attention away from male-directed religious sodalities such as cofradías and mayordomías and brings to the fore the integral role that devout women played in the Catholic renewal of the turn of the twentieth century. In addition, after reading Wright-Rios’s book one wonders to what extent religious change in Oaxaca led to social or political change, especially during the years of the Mexican Revolution. Did apparition movements result in any forms of political mobilization in the face of the revolution’s anticlericalism? Wright-Rios notes that the documentation that might allow us to positively answer this question for the case of Oaxaca “is always sketchy” (p. 279). Nonetheless, this line of inquiry merits consideration if we are to understand Catholicism as part and parcel of this tumultuous modern age.The above comment, however, does not diminish the significance of this well-researched work. Wright-Rios’s ability to weave together church documents, popular accounts, and oral histories, as well as to engage contradictory sources, leaves us with a refreshing institutional and cultural portrayal of Mexican Catholicism.