The Vatican & Catholic Activism in Mexico & Chile: The Politics of Transnational Catholicism, 1920–1940 by Stephen J. C. Andes (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Vatican & Catholic Activism in Mexico & Chile: The Politics of Transnational Catholicism, 1920–1940 by Stephen J. C. Andes Matthew A. Redinger The Vatican & Catholic Activism in Mexico & Chile: The Politics of Transnational Catholicism, 1920–1940. By Stephen J. C. Andes. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014. 266pp. $99.00. In The Vatican & Catholic Activism in Mexico & Chile, Stephen Andes provides readers a thoroughly researched, eminently readable work that focuses on a seemingly impossible task for the Vatican in the interwar period. The Catholic Church was virtually being rent asunder by competing demands in the first decades of the twentieth century, including calls for church modernization, growing challenges to the church’s traditional position in society, demands for activism coming from lay Catholics, and the Vatican’s need to maintain open communication with governments embarking on anticlerical reforms in the interwar period. Further complicating this delicate balancing act was the emergence of Catholic Action movements in both Mexico and [End Page 84] Chile in response to Pope Pius XI’s call for an energized laity, and the outbreak of the Cristero Rebellion in Mexico. At the foundation of the Vatican’s position in all cases was its insistence that Catholic organizations steer clear of both militance and political affiliation. Andes does an admirable job outlining the pressure primarily from the laity in Mexico and Chile who tried to force the hand of the Vatican to recognize and thereby legitimize their efforts to respond to the anticlerical assaults launched by those governments. In Mexico’s case, the Cristero Rebellion (1926–1929) presented a particular challenge to the Vatican’s advocacy for church-state treaties, or concordats, rather than political activism by grassroots Catholic organizations. Various grassroots organizations – some of which directly aided the Cristero cause – received support by the Mexican episcopacy, even though this clearly conflicted with Vatican moves toward official diplomacy and aversion to violence and political activism. The Vatican, however, had to walk a fine line – too strong of a condemnation of the Cristero movement would alienate Mexican Catholics afire with devotion to their assaulted religion. In the case of Chile, Andes points out that Rome’s position vis-à-vis Catholic activism there was substantially the same as it was for Mexico. In pursuit of top-level diplomatic settlements, the Vatican often overlooked political activism on the ground to avoid alienating the laity, while simultaneously working with the episcopacy on official diplomatic efforts. In Chile, unlike in Mexico, the church was active within the political process through a specific party. By the middle of the nineteenth century, Catholics in Chile had formed Partido Conservador, which, by the end of the century, was so closely aligned with the church that differences between the two were often difficult to determine. In the interwar period, the Vatican’s overall prioritization for ecclesial diplomacy directed at concordats challenged this alignment. Rome, in fact, backed the Chilean version of the global apolitical Catholic Action movement as the most effective way to counter anticlerical attacks on the church, and encouraged new generations of Chilean activists to view Catholic Action as the social [End Page 85] Christian foil to political activism. The fact that some clerics continued to back a Catholic party, however, is evidence of the rift between Vatican goals internationally and popular sentiment on the ground. Andes’s work would be an appropriate work for a variety of academic contexts. It could be effectively used in advanced undergraduate or graduate courses in Latin American history, international relations, and church history. It is exhaustively researched and well written, and deserves a wide readership. Matthew A. Redinger Montana State University Billings Copyright © 2015 American Catholic Historical Society