Una Iglesia Más Mexicana : Catholics, Schismatics, and the Mexican Revolution in Texas, 1927-1932

Abstract

March 16, 1930 was a dreary Sunday in San Antonio, Texas. It was raining. It had, in fact, been raining almost continuously for three days?a remark able occasion in what is normally a rather dry and sunny climate. Surprisingly, instead of dashing about under umbrellas or hiding away indoors on this rainy afternoon, much of the Mexican working-class community of San Antonio held a parade. Impervious to the inclement weather, hundreds of people gathered to follow bugles and drums, an honor guard, and a marching band through the rain to the train station because this, for them was a landmark day. Don Jose Joaquin Perez Budar, the archbishop and patriarch of the politically and religiously controversial Mexican Catholic Apostolic Church (ICAM), was finally coming from Mexico City to meet his followers in Texas.1 In both Mexico and in Texas, the schismatic Mexican Catholic Apostolic Church has largely vanished from historical memory. This all-but-forgotten movement, how ever, sits at the crux of many critical narratives in the history of post-revolutionary Mexico, and in the history of Mexican immigration to the United States during that same time. This article examines the popularity of the ICAM in Texas within the con text of contested national and class identities for the Mexican working class living in Texas. It also examines the relationship between the Roman Catholic Church in the United States and these marginalized, often impoverished, Mexican immigrants, par ticularly in light of changing demographics and the resultant shift in political power in local communities. In addition, this study argues that the Roman Catholic Church's antagonism toward the newly installed revolutionary government of Mexico nega