The Tales of Two Cultures: Ecclesiastical Texts and Nahua and Maya Catholicisms

Abstract

[Priests should use] … an abbreviated catechism, scrupulously extracted from the Roman one so that the faithful receive the pure and sound Doctrine of the Church with uniformity and with the authority accordant to the Provincial Council … therefore, with luck, random works destitute of legitimate authority and revision in matters so grave will not circulate such important material. When in the late eighteenth century the prelates of the Fourth Mexican Provincial Council ordered all clergy to stricdy employ their newly printed catechism, they provided a valuable description of the colonial Church and its relationship to unofficial ecclesiastical texts. The Fourth Provincial Council's call for the faithful to receive the doctrines of the Church in a sanctioned and uniform manner acknowledged the presence of a variety of Catholic discourses that stemmed from colonial religious works deemed to be “destitute of legitimate authority and revision.” Such unofficial ecclesiastical texts avoided the editing process that both the clergy and Crown established to ensure the orthodoxy of all printed religious material. In so doing, the texts could convey diverse, unorthodox interpretations of Catholicism. These unofficial ecclesiastical texts, and the role they played in producing multiple versions of Catholicism, constitute the focus of this study.