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The Catholic Revival 
in Mexico 

By 
RICHARD PATTEE 

a n d 

THE INTER-AMERICAN COMMITTEE 

A Report of the Inter-American Committee 

P R I C E 10 C E N T S 

THE CATHOLIC ASSOCIATION FOR 
INTERNATIONAL PEACE 

1312 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W. 
Washington S, D. C. 

1944 



m H E Catholic Association for Inter-
national Peace expresses apprecia-

tion to 
Immaculata College 

Immaculata, Pa. 
for sponsoring the publication of this 
pamphlet. 



The Catholic Revival in Mexico 
By 

RICHARD PATTEE 
and 

THE INTER-AMERICAN COMMITTEE 

A Report of the Inter-American Committee 

THE CATHOLIC ASSOCIATION FOR 
INTERNATIONAL PEACE 

1312 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W. 
Washington 5, D. C. 

T H E P A U L I S T P R E S S 
401 W e s t 59th Street 
New York 19, N. Y. 



THIS is a Report of the Inter-American Committee of the Catholic Association for International Peace, and 
is issued as a study from that Committee. I t was pre-
sented to all members of the Committee who co-operated 
in its final form. It was then ordered to be published by 
the Executive Council. As the process indicates, this Re-
port is not a statement from the whole Association. The 
questions and readings at the end of each chapter, pre-
pared by the N. C. W. C. Study Club Committee, are not 
a part of the Committee Report. 

INTER-AMERICAN COMMITTEE 

Rev. William F. Blakeslee, C.S.P. Rev. Vincent Marinaro 

Chairmen 
CHARLES G. FENWICK 

RICHARD PATTEE 

Manoel Cardoza 
Carlos E. Castaneda 
Frances S. Childs 
Mrs. Peter L. Collins 
J. de Siquiera Coutinho 
Henry Grattan Doyle 
Rev. William Ferree, S.M. 
Anna Dill Gamble 
Mary G. Hawks 
Mary P. Holleran 
James F. Kenney 
Philip LaPorte 
Mrs. Charles H. Lee 
Paul S. Lietz 
Elizabeth W. Loughran 
Marie R. Madden 
Rev. James A. Magner 

Rev. Edward J. McCarthy, O.S.A. 
Paul V. Murray 
Robert C. Murray 
Mrs. A. S. Musante 
Anne M. Nicholson 
Mrs. Robert Patterson 
Rev. Edward Peters, C.S.P. 
William A. Prendergast 
Frances M. Quinlan 
Grace M. Quinlan 
Rev. David Rubio, O.S.A.' 
Rev. Edwin Ryan 
Carlos A. Siri 
Sister M. Immaculata 
Sister Mary St. Patrick McConville 
Rev. Francis Borgia Steck, O.F.M. 
James P. Walsh 

D e a e f e t f 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

I. THE RELATIONS BETWEEN CHURCH AND 
STATE IN MEXICO: A SUMMARY . . . . 5 

II. THE PRESENT STATUS AND THE ATMOS-
PHERE OF RELIGIOUS ACTIVITY . . . . 14 

III . THE INTELLECTUAL REVIVAL 21 

IV. ORGANIZED MOVEMENTS CLAIMING CATH-
OLIC INSPIRATION ; 33 

V. "CATHOLIC ACTION" AND ITS IMPLICATIONS 44 

VI. CATHOLIC PUBLIC OPINION ON INTERNA-
TIONAL QUESTIONS 49 

VII. THE CHURCH AND THE AGRARIAN QUESTION 56 





I. THE RELATIONS BETWEEN CHURCH AND STATE 
IN MEXICO: A SUMMARY 

IN the pamphlet report, An Introduction to Mexico, published in 1936 under the auspices of the Catholic Association for Inter-
national Peace, by Anna Dill Gamble, Father Raymond Mc-
Gowan and the Latin American Committee of the Association, a 
brief description is offered of the religious persecution in Mexico 
as of that date. Reference is made to the ebb and flow of perse-
cution, which makes it particularly difficult to assign specific dates 
to the movement or conceive of it as a state of affairs which rises, 
comes to a climax and abates with some sort of solution actually 
reached. The Church-State controversy in Mexico has, to be sure, 
a long and not too honorable past. It must be fitted into the 
broad picture of the more or less perpetual crisis of the Mexican 
state; the intense philosophical and economic liberalism of many 
leaders of the past century and the pathetic effort to adapt an 
Indian, agricultural country to the pattern of modern, industrial 
society. The contradictions, paradoxes and incredible contin-
gencies which fill every page of Mexican history, flow from these 
apparently unrelated but convergent causes. 

From the religious point of view, independent Mexico was born 
under an unfortunate star. In no other Latin American country 
did independence come about in as strange and unpredictable a way 
as in this country. In other Latin American countries a minimum 
of logic presided at the birth of independence. In Venezuela, Ar-
gentina, Colombia and elsewhere, independence was the inevitable 
result of the process of events from the invasion of Spain, the impo-
sition of Joseph Bonaparte and the hostile attitude of the Spanish 
juntas, which left those in Hispanic America no other course than 
to defend their own sovereignty. 

The Mexican movement for independence took place at two 
different periods with no relation one to the other. The per-
sonalities, causes and events were quite different. The uprising of 
1810 under Hidalgo, later Morelos, and finally the stragglers who 
carried on until 1815, bears no direct relation, personal or ideolog-
ical,1 to the actual independence of 1821. The slight connecting 

l The ideology in question is that of 19th century secularism, i.e., the divorce of 
religion from economic and "political life. For a fuller discussion of this, see: Latin 
America and the V. S., Part I I I ; Introduction to Mexico, Parts VII, VIII. I X 
C. A. I . P. Reports. Washington. 

5 



6 The Catholic Revival in Mexico 
thread of Vicente Guerrero is scarcely of sufficient importance to 
merge the two, although the ideology of nineteenth century secu-
larism kept its followers and finally won out. The character of 
Mexican society in 1820 makes it clear why in many circles thé 
announcement of the restoration of the Spanish constitution of 
1820 should cause a veritable panic. This document was liberal 
—in the strictly nineteenth century concept of liberalism. The 
conservative classes of New Spain were not prone to welcome this 
innovation with any enthusiasm. In 1819 Mexico was in rela-
tive peace. In 1820 the spark which set off the revolution came 
from the mother country and we witness the queer spectacle of a 
supposed colony (which it assuredly was not in the strict sense) 
rebelling against the home land in order to prevent the dissemina-
tion of revolutionary doctrine. This, of course, fits into the., gen-
eral picture of Hispanic American independence, which has been 
so hopelessly distorted. We have always been led to believe that 
independence came because everyone was'reading Montesquieu 
and was agog at the daring of Rousseau. We have been flattered 
in the United States to think that Tom Paine was the bedside com-
panion of practically every literate Latin American of the early 
nineteenth century. Fortunately much of this nonsense has been 
blasted. We see now a society which, because of numerous cir-
cumstances, was relatively placid, not uninformed as to what was 
going on, devoted to the reigning house in Madrid and not par-
ticularly keen about the ideas coming out of France. We find 
what is even more remarkable, that many of the functionaries in 
Madrid were much more imbued with these ideas from the other 
side of the Pyrenees than were the Latin Americans, and the re-
sult was that in Latin America there was considerable concern 
about the matter. After all, Francisco de Miranda, noble adven-
turer and agitator that he was, found that no one supported him 
when he landed with a flourish on the coasts of Venezuela to bring 
freedom and enlightenment to his people. The benighted Latin 
Americans before 1810 were not all suffused with a nervous eager-
ness for liberation. 

The character of the Constitution of 1820 annoyed and irri-
tated the clergy. The peninsular Spaniards in Mexico were di-
vided between liberals and anti-liberals. We have, for instance, 
the comment of the public official, José Hipólito Odoardo, who in 
1820, in addressing the Spanish Minister of Justice, remarked that 
if the Constitution of 1820 were promulgated in Mexico, the con-
sequence would be the irreparable loss of that country. General 
Dávila, who commanded the forces in Vera Cruz, in swearing 



7 The Catholic Revival in Mexico 
allegiance to the new constitution, announced to the assembled 
multitudes that they might now expect independence at any time. 
Spanish liberalism, in a word, produced the actual break and not 
so-called Spanish oppression. The work of Agustín de Iturbide in 
bringing about the consummation of independence need not be 
outlined here. Suffice it to say that this royalist officer of great 
audacity, verve and spirit set out to finish off the few remaining 
rebels under Guerrero, won the confidence of the Viceroy and pro-
ceded to enter into a pact with the rebel chieftain. Iturbide formu-
lated his ideas of the future of Mexico in the famous Plan of 
Iguala and, aside from the fact that his ability to win over opin-
ions made Mexican independence possible, he created an abyss in 
public opinion that has continued to the present time. 

This historical analysis has no other purpose than to explain 
that the religious controversy in Mexico goes back and back, into 
the origins of the nation itself. There is no moment when one can 
say of independent Mexico: this is where the Church and State 
found themselves estranged. The evil, so to speak, was consub-
stantial with the formation of modern Mexico. Iturbide created 
an empire one of whose principles was the defense of the Catholic 
faith. He was a relatively moderate man, who saw that nothing 
could be worse than to erect a state based on hostility to the In-
dian, to the Spanish or to the Church. His three points still re-
main as a fairly sensible statement of the basis of a balanced 
Mexico. His doctrine was rejected just as he was rejected. His 
monarchism had much of the quixotic in it, perhaps. His effort 
to create a royalty out of nothing but good will was doomed to 
failure. His withdrawal, after a year of tumultuous relations with 
a recalcitrant congress, laid the way wide open to the worst kind 
of demagoguery. The place of the Church under Iturbide's scheme 
was changed. Iturbide himself was practically extirpated from 
Mexican memory. One of the curious anomalies of a paradoxical 
country is that its founder has been officially cast out of its na-
tional history as something unclean. I t is not that the Empire 
was overthrown because of its clerical support. It is because of 
other factors that soon made themselves known that the clergy 
and hierarchy were assumed to be synonymous with the Empire 
and all its works. The cleavage of "liberals" and "conservatives," 
began to be clear and we have the genesis of the historically 
Mexican distinctions between the two tendencies. 

Even though for a brief period, after 1824 and until 1833, 
Church-State relations were relatively good, difficult days set in 
after the latter date. This is neither the place nor the time to 



8 The Catholic Revival in Mexico 
elaborate on the role of the Masonic lodges and the unhappy inter-
vention of the American Minister, Joel Poinsett, in muddying the 
already unclear Mexican political waters. From the relatively 
mild anti-clerical, Gómez Farias, on, the breakdown of relations 
has been fairly steady. The so-called reform of 1833 set things 
in motion. Attacks on temporalities and on education were in 
the forefront of the crusade against the prestige of the Church. 
In 1834 reaction against the extreme measures of the liberals pro-
duced a curtailment of the process of reducing the Church. Until 
1846 relative tranquillity was enjoyed. In 1847 the State re-
sumed the onslaught. Ecclesiastical properties proved the coveted 
goods in this case. Between that date and 1854 things looked up 
considerably for the much harrassed Church. But in the spring 
of 1854 was formulated the Plan de Ayutla which liquidated the 
long regime of Santa Anna and ushered in the most ruthless, 
flamboyant and unhampered persecution of the Church Mexico 
was to know in the nineteenth century. 

A new era of tension began. New names appeared: Benito 
Juárez, Melchor Campo, Lerdo de Tejada, etc. The Ley Juárez 
set off some veritable fireworks. The Ley Lerdo completed the 
process of rigorous restrictions on ecclesiastical property holding. 
On top of this came the crowning feature of the assault on the 
Church, the Constitution of 1857. Education, property holding, 
release from religious vows: the Constitution ran the gamut of 
almost everything that could concern the Church. The Three 
Year War, Guerra de la reforma, was touched off by these events. 
Mexico was torn by revolution around the problem of the Church. 
The reform laws were promulgated which went much further than 
anything that had been done heretofore. On top of these mis-
fortunes came the French intervention. Let it be said that enough 
paper and ink have probably been wasted on the problem of the 
French invasion, the reign of Maximilian and the allegation that 
the whole business was merely an intrigue carried out by the 
clergy to restore their traditional position. It is perhaps high 
time that the unhappy episode in Mexican history cease to be 
treated as clerical intrigue against simon pure democracy repre-
sented by the liberal forces under Juárez. We live in an age in 
which anyone who calls himself a liberal is assumed to represent 
the cause of honesty and decency. Anyone who casts reflections 
on either motive or procedure of the so-called liberal forces labels 
himself a reactionary and a hopeless retrograde, if not worse. Let 
it be recalled that if the conservatives welcomed French aid and 
suffered intervention to preserve what they considered the essen-



9 The Catholic Revival in Mexico 
tial elements of Mexican society, the liberals were no less willing 
to accept the aid and support of the United States. This is said 
not with any intention of justifying one because of the other: it-is 
merely that we should recognize in this long and tragic struggle 
that the forces were not divided by clear cut issues in which 
everyone on one side was a saint and everyone on the other an 
unmitigated brigand. Juárez was no less an interventionist than 
those against whom he was fighting; provided the intervention 
was on his side. 

The restrictions and laws of the reform continued to hold 
after the French left and Maximilian was shot at Querétara. After 
1874, the separation of Church and State, absolute and complete, 
was a reality. The long Diaz regime did not change the juridical 
basis of the reform. It merely allowed many of its provisions to 
become a dead letter. His policy was one of conciliation, and dur-
ing the long dictatorship ecclesiastical limitations were held in 
abeyance. It is hardly necessary to describe in great detail, 
the events since 1910. During the epoch of the Mexican revolu-
tion we have a repetition of the phenomenon to which reference 
has just been made, the oscillating nature of the religious contro-
versy. There is no settlement, no solution, no definite respite; 
there is merely a series of truces followed by a recrudescence of the 
problem. It is an interminable series of outbreaks and subsiding 
intervals during which there is a lull but no peace. This has been 
the case, as has been described, for the entire nineteenth century. 
I t was no less the case after the Revolution got under way. 

Let us summarize in a few words the rush of events after the 
collapse of the ephemeral Madero regime. In 1913, the Revolu-
tion was under the guidance and impetus of Venustiano Carranza. 
Here we have Mexican revolutionary expression against the 
Church at its most typical. The pronouncements of Carranza and 
his following might be taken as a pattern, a sort of rough draft 
of the tirades and diatribes that were to be employed regularly 
after that. The type of rhetoric which was used against the 
Church was given form at this time. The phrases, epithets and 
vitriolic language which were to become almost trite in repetition 
began to develop during the years in which the Constitutionalist 
regime held power. The old Reform Laws plus a great many 
new decrees were put into force. The Church went through one 
of its bitterest periods between 1913 and 1917, with terrorism and 
violence as the weapons. The Constitution of 1917 completed the 
architecture of the Revolution. Famous among the articles of 
this Constitution, and in this it is an extension of the same provi-



10 The Catholic Revival in Mexico 
sion in the 1857 document, is Article Three which states baldly 
that education shall be laical and that no religious body can estab-
lish or direct schools of primary grade. The entire language of 
the article was obviously aimed at making it impossible for mem-
bers of the religious orders or the secular clergy to impart instruc-
tion. From this Constitution dates the rigid restriction of acts of 
worship to the churches, although many of these external manifes-
tations of faith had long been regulated during the century be-
fore Article 27 incorporated many details regarding church prop-
erty and made all such the property of the nation. Charitable 
activities were restricted and the Church was reduced strictly to 
the administration of the sacraments. Article 130 includes a 
number of further provisions regarding the restriction of the num-
ber of clergy, the authority of the states and the strict limitations 
on the clergy in political life. The same article declares that ''the 
law recognizes no juridical personality in the religious institutions 
known as churches," and that "no ministers of religious creeds 
shall, either in public or private meetings, or in acts of worship or 
religious propaganda, criticise the fundamental laws of the coun-
try, the authorities in particular or the Government in general." 

For the next eight years the anti-clerical aspects of the new 
constitution were not rigidly enforced. No serious attempt was 
made to do what had obviously been the intention of the drafters 
of the document at Queretaro: to make the Church as near non-
existent as was possible without actually stating that the Catholic 
Church was to be exiled from Mexico. Under President Obreg6n, 
the situation was latently tense, although open conflict did not 
ensue except in a number of the states where zealous local govern-
ments proceeded to exercise the powers granted them under Article 
130 to restrict the number of priests in each jurisdiction.^ This 
favorite method was seen as the most effective way of ending the 
menace of clerical influence: no priests, hence no parishes; and 
the whole mechanism of ecclesiasticism folds up. 

On February 11, 1926, the new regime of Plutarco Elias Calles 
made it plain that the laws regarding the Church would be en-
forced. Internal political reasons, as indicated in the pamphlet, 
An Introduction to Mexico,2 explain the dire calamities which 

2 The ostensible cause for the initiation of the 1926 persecution was a statement 
by Archbishop Mora y del Rio, Archbishop of Mexico City, given on request to a 
Mexican newspaperman, to the effect that the Mexican hierarchy was in favor of 
trying to change the persecuting clauses of the Constitution. I t was not an announce-
ment- of an immediate campaign to amend the Constitution. From the social-economic 
point of view, which the revolution proclaimed was its sole purpose, the persecution 



11 The Catholic Revival in Mexico 
descended on the heads of the Mexican hierarchy and people. 
The government made the customary accusation of sedition, 
treason and unwillingness to support the state. Archbishop Mora 
y del Rio's statements regarding the incompatibility of the consti-
tutional articles with the liberty of the Church produced an in-
stant reaction. The episcopacy formulated its protest. The con-
troversy was out in the open. The Mexican government seemed 
amazed that the hierarchy and faithful should be hostile to the 
anti-religious provisions of the Constitution. In the eyes of the 
state, which was to be considered supreme, this was the rankest 
disloyalty. It should be noted that the Mexico of 1926 was domi-
nated totally by the spirit of secularism and statism which have 
sijtce become so potent elsewhere in the world. The concept of 
the state supreme and unlimited had taken profound hold of the 
Mexican leaders. This essentially nineteenth century idea, so 
utterly incompatible with the whole criterion of Catholic teach-
ing, explains the extreme sensitivity of the Mexican government 
on this and other occasions to anything that savored of independ-
ence of the government. That is to say, independent action was 
interpreted as antagonism to the state. All within the state and 
nothing outside the state might well be taken as the axiom of this 
period. 1926 to 1929 is the apex of the long, hard history of 
strife. The Church was attacked with a viciousness and enmity 
which made the acts of Juarez seem positively favorable in com-
parison. 

Foreign priests were expelled, bishops forced out of the coun-
try, and a wave of indignation was aroused abroad by the methods 
employed. During the summer of 1926, religious services were 
suspended and the Catholic people of Mexico found that the entire 
clergy had been withdrawn from the churches. The hierarchy 
held to the position that religious liberty was at stake. The Calles 
had no valid reason. The Church was on the side of the main economic aims of the 
revolution, if not all its methods. 

"Politically the 1926 persecution seems to have been a jockeying by the Obreg6n 
and Agrarista factions in the Calles government for importance in administering the 
revolutionary laws in order to retain power and pave the way to a second election of 
Obregon. Of two factions one was 'Agrarian' and for Obregon and the other was a labor 
faction. The labor faction. was growing. I t was organizing both city labor and farm 
labor. In the agrarian field its organizations were leading in a more regularized,, less 
violent and more permanent development of the land policy against the older ¡chaotic 
and unorganized 'agrarian* seizure or petitioning. Its power in the city labor field was 
almost supreme. The cabinet officers administering the land, labor, oil mining and 
foreign-ownership clauses of the Constitution were of the labor faction. This was the 
whole social part of the revolution. There was nothing left for the other group to deal 
with , except the Church clause. They seized upon it. Within the Calles cabinet it was 
the Agrarista faction which administered the persecution-." An Introduction to Mexico, 
Catholic Association for International Peace, Washington, pp. 33-34. 



12 The Catholic Revival in Mexico 
government insisted that religious liberty was not involved at all 
but merely an act of rebellion. There seemed to be no reconcilia-
tion between these two diametrically opposed positions. 

Attempts were made to bring about a solution. In June of 
1929 a modus vivendi was reached which brought a temporary 
halt to the situation of open warfare. There was a recognition 
of the right of the hierarchy to designate the priests and religious 
who were to register, as provided by law. This was an indirect 
way of admitting the existence of a degree, at least, of juridical 
personality to the Church. There was a tacit understanding that 
the violent campaign of the state would at least be mitigated. 
This was no formal agreement but merely the promise given by 
President Portes Gil. The fragile character of the understanding 
is evident. As a release from the total suspension of religious 
life, it was of extreme importance, and it seemed at the time the 
most that could be obtained under the circumstances. But the 
religious question was not settled. Late in 1931, it broke out 
anew. In June of that year the state of Vera Cruz put into effect 
a law restricting the number of Catholic priests to one for each 
100,000 inhabitants. Vera Cruz has long been one of the hotbeds 
of anti-clericalism. Perhaps no state of the Republic has been 
more profoundly affected with the virus. Catholic life has been 
all but non-existent in that coastal region which shares with 
Tabasco and Chiapas the dubious honor of being the states 
where the Catholic faith has come near to actual extinction. In 
Tabasco, no priests at all were allowed and the way was made 
ready for the regime of Garrido Canabal, whose atheism and 
vitriolic anti-Catholicism made him notorious throughout Mexico. 
By December, of 1931, anti-religious activity was in full swing 
once more. Legislation was quickly enacted to restrict the num-
ber of clergy. The priests in Mexico City were reduced from 90 
to 24. Chiapas was to have four priests. In Guanajuanto, one 
priest was to serve each 9,000 faithful. In October of 1932, Arch-
bishop Ruiz y Flores was deported. 

While the presidency of Lázaro Cárdenas saw a continuation 
of the general anti-clerical position, in reality, more and more 
practical liberties were granted not as part of any revamping of 
the juridical machinery but as a matter of actual practice. By 
1936, the churches of Mexico City were filled once more. Even 
though the number of priests was supposed to be small, the num-
ber of Masses was always great. In most of the churches of the 
capital and the larger provincial cities, throngs attended every 
religious exercise. In 1937, a violent incident occurred in the 



13 The Catholic Revival in Mexico 
state of Vera Cruz in which police shot a young woman attend-
ing Mass in a private house. Cárdenas himself was responsible 
for bringing about the opening of the churches in that State. 

In 1936, the Mexican hierarchy had issued a joint pastoral 
in which the position of the Church on social matters was reiter-
ated in the clearest terms. It told of the early programs of the 
Catholic Congresses and other organizations during the Diaz 
period. Salient points concerned the just wage, the dignity of 
labor, the deep concern of the Church for the material welfare of 
man, the right of labor to organize and Christian democracy. 

DISCUSSION TOPICS 

1. Discuss persecution and the Church-State controversy in Mexico with regard to nineteenth century liberalism and Indian agricultural culture. 
2. Compare the attaining of independence in other Latin American coun-tries with the independence movements in Mexico of 1810 and 1821. 
3. Discuss Iturbide's three point plan. Why did he fail? 
4. Name some elements which contributed to the breakdown of Church-

State relations, 1833-18S4. 
5. Discuss the following in relation to the persecution: Benito Juárez; Constitution of 1857; Guerra de la reforma-, the French invasion and the the reign of Maximilian. 
6. What were the relation of the following to Church-State relations: 

The Diaz regime; the revolution under Carranza; the Constitution of 1917; the Calles Regime; the Modus Vivendi of 1929; the restriction of the number of priests in 1931; the presidency of Cárdenas? 
7. What was the general content of the 1936 Joint Pastoral of the Mexican 

Hierarchy ? 
Suggested Readings 

Men of Mexico, James M. Magner. Bruce, Milwaukee. 1942. Chapters 
IX-XVII, on Hidalgo; Morelos; Iturbide; Santa Anna; Juárez; Maximilian; 
Díaz; Carranza; Calles; Cárdenas. 
Blood-Drenched Altars, F. C. Kelley. Bruce, Milwaukee. 1935. 
Pastoral Letter on Mexico by the American Hierarchy. The Paulist Press, 
New York. 1926. 
The Church and Mexico, Encyclical of Pope Pius XI. National Catholic 
Welfare Conference, Washington. 1932. 



II. THE PRESENT STATUS AND THE ATMOSPHERE OF 
RELIGIOUS ACTIVITY 

The religious struggle has subsided since 1937-38. The end 
of the Cárdenas regime saw a distinct slackening of the restrictive 
measures. The political campaign of 1940 involved to some extent 
a religious problem in that many Catholics saw in General Juan 
Andreu Almazán a guarantee of more decent treatment. As was 
generally foreseen, General Manuel Avila Camacho was elected 
and took office in that year. One of the most remarkable declara-
tions of the new president upon assuming power was to announce 
himself as a "creyente." Ño Mexican president had gone that far 
for a century. 

No one with any knowledge of the intricacies of Mexican polit-
ical life and the singular features of its official organization can con-
tend that even in the highest position, with some exceptions of 
course, is the sentiment honestly and profoundly anti-Catholic. 
The deceptive characteristic of Mexico is precisely the fact that 
anti-clericalism gives the impression of á deeprooted and dog-
matic hatred of the Church. Nothing could be further from the 
truth. Their anti-clericalism is rather secularism—the desire to 
prevent religion from having an influence on the public and social 
life of the country. Priest haters of the first order are among the 
most precipitate to seek the sacraments upon their deathbed. It 
is told of one high official of the Cárdenas cabinet that he in-
variably lifted his hat before a church. Upon being asked about 
this curious bit of conduct in view of his intense anti-clericalism, 
he blandly replied that "one always raises one's hat before a 
church." 

It must always be kept in mind that the Church in Mexico 
represents in plain truth the real social force in the country. Other 
elements of cohesion and national unity are lacking since uniform-
ity of language does not exist and a keen sense of citizenship and 
of participation in the political life of the nation is absent. The 
Mexican government and state has been something of a super-
structure erected on the great mass of people without the exist-
ence of that indispensable common sentiment which must func-
tion in order to make a government "legitimate" in the full sense 
of the word. There exists nothing comparable to the prestige and 

14 



15 The Catholic Revival in Mexico 
position of the British crown in England; nothing that remotely 
compares with the deeprooted tradition and profoundly popular 
character of the ancient French monarchy; nothing that presents 
itself as analogous to the municipal, democratic system of medi-
eval Spain. The Mexican state has had therefore a tragic and 
pathetic past. The Catholic Church has possessed such over-
whelming power, such intense popular support and such blind de-
votion, that one distinguished Mexican priest has said ironically 
that the state was the persecuted rather than the Church and the 
state was the agency about which one should be most concerned. 
There is much truth in the assertion. At the height of the perse-
cution, Catholic schools were functioning all over Mexico, more 
or less surreptitiously. It was not unreasonable for a high official 
of the Mexican government to ask plaintively, when urged to do 
something about abolishing the restrictive Article III of the Con-
stitution, "If under violent persecution, the Church manages to 
maintain schools with the support and approval of the people, 
what will happen if the lid is taken off?" There is more than a 
half truth in this comment. 

Mexican Catholic opinion is sharply divided over the technique 
of combat and defense. It may be said that there are, broadly 
speaking, two schools of thought on the question. There are 
those who fought the state tooth and nail in the past and to whom 
the Mexican Revolution, and everything it stands for and has 
accomplished, is anathema. It is this group which would prefer 
a state of conflict, which would brook no truce and wishes no 
compromise on even minor points. It is this element which was 
responsible for the fatal Cristero movement which got so com-
pletely out of hand that only a direct and categorical statement 
from the Holy See could stop it. There is still much of the 
Cristero mentality among Mexican Catholics. They fail to realize 
that the Church as such has no business carrying on armed re-
bellion. They do not comprehend that to rise up in arms as 
Catholics first, and Mexicans afterwards, does unlimited harm to 
the very cause they propose to defend.3 They do not compre-

3 In this connection Pius XI in his Apostolic Letter on the Religious Situation in 
Mexico, issued in March 1937, told the Bishops of Mexico that they had often recalled 
to their people how the Church promotes peace and order and condemns every violent, 
unjust insurrection against the established authority, but that they had affirmed, also, 
that where a constituted authority had so acted against truth and justice as to destroy 
the foundations of authority then it is impossible to see how citizens could be con-
demned for uniting to defend, with licit and fit means, the nation and themselves 
against those who would use governmental authority to bring it to its ruin. He went on 
to say that while the practical solution depends on circumstances, nevertheless the 
clergy and "Catholic Action" (the organization of the laity working with and under 



16 The Catholic Revival in Mexico 
hend that to set religion off so absolutely against loyalty to the 
state is a fatal blunder which can easily produce irreparable con-
sequences. They do not appreciate, what the Sein Feiners in 
Ireland saw, that to carry on the fight as Catholics is infinitely 
less productive of results than to carry it on as Irishmen. If the 
Cristeros had said in their day that instead of fighting as Cath-
olics, they were fighting as Mexicans, intent on getting Calles out 
of power, their position would have been materially stronger. 
That is, of course, water now over the dam. It is worth while, 
however, to recollect this unfortunate episode in Mexican history 
which reveals a state of mind which has contributed to the muddy-
ing of the waters and to a postponement of the most salutary 
solution of the problem. There are those who still think in 
those terms, who would wish to wage battle with the government 
to the bitter end, even when that government is benevolent and 
makes no effort to enforce a hostile legislation. It is the old guard 
of die-hards, unwilling to make reasonable compromises even 
when the realities of the moment are overwhelmingly potent. 

Fortunately there has risen up in the ranks of Catholic laity 
and clergy a new element which is much more conscious of the 
times and the conditions. This group does not assume, in Bour-
bon fashion, that the Revolution of 1910 was merely a night-
mare and can be wished out of existence. I t takes the Revolution 
for what it is, with the good and the bad; with the virtues and the 
evils, with the civic accomplishment and the banditry. It does 
not decry the past; it does not think that a return to the days of 
Don Porfirio would settle anything. I t knows that the Revolution 
is a tremendous fact which must be taken into account, and that 
over thirty years of experimentation have not left Mexico as it 
was. I t does not deny that there are merits in some of the things 
that the Revolution has carried out. It is not, in a word, fixed in 
the Bishops) could not engage in a violent defense of rights or even take part in the 
material and technical problems connected with civic and political rights; and that 
demands for restoration of these rights, being in the realm of means, must not use 
intrinsically evil means, must be proportionate to the end in view, be employed only 
to the degree required and in such a way as not to cause the community greater harm 
than the wrong struck at. He specified as a task of both the clergy and of "Catholic 
Action" the preparation of Catholics to make just use of their rights and to defend 
them with all legitimate means according as the common good requires. Both the 
clergy and "Catholic Action," he said, must contribute to the prosperity of the nation, 
especially encouraging the union of the citizens and of the social classes and collaborating 
in all those social initiatives which are not opposed to dogma or the laws of Christian 
morals. 

The effect of this Pastoral Letter was .to show that the Church and Catholic lay organizations working under the Church were not leading a revolution and that while an armed uprising may be at times necessary it has its own laws of right and wrong which must be followed even in the circumstances of persecution. 



17 The Catholic Revival in Mexico 
an attitude of blind partisanship, bent on perpetuating a state of 
friction and warfare, which can only redound to the disadvantage 
of the Church. It accepts the suggestions of the Holy See on 
seeking to work out relations with the state and refuses to sanc-
tion open, avowed and unabated hostility. 

Although the state of affairs in Mexico today is tranquil, it 
would be rash to predict that all is well for the future. There are 
too many imponderables in the situation. Politically the country 
is far from normal. With the presidential elections still many 
months in the future, agitation has already begun and what is 
euphemistically called "futurism" in Mexican politics is well 
under way. The Mexican army is a force of incalculable possi-
bilities. It is no longer the bedraggled entity which the popular 
imagination was led to believe distinguished the armed forces of 
the Republic. Thanks to Lend-Lease, it is a modernized, mech-
anized institution under the personal direction and influence of 
Lázaro Cárdenas. To what extent the ex-President is bent on 
retaining real control of both government and army is a matter 
about which there is much speculation. The fact is that armed 
revolution in Mexico as of yore is out of the question. The army 
is today a force against which no uprising could possibly make 
any headway. The Party of the Mexican Revolution has un-
doubtedly suffered some setbacks. The one-party system with 
the designation of candidates who are as inevitably elected as 
Democrats in Mississippi, has produced resentment, irritation and 
antagonism-. It does not set right to have one party monopolize 
every public office with no chance for the opposition. Neverthe-
less the Party has suffered in recent months severe internal fric-
tion. The Confederation of Mexican Workers is in a like situa-
tion. The power formerly wielded by Vicente Lombardo Toledano 
has unquestionably diminished. Dozens of affiliated unions have 
broken away from the once all-powerful C. T. M. Lombardo 
Toledano himself, in spite of his presidency of the so-called Con-
federation of Latin American Workers and his constant junketing 
all over the hemisphere, is no longer the influence that he was in 
the past. At the International Labor Organization conference in 
Philadelphia in May, 1944, he was thoroughly repudiated in his 
assertions by the Mexican Minister of Labor and failed in his 
proposal to oust the Argentine delegates. His voice is still sten-
torian and is raised on every and all occasions. -

It would be difficult to attempt to evaluate other influences 
which are at work in present-day Mexico. The establishment of 
the Embassy of the Soviet Union under the direction of able and 



18 The Catholic Revival in Mexico 
affable Constantine Oumansky is an influence to be reckoned 
with. That the Russian Embassy is exerting this influence and 
is a source of pressure in Mexican affairs admits of no doubt. To 
what extent this will develop, no one can say. It is an element 
which is worthy of the closest attention. The future of Mexican-
United States relations is always a factor in Mexico. The close 
collaboration at the present time may or may not be a good index 
for the future. The proposed industrialization of Mexico with 
large American investments would create a still closer contact. 
It is clear that not for many years have the relations of the gov-
ernments been as externally cordial and harmonious as at the 
present time. The Mexican government is undoubtedly entirely 
in accord with the broad lines of inter-American policy and is aid-
ing the war effort in every possible way, even to internal sacri-
fices. Mexico has experienced direct effects of its aid to the United 
Nations. Thousands of its peasants have gone to the United 
States as "braceros," with the result that states such as Jalisco 
have suffered enormously in agricultural production. Food prod-
ucts, mineral resources and the like have been poured out to aid 
the common cause. The Mexican government has not been re-
luctant to suffer a tremendous inflation and a constant rise in the 
cost of living as the penalty it must pay for participation in the 
war against the Axis. 

On the strictly religious side, it may be said that there are 
isolated instances and elusive episodes which may be symptomatic 
of the undercurrents. The anti-religious sentiment is ever latent, 
as is manifested by the precipitate manner in which the Mexican 
congress seizes on anything that may serve to reaffirm its anti-
clerical position. One of the most significant of the recent meas-
ures was that taken by the Mexican government last November 
in prohibiting members of the armed forces of the Republic to 
attend any religious ceremony in uniform. Catholic opinion was 
considerably aroused because of the extraordinary statement that 
aside from the fact that Mexico was a non-sectarian state, "the 
rites of the various religious faiths are out of harmony with the 
dignity of the uniform and are contrary to the martial spirit in-
herent in the armed forces." Catholic spokesmen were quick to 
seize on this phrase to point out that even in the Soviet Union, 
where respect for religion could hardly be said to be too evident, 
no proscription of this kind existed, and it was well known from 
numerous Moscow correspondents that members of the Red Army 
frequently attended religious ceremonies in uniform. The dis-
tinguished Mexican writer, Alfonso Junco, published a magnifi-



19 The Catholic Revival in Mexico 
cent article in Novedades entitled, La dignidad militar y la digni-
dad de México. He does not fail to point out that this new regu-
lation, which is not merely the application of an old one, but an 
entirely new thing, is in complete contradiction with the practice 
of the United States and Great Britain where the fullest encour-
agement is given to all members of the army and navy to practice 
the religion of their preference. 

The professional Mexican revolutionaries, especially those in 
positions of responsibility, are notoriously thin-skinned when it 
comes to any criticism of present Mexico, its institutions or its 
social philosophy. Fortunately the verbal and rhetorical whirl-
winds which such criticisms produce are of short duration. The 
press may be full of them one day and the next the matter has 
been entirely forgotten, to give way to a more enticing incident. 

Another source of periodic concern is the tactics of the Com-
munist Party in penetrating government ministries with its influ-
ence. This is particularly true of the Ministry of Public Instruc-
tion. Every few weeks the Mexican press calls attention to the 
prevalence of "agitation" in the Ministry of Education and the 
number of Communists who hold office in that branch. Not a 
few editorials have appeared since last November regarding the 
danger to the public school system of the constant upheavals pro-
voked by the efforts of the Communists to make headway in that 
direction. The press publishes from time to time the harangues 
and addresses of the revolutionary leaders, particularly Lombardo 
Toledano. Under date of November 21, 1943, the president of 
the C. T. M. unburdened himself before a large gathering on 
the attitude of the Revolution toward Catholics and toward the 
Church. Lombardo has long insisted in his speeches on a subtle 
differentiation between Catholics and the Catholic Church, be-
tween the clergy and the faithful. This loquacious leader reiter-
ated the age-old accusations of clerical meddling in politics, 
Church domination of the national life and, above all, the inten-
tion of the Catholic Church in Mexico to provoke civil conflict 
for the purpose of overturning the legitimate government. He 
concluded with a moving appeal to his Catholic comrades to lend 
no ear to these machinations and to accept the truth that the 
Revolution favored freedom of conscience and of religion. This 
instance is cited merely to indicate that, with a remarkable peri-
odicity, the religious question is dragged out and violent words 
,are hurled at the clergy and hierarchy, even though it must be 
common knowledge that the Church would be the last agency to 
provoke civil strife. The attempt in April, 1944, on the life of 



20 The Catholic Revival in Mexico 
President Avila Camacho gave rise to certain strictures on the 
Church. Unhappily the army officer, guilty of the attack, was 
a Catholic. No proof has been adduced to show that his act was 
other than that of one who was mentally unbalanced. The lurid 
photographs, subsequently plastered all over Mexico City, of army 
men in uniform receiving Communion were shown to have been 
taken long before the promulgation of the decree referred to above, 
and those who were submitted to interrogation, in order to clarify 
possible implication in the attack, were all released as completely 
innocent. The incident served, nevertheless, as so many others, 
to arouse some sentiment and to be made the pretext for the usual 
aspersions cast on the clergy and Catholic laity. 

However, it may be said that the Church in Mexico City finds 
itself in a better position than for many years. Respect for its 
activities is almost complete. The President has avowedly set 
himself the task of working along lines of harmony and fraternity. 
His appeals to national unity and understanding brand him as a 
Mexican leader fully conscious of the need for peace and repose. 
Years of agitation, tumult and friction have left the Mexican 
people with nerves on edge. The calm, intelligent and moderate 
regime of Manuel Avila Camacho has done wonders to increase 
serenity in a nation long convulsed by the passions of sectarian 
hatred and fratricidal conflict. 

DISCUSSION TOPICS 

1. What is the character of Mexican anti-clericalism ? 2. Why is the Church in Mexico the lone real social force in the country? 3. Discuss the two theories of combat and defense on which Mexican Catholic opinion is divided, in connection with the doctrine enunciated by Pius XI in 1937. 
4. What is the present status of Mexican politics with regard to: 

(a) the army? (b) the Party of the Mexican Revolution? (c) the Con-
federation of Mexican Workers? 5. Other influences of present-day Mexico: 
(a) the Soviet Embassy; (b) Mexican-U. S. relations; (c) Mexican 
participation in the war. 6. What is the present situation of the Church in Mexico? 

Suggested Readings 

"The Church as a Vital Factor in the Life of Latin America." America, March 25, 1944. Encyclical The Religious Situation in Mexico, Pius XI. N. C. W. C., Washington, 1937. "Mexico's Economy Falters Under War's Strain," Richard Pattee. America, May 27, 1944. "Russia and Latin America," Richard Pattee. America, May 13, 1944. "Mexican Compromise," Camille M. Cianfarro. The Sign, August, 1944. 



III. THE INTELLECTUAL REVIVAL 

It would be impossible, in this brief space, to summarize the 
revival of Catholic educational institutions throughout the re-
public. As has been indicated, according to the letter of the law, 
no religious communities may teach and technically no Catholic 
educational institutions have any business existing at all. Even at 
the time of the Calles persecution, schools continued. Although 
their existence was precarious and their work interrupted, they 
managed to carry on the task of imparting religious instruction. 
True enough, this had to be done and still has to be done some-
what sub rosa. Catholic schools, as all private schools, must con-
form to the program laid down by the Ministry of Education. 
The schedule and program do not make allowance for such matters 
as Christian doctrine. Consequently Catholic schools must in-
corporate this subject at odd hours and under special conditions 
in order to comply with the regulations. At the present time, the 
inspection to which such schools are submitted does not go to the 
extremes of ten or fifteen years ago. Formerly the presence of 
any religious objects would have been tantamount to closure. 
Today, respect is still maintained for the appearances. No mem-
bers of religious orders wear the habit. The crucifix is not dis-
played on the wall. Catholic books of devotion are not left about 
conspicuously, and, in general, efforts are made to avoid antagoniz-
ing the sensibilities of those who would welcome the opportunity 
of clamping down on these centers. Catholic schools have sprung 
up like mushrooms. Many religious orders have flourishing estab-
lishments which draw hundreds of pupils. 

Mexican seminaries have slowly come back into existence. 
The building of the principal Archdiocesan seminary was long 
ago confiscated and the center was then removed to another town, 
where it now functions. Most of the dioceses now have their own 
seminary, although many, because of their remoteness, lack of 
vocations and monetary embarrassments, prefer to send their 
candidates to a central seminary or to Montezuma Seminary in 
New Mexico. Several have seminaries merely for the work in 
philosophy. 

The National University of Mexico has never been a Catholic 
center since the days of the colony. When it was reorganized in 
1910, under the inspiration of Justo Sierra, it was distinctly non-

21 



22 The Catholic Revival in Mexico 
Catholic. It was probably the last bulwark of positivism in the 
Republic, and even today there are still traces of this doctrine, 
which exercised a remarkable influence on Mexican thought. The 
University is literally completely free in its recognition of the right 
of the professors to teach whatever doctrine may appeal to them. 
In 1933, the question reached a critical stage when the University 
students and many of its professors opposed tenaciously the ap-
plication to the University of the pernicious idea that the instruc-
tion must conform to Socialist dogmas. It was at that time that 
Antonio Caso, Rodulfo Brito Fousher, the present rector, and 
Manuel Gomez Morin-were primarily responsible for the expulsion 
of Vicente Lombardo Toledano and the University was saved from 
the ignominy of succumbing to the official precept of Marxist edu-
cation. The institution was made autonomous and given a grant 
which was intended to be so small as to bring about its collapse. 
Under the rectorship of Gomez Morin, the University managed to 
weather the severe storm of the first year and has functioned 
ever since, although crippled by economic restrictions. Catholic 
influence in the University is considerable. A large number of its 
faculty members are active Catholics. In fields as important as 
philosophy, political science and the like, there is a fair repre-
sentation of Catholic teaching. Thomistic thought holds an estab-
lished and honorable.place in the curriculum. Catholic influence 
in this institution is incidental, however, and it certainly cannot 
be called a Catholic atmosphere in the strict sense of the word. 

Catholic intellectual revival is to be found elsewhere; in the 
reviews, journals, in the appearance of an increasing number of 
Catholic writers, and in the remarkable continuation of the human-
istic tradition which is deeprooted in Mexican culture. In an ex-
cellent article published in The Catholic World of January, 1941, 
Father James A. Magner of the Catholic University, deals briefly 
with the names and activities of a number of the priests and lay-
men who have contributed most effectively to this revival, espe-
cially in the field of letters. The present comment seeks merely 
to outline the general trend and the outstanding names. 

The influence of the Church, needless to say, has been decisive 
in every period of Mexican cultural history, from the time of the 
conquest to the present. It is no exaggeration to say that, except 
possibly for a very short interval during the middle of the last 
century, Catholic writers, researchers and humanists have occu-
pied the forefront of Mexican cultural life, and this is especially 
true during the epoch since 1910. The tragedy of the past twenty-
five years has been that since the clergy was rigidly excluded from 



23 The Catholic Revival in Mexico 
all official participation in any aspect of the intellectual or artistic 
life of the country, the impression was created that strictly Cath-
olic contributions were entirely lacking. This has fortunately 
changed. Today, priests are beginning to play an increasing role 
in cultural affairs, not infrequently in connection with official 
activities. 

A superficial résumé of the place of the Church in the culture 
of Mexico must begin with the fact that the preservation of the 
documents and the sources for knowledge of the pre-Columbian 
culture of Mexico is entirely the work of the Church. Fray 
Bernardino de Sahagún and other missionaries collected and pre-
served the Aztec poems, and the most distinguished translator of 
this ancient literature is a priest, Father Angel Maria Garibay. 
The great source of Mayan thought, the Popol-Vuh was dis-
covered by Fray Francisco de Ximénez in the seventeenth cen-
tury, and the Chilam-Balam, by Bishop Crescendo Carrillo y An-
cona in the nineteenth century- The earliest schools in New 
Spain were, of course, entirely under religious auspices. Primary 
schools and centers for training in arts and crafts were founded, 
especially through the influence of the great Franciscan, Pedro de 
Gante. The first school on a higher level for Indians was the 
famous College of Santa Cruz de Tlaltelolco, founded by Fray 
Juan de Zumárraga and the Franciscans. In the establishment 
of the University, Fray Juan de Zumárraga was aided by the 
Viceroy Mendoza. Among the earliest and most distinguished of 
its professors were Fray Alonso de la Veracruz, one of the great 
intellectual figures of colonial Mexico, to whom a monument has 
just been raised in the patio of the Faculty of Philosophy and 
Letters of the National University, an interesting testimony in 
contemporary Mexico of the esteem in which this Augustini'an 
friar is held. Zumárraga was responsible for the printing press; 
and of the 200 books published in Mexico in the sixteenth cen-
tury, the vast majority were of a religious character. Most of 
these were destined for the education of the Indians. The first 
publications in America in the field of Philosophy, Theology and 
Physics are the works of Alonso de la Veracruz. The investiga-
tion of the aboriginal languages and the creation of the discipline 
of philology in the New World was the work of Fray Andrés de 
Olmos, Fray Alonso de Molina, Fray Maturino Gilberti and 
others. The history of Mexico would be utterly unavailable but 
for the great contributions of Sahagún, Motolinia, Las Casas, 
Mendieta, Durán, Torquemada and others—all of them religious. 

The first strictly literary work in prose published in Mexico 



2 4 The Catholic Revival in Mexico 
was that of a priest, Francisco Cervantes de Salazar. The first 
dramatist born in Mexico was another priest, Juan Pérez Ramírez. 
The entire production for the theater in the sixteenth century was 
exclusively that of priests. 

The three greatest names in literature in the seventeenth cen-
tury were profoundly Catholic: one a Bishop, Bernardo de Bal-
buena; another a nun, Sor Juana Inez de la Cruz, and the third 
a layman of singular devotion, Juan Ruiz de Alarcón. The most 
learned figure in the field of science in this century in Mexico 
was a priest, Carlos de Siguenza y Góngora. The founder of the 
first newspaper in Mexico was another cleric, José María Casterona 
y Ursúa. One of the most notable of the poets influenced by 
Góngora was the Jesuit, Matías de Bocanegra. 

In the eighteenth century the situation is identical. Three 
priests were among the most distinguished poets of the time: 
Cayetano de Cabrera y Quintero, J. Manuel Sartorio and Fray 
Manuel Navarrete. The great humanists of this age were the 
Jesuits, who, after the expulsion in 1767 were forced into exile in 
Europe. Alegre, Clavigero, Cavo, Abad, Landívar and others are 
names which shed great luster on the Mexico of the time and 
whose culture was lost to the New World after the decree forcing 
the Society of Jesus out of the Spanish dominions. Another name 
to be reckoned with in this last century before independence is 
that of the scientist José Antonio Alzate, a man of humble condi-
tion but Of enormous importance in fomenting the development 
of the exact sciences in New Spain. One of the most important 
of the scientific societies of modern Mexico bears his name, al-
though it is rarely mentioned that he, too, was a priest. 

With the coming of independence, the number of members of 
the clergy engaged in intellectual and literary activities does not 
diminish. One of the leading poets of the period of independence 
is Father Anastasio de Ochoa. The most outstanding prose 
writers are also priests: Francisco Severo Maldonado, José María 
Cos, Fray Severando Teresa de Mier and others. The first Mex-
ican novelist, José Joaquín Fernández de Lizardi, was profoundly 
Catholic. The classical poets of the mid-century were largely lay-
men of solid Catholic background. Ignacio Ramírez was the most 
notable exception. The historians of the past century, of which 
Mexico has produced a legion, were almost entirely Catholic: 
Bustamante, Alamán, Luis Cuevas Orozco y Berra, García Icaz-
balceta, Nicolás León, Pereyra, etc. It would be impossible to 
omit in this extremely summary sketch of the influence of the 
Church in the culture of Mexico, reference to the place of two 



25 The Catholic Revival in Mexico 
bishops in the humanistic culture of the second half of the last century: Ignacio Montes de Oca, Bishop of San Luis Potosí, and Joaquin Arcadio Pegaza of Vera Cruz. 

Of the modernist poets, Manuel Gutiérrez Nájera and Manuel José Othón were Catholics. Amado Nervo was a Catholic in his youth, lost the faith, but fortunately returned to die within the Church. 
The present century is one in which all forms of Catholic ex-

pression have been seriously hampered by the persecution and the 
general elimination of religious influences from the official institu-
tions. In Mexico, as in all Latin American countries, cultural 
life flourishes with difficulty if not supported by the state. Since 
the national budget is inevitably the principal industry of the 
country, most forms of culture tend to languish if not the re-
cipients of periodic injections in the form of state aid. Catholic 
culture in Mexico has been cut off from such assistance. The 
astonishing thing is that it has been so vigorous and effective. In 
the field of history, two bishops wrote works of enduring value-
Francisco Planearte Navarrete with his Prehistoria de México 
and Francisco Banegas Galván, whose three volume Historia de 
México is indispensable. Three outstanding contemporary his-
torians, all priests, may be mentioned: Mariano Cuevas, S J José 
Bravo Ugarte, S.J., and Father Jesús García Gutiérrez. Father 
Cuevas is widely known for his monumental Historia de la Iglesia 
en México and his later Historia de la Nación Mexicana. Father 
Bravo Ugarte has published two volumes of the four which are to 
treat of the historical evolution of Mexico since pre-Cortesian 
times and which bid fair to constitute one of the most remarkable 
historical contributions of the present day in the Republic. Father 
Garcia Gutiérrez has done much in the examination of the prob-
lems created by the Patronato Real (Royal Patronage) in Mexico 
and the peculiarities of the relations of Church and State which 
have grown out of this arrangement. 

The history of philosophy in Mexico owes everything to the 
solid work done by the Bishop of León, Emeterio Valverde Téllez 
The most famous of contemporary Mexican thinkers, José Vas-
concelos, former Minister of Public Instruction, former candidate 
for the presidency and stormy petrel of Mexican politics for many 
years, was converted to Catholicism two years ago after a long and 
tempestuous career in the field of ideas far removed from the 
Church. Thomist thought is represented in contemporary Mexico 
by several important figures: Oswaldo Robles, Jesús Guisa v 
Acevedo and Antonio Gómez Robledo—all laymen Within the 



26 The Catholic Revival in Mexico 
last four or five years a young Jesuit, José Sánchez Villaseñor, 
has won considerable prestige through the publication of two 
books, El sistema filosófico de Vasconcelos (1929) and José Ortega 
y Gasset, Pensamiento y trayectoria (1943). Both works reveal 
a critical capacity of the first order. 

Although Catholic writers have been less distinguished in the 
field of the novel, mention may be made in passing of two con-
temporary novelists whose work is of positive interest and who are 
active Catholics, Perfecto Méndez Padilla and Eduardo J. Correa. 

On the purely literary side, by far the most fecund and in-
teresting manifestation of Catholic culture is that furnished by 
the religious poets. Not all of them limit their efforts to this field, 
but their great contribution to contemporary Mexican culture un-
doubtedly rests along this line. The mainspring of this movement 
has been the literary review, Abside, founded in 1937 and edited 
by Father Gabriel Méndez Planearte. This review, of extremely 
wide influence, is not concerned solely with poetry, but includes 
history, criticism and other phases of modern culture, all imbued 
with a definitely humanistic note. 

Alfonso Junco is outstanding among the modern Catholic poets 
and prose writers of Mexico. His influence is wide and deep and 
his productivity astonishing in view of his multiple occupations. 
His work antedates the founding of Abside. His outstanding 
poetical contributions are: El alma estrella (1920); Posesión 
(1923); La divina aventura (1938). In criticism, history, soci-
ology, etc., he has been amazingly prolific. Among this type of 
work are: Fisonomías (1927); Cristo (1931 and 1942); Motivos 
mexicanos (1933); Savia (1939); Un siglo de México (1934); 
and Egregios (1944). Alfonso Junco is one of the most original, 
vigorous and definitely Catholic writers in the Spanish language 
today. 

Gabriel Méndez Planearte, Doctor in Philosophy and Theology 
from the Gregorian University in Rome, is one of the younger 
priests whose place in Mexican culture is assured. He is the edi-
tor and founder of Abside. In addition, he has published three 
important works in verse: Primicias (1927); Oda secular guada-
lupana (1931); Salmos (1942). His Horacio en México, pub-
lished by the National University of Mexico in 1937 is an erudite 
and profound study of the influence of Horace and the Mexican 
translators of the great Latin poet, in Mexican literature. In 
1940 he published an anthology of the poems of Joaquin Arcadio 
Pegaza and a year later a most important volume, Humanistas del 
siglo XVIII. Two other critical works attest to his productivity: 



27 The Catholic Revival in Mexico 
Nueve poemas inéditos del P. Juan Luis Maneiro (1942), and the 
selection and editing of texts from the writings of Andrés Bello, 
published in 1943 by the Ministry of Education. The last work 
of Father Méndez Planearte is the product of three lectures given 
at the Palace of Fine Arts in January of 1944, entitled, Indice del 
humanismo mexicano (1944). One of the most suggestive ideas 
in this excellent treatment of the long and distinguished human-
istic tradition of Mexico is the emphasis on the fact that the most 
authentically democratic ideas in the experience of Mexico, are 
to be found in the work and the thought of three bishops, Julián 
Garcés, Vasco de Quiroga and Bartolomé de las Casas, and one 
Jesuit theologian, Francisco Xavier Alegre. The examination of 
the role of these precursors during the early century sheds abun-
dant light on the attitude of the Church toward the Indian, and 
the enormous contribution of the clergy and the religious orders 
to a sane and consistent solution of the problem of harmonizing 
the indigenous and the Hispanic: the problem that has haunted 
Mexico with unremitting anguish ever since Cortés first set foot 
on Mexican soil. 

The name of Father Angel Maria Garibay has been men-
tioned. He must be included in this short list of the most impor-
tant Catholic literary men of the present day in Mexico. He is 
at the present time a Canon at the Basilica of Our Lady of 
Guadalupe in the outskirts of Mexico City. He has published one 
volume only of poems, El poema de los Arboles. His most out-
standing work has been the translation into Spanish of pre-
conquest Aztec poetry: La Poesía Urica azteca (1937); Poesía 
indígena de la Altaplanicie (1940); Llave del Nahuatl (1940); 
and Poesía Indígena precortesiana, published in Abside in 1942'. 
In addition to the important scholarship in the Indian literatures 
of the country, Father Garibay had devoted considerable atten-
tion to the Spanish rendition of the Latin and Greek classics 
Esquilo: Tnlagía de Orestes (1938). 

Father Octaviano Valdés belongs definitely to this school of 
religious poets and humanists. As is the case with so many of the 
present day Mexican clergy, Father Valdés is a product of the 
Pío Latino, Seminary for Latin Americans, in Rome. In his El 
Pozo de Jacob and in numerous poems published in Abside, he 
reveals himself as one of the most original and deepest of the con-
temporary Mexican poets. An excellent critic, he published his 
El Prisma de Horacio in 1937. He also translated in elegant 
Spanish the great Latin poem of Landivar, Rusticatio Mexicana, 
under the title, Por los campos de México. 



28 The Catholic Revival in Mexico 
Father Alfonso Méndez Planearte, brother of Father Gabriel 

Méndez, is distinguished primarily as a critic. His principal 
works are El grano de mostaza and Mañana del poeta (1938), 
which is an ample study of Amado Nervo whose earlier verses, 
still unpublished, were brought together in this volume. He also 
published a volume entitled Poetas Novo-hispanos (1942), an 
anthology of Mexican poets in the sixteenth century. Father 
Méndez plans to publish two other similar volumes devoted to 
the poetry of the following two centuries. Much of his criticism 
has appeared in Abside and in the columns of El Universal, to 
which he is a regular contributor. 

José Luis Ojeda, a priest, published one small book of verse 
under the title, Claridad. This was followed by Agua que corre, 
which appeared in 1943. Father Francisco Alday, whose poems 
have appeared in Abside and given evidence of inspiration and 
ability, has not yet published in book form. Father Manuel 
Ponce is the youngest of the group. Also a priest, he has been 
profoundly influenced by the modern Spanish poets: Juan Ramón 
Jiménez, Frederico García Lorca, Pedro Salinas and others. Two 
small volumes have come from his pen: Ciclo de Vírgenes (1939) 
and Quadragenerato y segunda pasión (1942). 

There is no strictly Catholic press in Mexico. The political 
and social atmosphere is plainly not conducive to the existence of 
a Catholic daily, along the lines, let us say of El'Debate, or the 
A.B.C. in the Madrid of before the Civil War. Catholic writers 
have found an outlet in the great Mexico City dailies and perhaps 
this has served to give them an influence which would have been 
much more restricted if they were limited to the purely Catholic 
press. It is often forgotten that it is equally important to reach 
a non-Catholic reading public as it is to repeat to the Catholic 
public what may be already fairly widely accepted ideas. Mexican 
Catholic writers and journalists have had this advantage and 
have found no difficulty in expressing themselves freely on mat-
ters close to the Church. The atmosphere at the' present time is 
one of complete freedom of expression and there is no evidence 
that any restrictions except that of ordinary prudence apply to 
what may be written on religious subjects. 

Among those who contribute weekly to the metropolitan press 
are Alfonso Junco, already mentioned. For years he was a regu-
lar columnist on El Universal. Of late he is attached to Nove-
dades, one of the most energetic editorial enterprises in Mexico 
City. Junco is recognized everywhere as a distinctly Catholic 
writer. On the same newspaper is to be found one of the most 



29 The Catholic Revival in Mexico 
active Mexican thinkers in the social and economic field, Mariano 
Alcocer, Professor in the National University and voluminous 
writer on social problems. Every Tuesday his column appears 
in Novedades and his influence now extends to provinces where 
he contributes regularly to four newspapers. Another Catholic 
writer, Jesús Guisa y Acevedo, is also attached to Novedades and 
writes openly and frankly as a Catholic journalist. Father Alfonso 
Méndez Planearte appears every Monday morning in El Universal 
in articles notable for the purity of style and the subtlety of 
thought. Father Antonio Brambila has written a weekly column 
in El Universal for many years, touching every conceivable topic. 
He has not published in book form, although his prose is among 
the most agile and original in Mexico and his clarity of thought 
and expression outstanding. An able historian, Eduardo Enrique 
Ríos, writes a regular column for Novedades and avows his 
Catholicism openly. There are many other Catholics who write 
for the press. Many do not deal with matters relating to the 
Church at all or are merely occasional contributors. In this class 
are to be found such Catholics as Alberto María Carreño, Rafael 
García Granados, and many others. 

These brief notes on the intellectual revival in Mexico would 
be incomplete without reference to the state of Catholic reviews. 
This is by no means an exhaustive list. It is merely a number of 
the best known titles and indicates the relatively wide coverage of 
the Catholic journals and the variety of their content. One of 
the most interesting features is the fact that a number of the 
diocesan seminaries publish their own reviews, edited by the semi-
narians, which not infrequently are of the highest caliber. In-
cluded in this category are: Due in Altum (Seminary of the Arch-
diocese of Mexico); Apóstol (Seminary of Guadalajara); Trento 
(Seminary of Morelia); Presagio (Seminary of León); Palestra 
(Seminary of Aguascalientes); Studium (Seminary of Colima). 

This is by no means complete but gives some idea of this phase 
of Catholic publications. Many of the dioceses now have their 
own official bulletin which in some cases is of strictly local interest 
and in others contains material of more general Catholic concern. 
The Gaceta oficial del Arzobispado de México, the Boletín Eclesi-
ástico of Guadalajara and the Revista Eclesiástico of Puebla are 
typical of this group. There are perhaps eight or ten dioceses in 
the Republic that issue such bulletins. 

More general publications, either avowedly Catholic or prac-
tically so in the light of their orientation, are: Abside, edited by 
Father Gabriel Méndez Planearte; J us i primarily interested in 



30 The Catholic Revival in Mexico 
Law and the Social Sciences, (Editor: Lic. Juan Landerreche 
Obregón); La Nación, official organ of Acción Nacional, to which 
reference will be made under that section; Orden, the review of 
the Synarchist movement which supplements the weekly paper 
El Sinarquista. 

More specialized reviews, with emphasis on various fields are: 
Estudios Históricos, edited in Guadalajara by Father Luis Medina 
Ascensio; La Voz Guadalupana, edited officially by the Basilica of 
Our Lady of Guadalupe; Christus, an ecclesiastical review pri-
marily for priests edited by Father José Romero, S.J.; Vida, 
popular review, edited also by Father Romero. 

The organization known as La Buena Prensa is a most re-
markable effort to disseminate widely cheap editions of Catholic 
pamphlets and booklets. It has issued millions of such publica-
tions and publishes regularly several reviews on varying levels, of 
which the last two mentioned above are examples. 

The excellent review, Divulgación Histórica, edited by Alberto 
María Carrefio, has unfortunately ceased to appear. 

Sacred music has merited in Mexico two important reviews. 
One is Schola Cantorum, edited by Miguel Bernal Jiménez, a lay-
man, in Morelia, which has had a positive influence in creating 
interest in the production outside of Mexico City in this special 
field. The National Commission on Sacred Music of which 
Monsignor Miguel Darío Miranda, Bishop of Tulancingo, is 
chairman, issues a review, Cantantibus Organis. 

The more popular field is represented by the Mensajero del 
Sagrado Corazón, and Rutas, an interesting Catholic review issued 
in Monterrey. 

The Catholic youth organizations are represented by Juventud 
Católica of the Acción Católica de Juventud Mexicana, and 
Juventud, edited by Guadalupe Gutiérrez Velasco, the organ of 
the women's branch of the same organization. 

The Franciscans have an interesting and well edited review 
called Resurgimiento published under the direction of Father 
Guillermo Valle in Zapopán, State of Jalisco. It would be im-
possible, of course, not to mention the organ of Montezuma Semi-
nary in New Mexico, Montezuma, which reaches a considerable 
reading public in Mexico. 

During the persecution, Catholic primary and even secondary 
schools were maintained under the most trying conditions. The 
real difficulty was in the field of higher education. I t is plain that 
a Catholic university cannot exist in Mexico, at least at the pres-
ent time. A number of private projects have taken shape which 



31 The Catholic Revival in Mexico 
serve the purpose of providing Catholic instruction on the higher 
level. 

Space does not allow a detailed description of all of them. 
Note will be made of three, each of which in its own sphere con-
tributes to the formation of a Catholic consciousness among the 
young men and women of Mexico. One of the oldest establish-
ments is Cultura Feminina, founded in 1926 under the immediate 
direction of a most remarkable Catholic laywoman, Sofia del 
Valle, and under the general inspiration of the present Bishop 
Miranda. This institution came into being at the height of the 
persecution. The, trials and tribulations in managing to find ac-
commodations were innumerable. The purpose was to bring to-
gether a selected group of Catholic girls who would receive over 
a period of four years a thorough grounding in Catholic philosophy, 
apologetics and action. This group was trained to influence, others 
who might come in contact with them in their own localities. It 
was to provide effective and intelligent leadership among Catholic 
women, no matter what their ultimate destiny might be. For 
eighteen years this institution has functioned. Hundreds of young 
women have gone out and have become a lay apostolate of the 
greatest importance. "Catholic Action" as such has received the 
important impetus of this increasing group of trained Catholic 
workers. 

• Another institution for women, also in Mexico City, is the 
Instituto Familiar y Social de México. This is a Catholic center 
on an entirely different level. It seeks in a maximum period of 
two years to offer practical domestic training to young women 
and girls who intend to form homes. It does not pretend to "intel-
lectualize" them, nor to make them outstanding Catholic thinkers. 
It provides all of the phases of domestic sciences and seeks to in-
culcate in the young woman who may pursue the course both the 
practical training necessary in the home and the basis of under-
standing of the Catholic concept of marriage and its responsibilities. 

The Centra Cultural Universitario was founded a few years 
ago under the auspices of the Society of Jesus for the purpose of 
providing young men with instruction at the university level. This 
has become an increasingly important Catholic center, since it is 
under its auspices that many of the Catholic student organizations 
function. It offers a complete program in the fields of history, 
philosophy and letters and its work is recognized by the National 
University of Mexico. The Director and leading spirit in this 
important enterprise is Father Alfonso Castiello, S.J. 



32 The Catholic Revival in Mexico 
DISCUSSION TOPICS 

1. (a) What are the legal restrictions on Catholic schools and the teach-
ing by religions? (b) the actual status of Catholic schools? (c) of 
Seminaries? 

2. What is the atmosphere and influence of the National University of 
Mexico ? 

3. What is (a) the general influence of the Church with regard to Mexican cultural history? (b) its work in the preservation of historical docu-ments; in the establishment of schools and universities; introducing the printing press; work on Indian languages; literature; drama. 
4. What was the character of the literary and scientific figures in the 

seventeenth and eighteenth centuries? Of the Independence period? 
The last century? 

5. Why has Catholic culture been hampered during the present century? 
6. Discuss the work of the following: (a) Historians; (b) Philosophers; 

(c) Novelists. 
7. What is the place of the religious poets in contemporary Catholic 

culture ? 
8. Why do Catholic writings appear so frequently in the metropolitan 

press of Mexico? Who are some of the regular contributors to Nove-
dades and El Universal ? 

9. Discuss the character of the seminary reviews; diocesan bulletins; gen-
eral publications and specialized review?; popular pamphlets; music; 
Catholic Action publications, etc. 

10. Describe the work of the following in the education of young men and 
women: (a) Cultura Feminina; (b) Instituto Familiar y Social de 
Mexico; (c) Centro Cultural Universitario. 

Suggested Readings 

The Epic of Latin American Literature, Arturo Torres-Rioseco. Oxford 
University Press, New York. 1942. Chapter I. 
Mexico and the V. S. C. A. I. P. Sections XVI, XVII. 
"Literary Contributions of Catholics in Nineteenth Century Mexico," Francis Borgia Steck, O.F.M. The Americas, Vol. I, No. 1. Academy of American 
Franciscan History, Washington. 
"The Franciscan Contribution to Mexican Culture," Eduardo Enrique Rios. 
The Americas, Vol. I, No. 1. Academy of American Franciscan History, 
Washington. 
"The Catholic Literary Revival in Mexico," James A. Magner. The Cath-
olic World, Vol. 152, pp. 458-62. 



IV. ORGANIZED MOVEMENTS CLAIMING CATHOLIC 
INSPIRATION 

Acción Nacional 

The history of organized political parties in opposition to the 
established government has not been a particularly happy one. 
During the period of Francisco I. Madero there was a Catholic 
political party in existence which had a completely ephemeral 
record. After that date there was no possibility of direct political 
action as such. Catholic thinking in Mexico on the organization 
of a Catholic political party is now determined entirely by the atti-
tude of the hierarchy, which is completely opposed to this re-
course, and by the specific instructions contained in the com-
munication of His Holiness Pius XI to the hierarchy of Mexico 
under date of February 2, 1926, entitled, Paterna Sane Sollicitudo 
In this message the Pope reiterated his instructions that "in the 
light of the unfavorable conditions prevailing in your country, it is 
necessary that you, your clergy and the Catholic organizations, 
remain as far removed as possible from the passions of political 
factions so that your enemies may not take religion as merely an-
other political party. Therefore, all citizens, as Catholics, should 
form no political party or faction which bears the name of Cath-
olic; the Bishops and clergy should refrain from identifying them-
selves with political parties, or writing in newspapers of a dis-
tinctly political character, since their ministry is to reach all the 
faithful and all the citizens." 

On the basis of this unequivocal statement, there was no place 
for a Catholic party, even if Mexico had been a territory favorable 
for the rearing up of such an opposition party. 

This did not mean that political parties which might be op-
posed to many aspects of the present regime and the policies of 
the Mexican Revolution could not seek in Catholic social teaching 
a basis for their programs. This is precisely what Acción Nacio-
nal has done. The movement is important because of its recent 
foundation, its leadership and the content of its program. Acción 
Nacional came into existence in 1939 through the effort of a dis-

4 An important collection of the papal directives on this point as well as on "Catholic Action" in general is Pio XI y la Acción Católica Mexicana (Documentos) published by the Secretariado Social Mexicano in 1939. 
33 



3 4 The Catholic Revival in Mexico 
tinguished Mexican lawyer, Manuel Gómez Morín, to gather to-
gether a-group of able and talented younger men who would un-
dertake to create 'a national conscience along traditional lines, en-
lightened by the needs of the present time. Gómez Morín him-
self is one of the ablest lawyers in the republic, a brilliant expert 
in fiscal and monetary matters and a person of the highest per-
sonal prestige and reputation. His career began when he was 
barely in his twenties and was named Under-Secretary of Finance 
at the time that Alvaro Obregón was President. His work in the 
Ministry was unique. He laid the foundations for important re-
forms and was responsible primarily for launching the central 
Banco de México as an expedient and necessary financial measure. 
In 1933, when he was professor of law in the National University, 
he was involved, as has already been mentioned, in the fight against 
Socialist penetration. This attitude catapulted him into the post 
of Rector where he remained for a year. He found himself the 
Rector of a University which had been given ten million pesos 
and had been told to fend for itself on the income from this sum. 
His career in this position was brief, but to him goes much of the 
credit for saving the University from the assault leveled against 
it by the extreme left. At this time, he had given thought to the 
idea of forming a group which would resist the penetration of 
Marxist doctrine. He did not favor the proposal of many younger 
Mexicans, that the best way to defeat this type of propaganda 
was to join the government and influence the administration from 
within. Gómez Morín favoíed a permanent organization which 
would concern itself all the time with the development of a civic 
consciousness. He interpreted political action as something that 
occurred day in and day out: as a sort of vigilance exercised on 
behalf of the Mexican people over the administration of their af-
fairs. It was not merely an event that took place every three or 
six years when the president was elected or the votes were cast for 
the Chamber of Deputies or the Senate. 

The idea took shape definitely in 1939, on the eve of the elec-
tions of 1940. The political atmosphere of Mexico-in 1940 was 
unusual. For the first time, perhaps, since the days of Francisco 
Madero, there was real hope that the electorate would have rela-
tive freedom of choice. The candidacy of Juan Andreu Almazán 
undoubtedly aroused a high degree of popular enthusiasm. Cath-
olics tended to see in him a better leadership than Mexico had 
known before. Many others, however, were convinced that 
Almazán represented exactly the same influences and the same 
traditions as had prevailed in Mexican politics these many years. 



35 The Catholic Revival in Mexico 
Acción Nacional was formally organized in September of 1939, 
after a considerable amount of canvassing, of soundings of political 
opinion and of appraisal throughout the country of the opportune-
ness of the movement. 

The movement was primarily launched by young professional 
men who had been formed and oriented by Manuel Gómez Morín. 
It was given impetus by the active participation of outstanding 
Catholic leaders, such as Efraín González Luna of Guadalajara, 
able lawyer, and one of the best informed Mexicans on Catholic 
social doctrine. On September 14, 1939, in the Frontón México, 
in Mexico City, the constituent assembly of the party was formally 

"opened. Aside from the question of the party platform, the 
major question debated was that of the participation in the com-
ing elections. There was a sharp division of opinion, since many 
of the members felt that to take part in the elections, which would 
probably mean complete defeat, would merely endanger the exist-
ence of the party. Since Acción Nacional could not, itself, submit 
a candidate to the Mexican people, it decided to support the oppo-
sition candidate for the presidency, seeking in this way to con-
tribute to the overwhelming desire of the people of Mexico for a 
change of regime and for a cleansing of the administrative stables. 
The results of the campaign of 1940 are, of course, too well 
known to require comment here. The official candidate of the 
Revolutionary Party triumphed. 

Acción Nacional began an intensive effort to organize itself 
throughout the Republic. Since 1940 the increase has been steady. 
Regional committees were set up, local organizations perfected, 
leaders chosen and in general the movement sought to establish 
roots in the soil of Mexico. Its general position may be stated 
as one of frank and open opposition to the government as it now 
functions. There is no hesitancy nor vacillation about its pro-
gram. It works in the light of day and scorns intrigue or any-
thing smacking of subversive activity. It urges constantly that 
its political activities be carried out within the framework of the 
law. In terms of Mexican politics, Acción Nacional^represents the 
modern, up to date attitude of how to go about things. It is not 
•rooted in the past nor does it conceive of Mexico's future as a re-
turn to Porfirio Diaz. It is not, of course, a party that is endorsed 
by the hierarchy nor does it have any connection with it. It 
seeks to avoid anything which runs counter to Catholic teaching, 
but does not maintain any affiliation with nor is it under the direc-
tion of the Church. Many of its leaders are active and militant 
Catholics, well grounded in the social ideas of the Church. Its 



36 The Catholic Revival in Mexico 
leadership represents the best in Mexican life, both professionally 
and spiritually. There is some criticism of it as excessively in-
tellectual. The appeal of its program and of its expression is 
perhaps greatest among the professional and middle classes. I t 
does seek constantly to reach the workers and farmers. In some 
of the states this has been achieved to a greater extent than in 
others. In Guerrero, for example, Acción Nacional has made 
considerable headway among the rural classes. In the Federal 
District, on the other hand, it has not been as successful in win-
ning support among the working classes. In the congressional 
elections of 1943, Acción Nacional again determined to enter the 
campaign. Candidates were submitted in several districts, nota-
bly Jalisco, La Laguna, Querétaro Orizaba, Guerrero and the 
Federal District. There was considerable hope that, with the 
era of good feeling generated by President Avila Camacho and 
his real concern for the establishment of the democratic process 
in Mexico, this election might give the opposition a chance to 
secure representation in the national congress. Such hopes were 
shattered when it became evident that the usual strong arm 
tactics would produce a Senate and a Chamber completely identi-
fied with the single dominant party. There was some discourage-
ment and even some defections from Acción Nacional as a result 
of this set-back. The party managed, however, to weather this 
storm and to carry on its work. The principal agency of public-
ity is La Nación, the editor of which is Carlos Septién, and 
which is admirably presented. Perhaps no weekly publication in 
Mexico can vie with it for excellence of content and generally 
high level. 

Synarchism 
It is obviously impracticable to analyze in a few lines the 

content and the tendencies of a movement as complex and as 
debatable as Synarchism. The important thing is to indicate 
something of its origin, program and the present status of its 
activities. No modern Mexican movement has aroused as much 
interest abroad nor been accused of more villainies. Its influ-
ance has crossed the Rio Grande to affect a few Mexicans living 
within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States. The 
movement is the cause of endless diatribe on the part of the offi-
cial Mexican labor organizations and the official party. It is 
pilloried day in and day out in posters and handbills. I t has 
been accused of close collaboration with the Nazis; its program 



37 The Catholic Revival in Mexico 
has been denounced as Fascist. Its leaders have been charged 
with every national and international sin within the imagination 
of man. 

The movement began in May of 1937 in the state of Guana-
juato where several lawyers, including Manuel Zermeno, José 
Trueba Olivares and Salvador Abascal were instrumental in 
launching the idea. A leading figure in this effort was an agri-
culturist, José Antonio Urquiza. The National Synarchist Union 
was the consequence of these conversations. Its program was 
conceived as a reaction against the stridencies of the Mexican 
Revolution; against the unspiritual character of the trend of af-
fairs in the Republic. I t was conceived of as a profoundly popu-
lar movement since the" original Synarchists affirmed their abid-
ing faith in the virtues of the common people of Mexico, un-
touched to a large degree by the corruption of the times. In this 
way, Synarchism became at once a movement of masses. Its ap-
peal was directed primarily to the farmers and workers. The re-
sults in terms of numbers have been nothing short of astonishing. 
The assumption of the movement is that Mexico is in a state of 
anarchy, thanks to decades of "corruptive doctrines disseminated 
by the revolutionaries." It declares over and over again that it is 
not a political party and does not aspire to be such; that it is a 
social movement the purpose of which is to establish in the hearts 
of the Mexican people sound principles which in due time will 
make possible the realization of a Christian social order. The 
reference to a "Christian Order" is constant in Synarchist litera-
ture and in the official organ of the movement, El Sinarquista. 
It is profoundly national if not avowedly nationalistic and claims 
to reject all foreign tutelage and influence, be it from the left or 
from the right. I t formally condemns totalitarianism, dictator-
ships and tyrannies. 

Much space is devoted to the problem of liberty and its limita-
tions, to what is termed "libertinism" and its dangers. Democ-
racy, that is simply liberalism in the old sense, it opposes. I t 
asks for a new kind of democracy. The program reiterates over 
and over again the well-known phrases of "dignity of the human 
person" and "the common good." The Christian social order, 
assert the Synarchists, is the essential goal of their program of 
activity. The Synarchist movement revealed itself early in its 
history as made up of zealous persons bent on carrying these 
ideas to the great mass of Mexicans. The missionary attitude 
was extremely pronounced and resulted in the most outstanding 
characteristic of the followers of Synarchism: their utter and com-



38 The Catholic Revival in Mexico 
plete willingness to suffer death if need be for the cause. In many 
parts of the Republic, Synarchist demonstrations were broken up 
with violence. The movement, which denies consistently that it 
is a political party and wishes no part in electoral activities, re-
fused to allow its members to go armed.. Thousands of peasants 
have marched without a single revolver among them and not a 
few fell victims to the bitter antagonism of their enemies. The 
movement acquired the potency and the force of mysticism. 

One comment made by a most responsible member of the 
Mexican clergy is to the effect that Synarchism is in reality a 
movement of mass mysticism, with tremendous possibilities and 
equally tremendous dangers. It is the type of thing that if con-
trolled and curbed may achieve remarkable progress, and which, 
precisely because of its intense emotionalism, its fervor, and its 
reckless disregard for the conveniences of ordinary politics, can 
easily become disoriented. 

The denial of political intentions leads the Synarchists to affirm 
that their movement is purely social and that their meetings are 
nothing more than the gathering of Mexican citizens to ask for a 
redress of grievances or to examine the social deficiencies under 
which they live. The strength of Synarchism in large part has 
come from the rigid adherence to the law and a refusal to go out-
side of it. There is nothing of the Cristero spirit in Synarchism 
and no note of the sentiment which some Catholics once held that 
violence and bloodshed was the only way of gaining a chance to 
be heard. 

Synarchism is especially vehement in its denunciation of Com-
munism and of what it claims to be the attempts of the Mexican 
government, especially the former administration, to impose Com-
munistic ideas on the country. The movement expressly con-
demns Nazism, Fascism and the other forms of totalitarianism. 
In a clear declaration it is stated "Synarchism maintains that no 
social program could prosper in Mexico on the principles of Naz-
ism, Fascism or any other form of totalitarian government. 
Totalitarianism would be the death and destruction of all the ef-
forts of Synarchism, of all its sacrifices and of all its hopes." 
Naturally the enemies of the movement did not believe this decla-
ration. Unfortunately the terms totalitarianism, Nazi-Fascist, 
fifth columnist and the like have become through overuse and mis-
use the standard epithets of our day. They are the terms ap-
plied to anyone whom one may not like, just as in the old days, 
Communist was hurled at practically everyone who suggested, no 
matter how mildly, that some of the aspects of the present social 



39 The Catholic Revival in Mexico 
order might well be changed. They are merely the up-to-date 
and modern lexicon of diatribe which has a well-known precursor 
in the nineteenth century use in Latin America of Masons for 
everyone whom Catholics did not like and Jesuits for everyone 
whom those of the liberal or leftist persuasion did not like. The 
Synarchists have been denounced as the vanguard of Nazi-Fascist 
penetration over and over again. This technique has begun to 
wear a little thin and there is no evidence whatsoever that the 
charges are true. One of the most oft repeated accusations was 
that Synarchism was founded in 1935 by a German, Oscar 
Schreiter, and that it was supported financially by the Church. 
Neither contention is correct. Clerical influence, if it exists, has 
been slight and at no time has there been any attempt to link the 
interests of the Mexican Church as such to the movement. Spe-
cial care has always been taken to make clear that the Churches 
not behind the movement or in any manner attached to its 
fortunes. 

The Synarchist program emphasizes what it calls Christian 
democracy. The problem of education receives considerable at-
tention, and especially the famous Article III of the Constitution 
of which mention has been made. Synarchism denounces, in un-
restricted terms, this statute and proposes the most absolute lib-
erty of education in the country. The movement seeks above all 
to reach the 70 or 80 per cent of the Mexicans who live on the 
land. It is in the remote rural districts and small villages through-
out the country that Synarchism has managed to gain thousands 
of partisans. The reading of the communications from the prov-
inces in the columns of El Sinarquista are particularly revealing 
on this point. The enthusiasm, fervor and spirit of self-sacrifice 
that these texts reveal are profoundly moving. 

Synarchism on the economic plane proposes that the system of 
the large estates be strictly limited. Land ownership is pro-
claimed as indispensable for the prosperity of the family and 
hence its division among the peasantry is necessary and recom-
mendable. The program of the movement calls attention to the 
inadequacies of the present ejido system, its failure to realize its 
full purposes and the misery in which many of the farmers find 
themselves. This is pointed out as one of the gravest dangers for 
the stability of the Republic. "The principal mission of Synarchism 
is to reconstruct Mexico's agriculture." On the side of labor, 
Synarchism affirms its faith in the organization of labor, but de-
plores the existence of what is termed the demagoguery of the 



4 0 The Catholic Revival in Mexico 
present labor organizations, led by rapacious individuals who ex-
ploit the membership of the workers. 

One of the most interesting projects of Synarchism was the 
colonization scheme in Lower California. The undertaking had 
its origins in 1941 on the most desolate part of the long coast 
facing the Pacific Ocean, and the enterprise is still under way 
with between 400 and 500 persons engaged in winning a living 
from the inhospitable soil of that peninsula. No claim to the 
land existed and according to Synarchism, Mexico might in due 
time find her sovereignty to that area seriously challenged. The 
project had the approval of President Avila Camacho. Salvador 
Abascal, then leader of the movement, established himself per-
sonally in that area as part of the impetus to the colonization 
project. 

One of the common charges launched against the movement is 
that it is hostile to the United States and its policies. The prob-
lem is not as simple as appears at first glance. As has been stated 
in another part of this study, the attitude toward the United 
States is not the result of momentary circumstance nor of the 
exigencies of the war. Mental reservations about the United 
States do not necessarily mean that the person holding them is 
sympathetic to the Axis. The incredible over-simplification in 
which most of us indulge has produced a type of thinking in 
which only constant paens of praise to the United States are con-
vincing evidence of the loyalty to the cause of democracy. Many 
Mexicans are unable to see the problem in this somewhat naive 
light. A century of Mexican Catholic suspicions of the United 
States cannot be scotched in a few years or even a decade. The 
Catholic mentality of Mexico has been formed and developed 
through years of experience in which the United States has been 
seen as a nation exercising enormous pressure on Mexico and 
supporting those movements which were repugnant to the senti-
ments of Catholics. This cannot be eradicated at once, no matter 
how sane and honest the present policy of the United States may 
be. Synarchism reflects in large measure this traditional attitude. 
It reflects also the opposition to the older liberalism which had 
been appended to the democracies. It explains that it "tries sin-
cerely to participate in the attitude and viewpoint of the United 
States" and hopes that "the United States will always have in 
mind Mexico's point of view, its traditions, the religious faith of 
its people, and will nurse no desire to impose a foreign culture 
upon it." If Synarphism is not anti-American in the ordinary 



41 The Catholic Revival in Mexico 
sense of the word, it is probably nearer the truth to say that it 
follows the line of watchful waiting. 

The most startling developments in regard to Synarchism have 
come during the month of May. There were rumors to the effect 
that Salvador Abascal had left the movement as early as April. 
On May 17, 1944, the Mexico City daily, Novedades, published 
a long statement in which he explained the reasons for his resig-
nation from the Unión Nacional Sinarquista, and the charges 
which he held against his successor, Manuel Torres Bueno. Aside 
from a number of points of purely personal concern, there were 
points of grave discrepancy regarding policy and the idea that 
Synarchism should become a political party. Abascal accused 
Torres Bueno of withholding assistance for the colony in Lower 
California. He was categoric in denying the utility of making the 
movement political. He commented caustically that even if Syn-
archism did become a political party and chose to resist the in-
fluence of the official party, what hope did an independent move-
ment have against the armed force upon which the opposition 
could count? At the conclusion of his declaration, Abascal an-
nounced that Trueba Olivares and several others of influence and 
prestige in the movement had resigned with him. The present 
leader did not reply to these charges. The left wing elements of 
course were filled with elation and glee. The Party of the Mexi-
can Revolution at once issued a statement to the effect that the 
words of Abascal revealed "the criminal and obscure in the po-
litical and economic motives of Synarchism." Deputy Salvador 
Ochoa Rentería burst into print without delay to declare that 
Abascal's statement proved that the many accusations he had 
made in the Chamber of Deputies against Synarchism were well 
founded. 

The Mexico City weekly, Tiempo, which is*" anything but 
favorable to the so-called "right," devotes the principal article 
of its issue of May 19, 1944, to the crisis within the ranks of the 
Synarchists. It called attention to the curious fact that in July of 
1943, a meeting of the Mexican Communist Party revealed openly 
that there were two antagonistic groups within its organization. 
At the same time, so it is said, the Synarchists, who were meeting 
not far away, showed evidence of the same process of division. 
The split in the Communist ranks took three months to become 
public knowledge; that of the Synarchists nine months. One of the 
most curious of the statements included in this report is that at-
tributed to Salvador Abascal, who allegedly said that "while I 
was Chief of the movement, the Catholic Church had nothing to 



4 0 The Catholic Revival in Mexico 
present labor organizations, led by rapacious individuals who ex-
ploit the membership of the workers. 

One of the most interesting projects of Synarchism was the 
colonization scheme in Lower California. The undertaking had 
its origins in 1941 on the most desolate part of the long coast 
facing the Pacific Ocean, and the enterprise is still under way 
with between 400 and 500 persons engaged in winning a living 
from the inhospitable soil of that peninsula. No claim to the 
land existed and according to Synarchism, Mexico might in due 
time find her sovereignty to that area seriously challenged. The 
project had the approval of President Avila Camacho. Salvador 
Abascal, then leader of the movement, established himself per-
sonally in that area as part of the impetus to the colonization 
project. 

One of the common charges launched against the movement is 
that it is hostile to the United States and its policies. The prob-
lem is not as simple as appears at first glance. As has been stated 
in another part of this study, the attitude toward the United 
States is not the result of momentary circumstance nor of the 
exigencies of the war. Mental reservations about the United 
States do not necessarily mean that the person holding them is 
sympathetic to the Axis. The incredible over-simplification in 
which most of us indulge has produced a type of thinking in 
which only constant paens of praise to the United States are con-
vincing evidence of the loyalty to the cause of democracy. Many 
Mexicans are unable to see the problem in this somewhat naive 
light. A century of Mexican Catholic suspicions of the United 
States cannot be scotched in a few years or even a decade. The 
Catholic mentality of Mexico has been formed and developed 
through years of experience in which the United States has been 
seen as a nation exercising enormous pressure on Mexico and 
supporting those movements which were repugnant to the senti-
ments of Catholics. This cannot be eradicated at once, no matter 
how sane and honest the present policy of the United States may 
be. Synarchism reflects in large measure this traditional attitude. 
It reflects also the opposition to the older liberalism which had 
been appended to the democracies. It explains that it "tries sin-
cerely to participate in the attitude and viewpoint of the United 
States" and hopes that "the United States will always have in 
mind Mexico's point of view, its traditions, the religious faith of 
its people, and will nurse no desire to impose a foreign culture 
upon it." If Synarphism is not anti-American in the ordinary 



41 The Catholic Revival in Mexico 
sense of the word, it is probably nearer the truth to say that it 
follows the line of watchful waiting. 

The most startling developments in regard to Synarchism have 
come during the month of May. There were rumors to the effect 
that Salvador Abascal had left the movement as early as April. 
On May 17, 1944, the Mexico City daily, Novedades, published 
a long statement in which he explained the reasons for his resig-
nation from the Unión Nacional Sinarquista, and the charges 
which he held against his successor, Manuel Torres Bueno. Aside 
from a number of points of purely personal concern, there were 
points of grave discrepancy regarding policy and the idea that 
Synarchism should become a political party. Abascal accused 
Torres Bueno of withholding assistance for the colony in Lower 
California. He was categoric in denying the utility of making the 
movement political. He commented caustically that even if Syn-
archism did become a political party and chose to resist the in-
fluence of the official party, what hope did an independent move-
ment have against the armed force upon which the opposition 
could count? At the conclusion of his declaration, Abascal an-
nounced that Trueba Olivares and several others of influence and 
prestige in the movement had resigned with him. The present 
leader did not reply to these charges. The left wing elements of 
course were filled with elation and glee. The Party of the Mexi-
can Revolution at once issued a statement to the effect that the 
words of Abascal revealed "the criminal and obscure in the po-
litical and economic motives of Synarchism." Deputy Salvador 
Ochoa Rentería burst into print without delay to declare that 
Abascal's statement proved that the many accusations he had 
made in the Chamber of Deputies against Synarchism were well 
founded. 

The Mexico City weekly, Tiempo, which is*1 anything but 
favorable to the so-called "right," devotes the principal article 
of its issue of May 19, 1944, to the crisis within the ranks of the 
Synarchists. I t called attention to the curious fact that in July of 
1943, a meeting of the Mexican Communist Party revealed openly 
that there were two antagonistic groups within its organization. 
At the same time, so it is said, the Synarchists, who were meeting 
not far away, showed evidence of the same process of division. 
The split in the Communist ranks took three months to become 
public knowledge; that of the Synarchists nine months. One of the 
most curious of the statements included in this report is that at-
tributed to Salvador Abascal, who allegedly said that "while I 
was Chief of the movement, the Catholic Church had nothing to 



42 The Catholic Revival in Mexico 
do with the organization nor with the determination of its policy. 
I would not be prepared to say as much at the present time." 
This, of course, must be taken with the proverbial granurn salis, 
coming as it does from an ex-leader now in controversy with the 
present chief of the movement. 

In the issue of December 23, 1943, the text of the address of 
José Trueba Olivares was printed in which this Synarchist leader 
asserted that the United States was certainly not responsible for 
all of the ills of Mexico and that Synarchism could not stand for 
an anti-American brand of Hispanism. The national leader of the 
movement had made a statement to foreign correspondents at 
about the same time in which he condemned the process of de-
hispanization of the peoples of Latin America and urged that 
Pan-Americanism and Hispanism be understood as two forces 
which were by no means antagonistic. He concluded by saying 
that "we believe that the culture and the Christian origins of the 
peoples of the Americas are the best basis for the achievement of 
continental unity." 

A word to indicate the latest development. Late in June El 
Sinarquista published two articles which were interpreted as sedi-
tious. In one, the government was denounced as irresponsible 
and incapable of coping with the menace of Communism. The 
Synarchists had been insisting that everything pointed to a gen-
eral strike which was to be the prelude to a Communist attempt 
to seize control. In a second article, an appeal was made to the 
Mexican army to thwart this attempt, assuring the troops that 
the Synarchists were ready to stand with them in the defense of 
Mexico. The articles were seized upon immediately as evidence 
of the treasonable character of the movement. The files and ar-
chives of the national headquarters were confiscated and examined 
by the appropriate authority. The responsible editors of the 
paper were submitted to endless questioning. The upshot was a 
series of measures to reduce the external activity of Synarchism. 
No printing establishment could accept material for printing from 
Synarchist sources without suffering a severe penalty. No meet-
ings, concentrations or other forms of action were to be tolerated. 
It is significant, however, that in spite of the strenuous measures 
adopted, outright suppression did not occur. To date, the Presi-
dent has signed no decree outlawing Synarchism and dissolving 
it as a social movement. Synarchism is passing through its most 
critical stage. The Abascal dénouement served as something of a 
purge, with perhaps less serious consequences than originally an-
ticipated. The more recent incidents have proved more difficult. 



43 The Catholic Revival in Mexico 
It does not mean, to be sure, that Synarchism as a movement will 
not survive the ordeal. On the contrary, it is not inconceivable 
that it may derive considerable profit from the experience. 

It would be hazardous to judge of the future of Synarchism at 
this juncture. The present crisis may be far from mortal. It may 
be purely internal and lacking in consequences for the entire 
undertaking. Synarchism is unquestionably one of the most re-
markable mass movements to come out of Hispanic America. It 
is useless to judge it, as is so frequently done, as a sort of Falange 
Española in the New World. The un-military and unaggressive 
character of Synarchism is the very antithesis of the militancy and 
fanfare of Falange. As an expression of Mexican traditionalism, 
enveloped in the modern garb of social justice and agrarian re-
form, it merits the attention of Americans. 

DISCUSSION TOPICS 

1. Discuss Catholic opinion on the organization of a Catholic political party; Pope Pius XI's instructions on Catholic social teaching as a basis for political programs. 2. Who is Gómez Morín? What has been his career? his political ideas? 3. When was Acción Nacional established? By whom? How is it organ-ized? What are its program and policy? The character of its leader-ship? The type of people it attempts to reach? 
4. What has been the success of Acción Nacional as far as elections are concerned? What is the principle of La Nación? 5. In what opinion is Synarchism held? When was Synarchism formed? By whom? 6. Discuss Synarchism: (a) as a popular, social, national movement; (b) the zeal of Synarchist members; the movement as "mass mysticism"; adherence to the law; anti-totalitarianism; charges made against it. 7. What is the Synarchist program regarding education? land ownership and limitations? agriculture? labor? colonization? 
8. What is the Synarchist attitude toward U. S.-Mexican relations? What is the traditional Mexican attitude? 9. Discuss recent developments of Synarchism: (a) the internal split; (b) attempts to reconcile Pan Americanism and Hispanism; (c) appeal to Mexican army, consequent restrictive measures; (d) prospects for future. 

Suggested Readings 
"The Political Scene in Mexico," Richard Pattee. America, Aug. 12, 1944. LXXI, 19. "The Mexican Scene: Synarchism," Richard Pattee. America, Aug. 19, 1944. LXXI, 20. "A Note on Mexican Synarchism," Edward Skillin, Jr. The Commonweal, Vol. XL, No. 8, June 9, 1944. 
"L'économie agricole du pays," J. Ledit. Relations, Montreal. November, 1943. Our Good Neighbor Hurdle, John W. White. Bruce. Milwaukee. 1943. Chapter VIII. 



V. "CATHOLIC ACTION" AND ITS IMPLICATIONS 

The pontifical documents regarding Mexico emphasize, with-
out exception, the central theme, that the sole solution of the 
acute problems that the Church faces in the Republic is the lay 
organization—"Catholic Action"—working with and under the 
Bishops. No other course is open to the Hierarchy in its task of 
diffusing Catholic doctrine and ideas. In the address of the Holy 
Father to the Mexican pilgrims on June 2, 1931, the question 
of "Catholic Action" occupied the attention of the Pontiff. After 
pointing out that the principal criticism made against "Catholic 
Action" was that it engaged in politics, the Pope stated: "Catho-
lic Action, including that of Mexico, in spite of the sufferings and 
terrible persecution which it has suffered, should not devote at-
tention to politics. Its mission is spiritual; the formation of 
Christian consciences." 

Mexican Catholics must be fitted into the total picture of the 
fluctuating fortunes of the Church under the persecution. It has 
well been said that the period from 1929 to 1932 was, in some 
respects, more difficult for Catholics in Mexico than the extreme 
persecution of 1926-1929. One of the reasons was that the form 
and tactics took a different turn; the methods changed and in 
many ways became more subtle. Many Catholics expected the 
persecution to cease at once upon the culmination of the agree-
ments of 1929. Their disappointment was keen and bitter when 
the course of events did not confirm this happy expectation. 
There was division within Catholic ranks. The policy of modera-
tion, imposed by the Hierarchy, did not please many. Rebel-
liousness took the place of loyal submission to the will of the 
Hierarchy. The use of armed force was looked upon by many 
as licit and necessary. The Encyclical Acerba Animi came in re-
sponse to this grave crisis. His Holiness re-examines the back-
ground of the Mexican situation, with specific reference to the 
unsatisfactory results of the 1929 agreements. After clarifying 
the infamous character of the restrictions that still lay heavily on 
the clergy and bishops, the Pope reiterated with equal vigor the 
instructions given in 1926, regarding "Catholic Action": "We 
recommend once again what is close to our heart; the necessity 
of establishing and developing ever more intensively and on a 
wider scale the work of Catholic Action." The communication, 
Firmissimam Constantian of March 28, 1937, completes this col-
lection of papal pronouncements on "Catholic Action" and its 
function in Mexico. His Holiness devotes the larger part of this 

44 



45 The Catholic Revival in Mexico 
letter to detailed instructions on the formation of the member-
ship of "Catholic Action," the importance of the lay apostolate and 
the anxiety felt for the development of this vital work in a nation 
like Mexico, so long buffeted by the adverse fortunes of the perse-
cution. The sacrament of baptism imposes the obligation of 
"Catholic Action." "Catholic Action" proceeds from charity and 
its scope of work includes the alleviation of the temporal and 
corporal ills that beset mankind. Because, the Pontiff states, 
"frequently souls are not reached except through ministering to 
bodily needs and the economic necessities." The letter urges that 
special attention be given to the needs of the farmers, workers 
and Indians. The very special task of caring for the spiritual and 
physical welfare of the Mexicans who have migrated to the United 
States does not escape mention in the Pope's communication. In 
like manner he emphasizes that "Catholic Action" cannot neglect 
the universities since there is no milieu perhaps which needs more 
urgently the attention of those motivated by love for Christ and 
His Church. Although political activity is again condemned, the 
wide jurisdiction of "Catholic Action" is suggested. It includes 
the bringing together of organizations devoted to the purposes 
which the Pope had already indicated as legitimate. The field 
include? the defense of the freedom of the schools and of the 
teaching of religion; the defense of the family, of marriage and 
of public morals; and the spiritual improvement and perfection 
of its members and those with whom they come in contact. 

Some of the antecedents of Mexican "Catholic Action" are 
important in order to evaluate its work with greater precision. 
Prior to the actual establishment of "Catholic Action," the priests 
of the Society of Jesus organized the Asociación de Damas Católi-
cas Mexicanas in September of 1912 and the Asociación Católica 
de Juventud Mexicana in August of 1913. The Juventud Cató-
lica Feminina Mexicana, closely related to the establishment of 
Cultura Feminina, already mentioned, came into existence dur-
ing the very moment when the persecution was at its peak, in 
1926, under the leadership of Father Miguel Dario Miranda, now 
Bishop Miranda, whose service to the cause of "Catholic Action" 
in Mexico is absolutely inestimable. 

Mexican "Catholic Action" was launched officially on Christ-
mas Eve, 1929. As soon as the agreement of 1929 had been 
reached in June of that year a commission was named to work 
out the details for establishing "Catholic Action." This com-
mission consisted of Father Miranda, Monsignor Manuel Fulcheri 
y Pietra Santa, Bishop of Zamora; Father Ramón Martínez 



46 The Catholic Revival in Mexico 
Silva, S.J., and Father Rafael Dávila Vilches. Under the guidance 
of Archbishop Pascual Díaz, the proposal was submitted to all 

. the members of the Hierarchy. The statutes of the organization 
and the purposes outlined are in complete harmony with the 
thought of His Holiness as expressed in the encyclicals, Ubi Ar-
cano Dei and the letter Quae Nobis. The organizations men-
tioned above as preceding "Catholic Action" were merged in the 
new institution. 

Four basic organizations constitute the structure of Mexican 
"Catholic Action": Unión de Católicos Mexicanos, for older men; 
Asociación Católica de Juventud. Mexicana, for unmarried men 
under thirty-five years; Unión Feminina Católica Mexicana for 
older women and finally Juventud Católica Feminina Mexicana 
for younger women. Moreover, "Catholic Action" brings together 
all other Catholic societies and organizations. All associations 
whose purpose is some form of lay apostolate constitute confed-
erated bodies, such as the Congregaciones Marianas which have 
some 25,000 members. Other groups not specifically of this char-
acter are considered as auxiliary entities, such as the Boy Scouts. 

The most striking note of Mexican "Catholic Action" is that 
it is organized along national and not diocesan lines. This was 
the expressed wish of the members of the Hierarchy who sought 
permission from Rome to form the association in this fashion. 
Although it functions on the basis of diocesan and parish sub-
divisions, "Catholic Action" is not a diocesan matter but is con-
centrated in the hands of national directors who are above diocesan 
jurisdictions, in a certain sense. This avoids friction between 
dioceses, centers attention on the national character of the prob-
lem, aids in avoiding sharp differentiation between territories more 
favored than others and produces a uniform orientation of the 
first importance. Mexican "Catholic Action," without taking 
into account the affiliated bodies, has at the present time 400,000 
members. The Asociación Católica de Juventud Mexicana has 
60,000, distributed in 900 parishes and 33 dioceses. During the 
persecution, let it be added, some eighty young men gave their 
lives for the cause of the Church and the glory of God. 

Mexican "Catholic Action" began its work in 1929 with the 
holding of intensive study circles for the purpose of preparing 
both clergy and laity for leadership in this work. The propa-
ganda was organized to cover every parish in the Archdiocese of 
Mexico and later extended to the rest of the country. As some 
indications of the progress of the work, the single branch of 
Juventud Católica Feminina Mexicana achieved the following re-



47 The Catholic Revival in Mexico 
suits between December, 1929, and June, 1930: 22 diocesan or-
ganizations; 133 parish groups, 124 circles and 8,605 young 
women listed as members. In 1932 the number of parish organi-
zations had increased to 299 and the study circles to 496. The 
second annual meeting of the association in 1934 reported that 
membership had reached 31,107. In order to avoid too many 
figures, let it be said that in 1938 the members numbered 74,073 
and in 1942, 102,491. Nearly a thousand parishes were organ-
ized for this purpose by the latter year. It would be tiresome to 
recount figure by figure the growth and expansion of each of these 
organizations and its subsidiaries. The indication given in the 
case of one women's group may be . taken as an example of the 
manner in which "Catholic Action" has expanded over the period 
of fifteen years since its foundation. 

In addition to "Catholic Action" as such, mention may be 
made of another important Catholic organization, which unfortu-
nately has declined considerably during the past years. This is 
the Unión Nacional de Estudiantes Católicos, a federated student 
group under "Catholic Action." This is aside from the student 
membership in the appropriate branch of "Catholic Action." The 
U. N. E. C. was founded prior to "Catholic Action" by the then 
Archbishop, José Mora y del Rio, and the first counsellor was 
Father Agustín Pro of the Society of Jesus. In 1931 it wás re-
ceived into "Catholic Action." This Mexican student association 
contributed directly to the creation of the international organiza-
tion, Confederación Iberoamericana de Estudiantes Católicos, 
formed in Rome in 1933. In 1934, the U. N. E. C. was admitted 
to the international federation of Pax Rornana. There are at 
present some 1,500 members, organized in a national committee 
and fifteen regional committees. Six national congresses of this 
student group have been held to date. 

"Catholic Action" is today one of the main forces in Catholic 
life in Mexico. The influence it is exerting is a source of enor-
mous strength to the Church. Its national organization and com-
plete integration avoids friction and gives it a power which no 
similar organization has ever had in Mexican Catholic life.5 

5 To avoid citing numerous pamphlets and stray articles, it may be said that an 
excellent source for information on the ideas and proposals of Mexican "Catholic Action" 
are the booklets published as a result of the various national gatherings. The number 
covering the fifth national assembly, for example, in 1941 is particularly helpful for its 
exposition of "Catholic Action" in relation to the various social classes: workers, 
intellectuals, employers, farmers, etc. Biblioteca de la Junta Central de la Acciôn Catàlic'a 
Mextcana, Mexico, D. F., Mexico. 



4 8 The Catholic Revival in Mexico 
Eucharistic Congresses 

It would be out of place to list all the Eucharistic Congresses 
held over Mexico during the past years. The number has in-
creased and with the increase has come the complicated question 
of adhering strictly to the law with reference to no religious mani-
festations outside the churches. The Congress held in Vera Cruz 
late in 1943 was of such proportions that there was no serious 
effort made to stop the processions. In the diocese of Tulancingo, 
Bishop Miranda prudently and wisely refrained from certain parts 
of his week's program in order to avoid any friction. In Jalapa, 
in the state of Vera Cruz, recently, the enthusiasm of the people 
led to unfortunate incidents in which one or two priests were 
stoned. In a word, the popular feeling of faith is so keen that it 
is almost impossible to avoid religious activities in public. The 
Eucharistic Congresses have been, unhappily, one of the causes 
of certain conflict with the authorities, precisely because of their 
greater visibility. 

DISCUSSION TOPICS 

1. What is "Catholic Action" and why is it so important in the solution 
of the Church's problem in Mexico? 

2. What is its task and scope? What are the principal documents of Pope Pius XI relating to "Catholic Action" in Mexico? 
3. Name the institutions of Catholic women in existence before the estab-lishment of "Catholic Action" in Mexico. 
4. Discuss: (a) the founding; (b) the component organizations; (c) the national organizational structure, of Mexican "Catholic Action." 
5. What has been the extent of its growth? 
6. What is the Unión Nacional de Estudiantes Católicos? 
7. What place have Eucharistic Congresses held in the Catholic revival in 

Mexico ? 
Suggested Readings 

The Religious Situation in Mexico, Encyclical of Pope Pius XI. N. C. W. C. 
Washington. 1937. 
The Church and Mexico, Encyclical of Pope Pius XI. N. C. W. C. 
Washington. 1932. 
Catholic Action and Catholic Activity, N. C. W. C. Administrative Board. 
N. C. W. C. Washington, D. C. 
Introduction to Mexico, Gamble and McGowan. Report of the Latin 
American Committee. C. A. I. P. Washington. 1936. (Section XXI) . 
"Mexico's Good Neighbors; Unión Feminina Católica Mexicana," A. Burton. 
Ave Maria. February 5, 1944. 



VI. CATHOLIC PUBLIC OPINION ON INTERNATIONAL 
QUESTIONS 

Is there a Catholic opinion as such in Mexico? The ques-
tion is pertinent as regards this country as well as any other. 
Catholics generally are notorious for the widest discrepancies of 
viewpoint on almost every conceivable subject except the dogmas 
of the Church. Mexico is no different. It would be hopeless to 
evaluate any given trends or tendencies in Mexican Catholic opin-
ion. It varies on internal matters and on international. Refer-
ences have been made to the existence of one sector of Mexican 
Catholic opinion which is utterly unwilling to make any conces-
sions to the times. There are certain prominent Catholics who 
consider anything but open warfare with the government as prac-
tically a betrayal of the Church. There is a strong nationalist 
sentiment in this sector, and there are organizations, weak, to be 
sure, that cherish extreme principles and cultivate a completely 
introspective, militant and unbending attitude. I t may in part 
flow from an aristocratic tradition or from a Falangist type of 
thinking which affects even local problems. There are other sec-
tors of Catholic thinking which are more atune with the times, 
which take realities into account and appreciate that the modera-
tion and sagacity of the present Archbishop, Monsignor Martinez, 
is the wisest possible course for the welfare of the Church in 
Mexico. But the important thing is that there is no agreement 
all down the line. There are wide differences. In student circles 
there are organizations which have sprung up within the walls of 
the University under allegedly Catholic auspices and which have 
openly waged warfare on other Catholic student organizations. 
There is an abundance of tugging and pulling which weakens the 
position of the Church and contributes nothing to its service. 

It would not be incorrect to state that Mexican Catholic opin-
ion on international matters revolves around four topics or central 
themes: (1) Relations with the United States, (2) The position 
toward the Franco regime in Spain, (3) The Soviet Union and 
particularly activities of the Soviet Embassy in Mexico and (4) The 
broad purposes and aims of the United Nations in the present 
war. On any of these points, it would be impossible to obtain 
authorized statements and still less would it be possible to ascer-
tain to what degree Catholic opinion is compact or divided. 

49 



s o The Catholic Revival in Mexico 
The problem of relations with the United States is always 

latent in any discussion of Mexican affairs. The long and stormy 
history of such relations, the fact that the Mexican memory is 
singularly retentive and the mental reservations of the Mexicans 
toward every effort of the United States, all bear on the general 
attitude. It would not be an error to assert that Mexican Cath-
olics by and large are at the best reservedly friendly toward the 
trend of events in inter-American relations and are definitely of 
the watchful waiting persuasion. There are irritants which clutter 
up the general landscape of happy relations. The enormous 
personnel of the various American government agencies in Mexico, 
the acute problem of the braceros, the tradition on the part of 
many Catholics to view with a jaundiced eye whatever the gov-
ernment in power does, good or bad, and the general impression 
that relations with the United States ought to reach more directly 
Catholic interests. The whole problem resolves itself into a mat-
ter of what is considered interference or undue influence. The 
degree of hostility or friendship runs from that manifested by 
such unreliable and unrepresentative newspapers as El Hombre 
Libre and Omega which see in every act of the United States the 
work of a red-Jewish-Wall Street combine, to the honest and can-
did appraisals given by responsible journalists such as Mariano 
Alcocer, who in Novedades in February wrote quite openly that, 
for good or for bad, Mexico was bound to remain in the shadow 
of the United States and the thing to do was to accept gracefully 
the fatality and work out relations mutually advantageous. A 
young columnist, Eduardo Enrique Ríos, discoursed on the same 
theme in terms which showed a complete recognition of realities. 
He emphasized the fallacy of thinking of Our Lady of Guadalupe 
as anti-American, an attitude taken by some Mexicans. He 
urged that this somewhat infantile notion be dropped and a frank 
and sincere attempt at working out difficulties and discrepancies 
be reached. The instances could be multiplied to show this same 
viewpoint. 

The war has placed a heavy burden on Mexico. The evi-
dences of its effects are to be seen everywhere in the soaring 
prices, the scarcities and the heavy demands made on the not very 
effective Mexican industries and transportation. It is probably 
true to say that the enthusiasm of the Mexican government for 
co-operation with the United States is not shared by the great 
mass of Mexicans. The sources of hostility are too fresh and not 
enough has been done to heal the sores. The more thoughtful and 
more cosmopolitan appreciate realities, the mass of laity and even 



51 The Catholic Revival in Mexico 
clergy are perplexed at many aspects of American life, at the 
startling assiduity with which Mexico is cultivated, and the ab-
sence of clear guarantees as to the future. The United States is 
still viewed in a light only once removed from Vera Cruz, the 
Pershing expedition, Big Stick diplomacy and general meddling 
in Mexican internal affairs. 

The nub of the problem is quite simple. Catholic opinion in 
the broad follows this thesis: 

Mexican history, from Iturbide to the present time is merely 
a series of governments which have taken power thanks to the 
recognition of the United States and often with the active aid 
of that government. The United States since the days of Joel 
Poinsett has systematically favored the so-called liberals, left-
ists and anti-clericals. Never has a gesture indicated the slight-
est sympathy or understanding of the place and work of the 
Church. American support has kept every revolutionary gov-
ernment in power and has created the impression that the 
United States would not view with disapproval a radical re-
duction of the influence of the Church. 
Whatever may be the historical justification for the accusa-

tion or whatever may be the attenuating circumstances, the bald 
fact is that the thesis as just stated is anchored deep in the con-
science of most Mexican Catholics. It is a strong and hereditary 
sentiment which cannot be easily eradicated. Superficially there 
may be cordiality. Intimately there is downright reluctance to 
establish too intimate terms with the nation which, from this point 
of view, despoiled and browbeat the Mexican people. I t is not 
something to be argued away as belonging to the past. This is 
no effort to present the viewpoint as justified or not. It merely 
exists and is a determining factor in much of Mexican Catholic 
thinking. 

The question of Franco Spain is still more touchy. Here we 
are faced by the peculiarly difficult problem that the Mexican 
government is practically the only one in Latin America that has 
never recognized the present Spanish regime. On top of that, 
Mexico became the refuge of thousands of Spanish who had de-
fended the Republic, among them many of the most important 
political leaders such as Indalecio Prieto and Martinez Barrios. 
Spanish intellectuals of republican sympathies have filled Mexico 
and have been received with the generous and warm hospitality 
with which Mexico has always thrown its doors open to foreign 



52 The Catholic Revival in Mexico 
refugees. The presence of such a strong contingent of Spaniards, 
who on the soil of the New World have continued their concern 
for Spanish affairs and who constantly express their preoccupations 
in organizations, meetings and the press, causes the abyss be-
tween the anti-Franco and pro-Franco partisans to be wider than 
would normally be the case. Catholic sentiment is by no means 
unanimous on this question. While not much has crept into writ-
ings, there are those who view the trend of affairs in Spain with 
considerable trepidation and are not wont to accept the thesis that 
the Franco regime is synonymous with the well-being of the 
Church. Other Mexican Catholics, notably such first class intel-
lectuals as Alfonso Junco, Toribio Esquive! Obregón, Jesús Guisa 
y Acevedo and others have been veritable paladins of the Franco 
cause and have championed with ardor the cause of Hispanic 
fraternity. 

This view must be fitted into the controversy raging every-
where regarding Hispanidad and its implications. Mexican Cath-
olics insist, as one of the rock bottom principles which cannot be 
debated, that the ties binding Mexico to Spain historically and 
culturally are of such a nature that nothing can break them. The 
devotion to the traditional source of culture and the life of the 
spirit frequently produces a strong sympathy for the Franco re-
gime and its program. Acción Nacional, for example, in its pro-
gram, states that the "most cordial economic, political and cultural 
relations should be maintained with all Hispanic countries and 
that most particularly relations should be re-established with 
Spain." Similar emphasis is laid on the profound community of 
spirit and of culture that binds the Hispanic world together. This 
reflects what may be called a general sentiment. Obviously events 
of the most recent period relating to the present war have influ-
enced the degree of enthusiasm for Franco and his regime. There 
are many Catholics who are reluctant to accept the articles of 
faith of Falange. I t is probably true, however, that the majority 
of Catholics, in so far as they are concerned at all with the prob-
lem, are sympathetic to the Franco government. As has been 
stated, this must be definitely fixed into the framework of the 
extremely anti-Franco position of the Mexican government. 
Again, it becomes part and parcel of the broader internal ques-
tion of opposition per se to the government in power. Non-
recognition of Franco may produce in part a Catholic reaction 
more favorable to the Spanish ruler than would ordinarily be the 
case. 

The case of the attitude toward the Soviet Union is much more 



53 The Catholic Revival in Mexico 
difficult. It is related to the conviction of Mexican Catholics 
that Communism represents for Mexico a vastly greater imme-
diate danger than for any other Latin American country. In the 
United States organized Communism as such, as distinguished 
from the various affiliated movements, has represented a rela-
tively minor portion of the population. In Mexico Communism 
either in the form of the Mexican Communist Party or through 
Communist sympathies in other organizations has been for many 
years a potent force. Mexicans are therefore likely to see in 
Communism a more direct menace than in National Socialism, 
let us say, the consequences of which have not been brought 
home to them so pointedly. The Mexican Communist Party, 
under the leadership of Dionisio Encinas, Hernán Laborde and 
others is neither a large nor a very powerful organization as such. 
Its strength lies in its tactics and in the excellence of many of its 
leaders. The congress of the Mexican Communist Party, held in 
Mexico City on May 12, 1944, revealed the prestige the group has 
attained thanks to the trend of the times. The President of the 
Party of the Mexican Revolution, Antonio Villalobos, present as a 
guest, addressed the gathered Communists and assured them that 
the idea that their doctrine was a threat to social and political 
stability was so much nonsense. Moreover, the Communist Party 
requested that it be allowed to affiliate with the Party of the 
Mexican Revolution. The leaders of the latter group expressed 
themselves as willing to accede to this suggestion. The idea? 
The usual "boring from within." The Communist Party has dis-
cussed the change of its name to Mexican Socialist Party and 
perhaps the taking over in due course of time of as much as pos-
sible of the Party of the Mexican Revolution which is, in spite 
of its vicissitudes, the one single, dominant party and more or less 
a going concern. 

The number of organizations expressing sympathy for the 
Soviet Union are numerous. The most important, because of its 
activities, energy and general propaganda, is that known as the 
Amigos de la URSS, the Friends of the Soviet Union. The 
diplomatic mission, under the leadership of the present Russian 
Ambassador, has undoubtedly contributed to the warm sentiments 
entertained for the Soviet Union and the constant publicity given 
to its war efforts and military successes. Mexican Catholics are 
particularly sensitive to this. They are fearful that the Russian 
victory will give rise to a new and unexpected upswing of pro-
Russian, pro-Communist and anti-Catholic sentiment. That Rus-
sian influence and prestige is on the upgrade in Mexico can admit 



54 The Catholic Revival in Mexico 
of no serious doubt, and Mexico is being used as a base of opera-
tions throughout all Latin America. 

On the present war in general, it would be hazardous to say 
that Mexican Catholics are united. The Hierarchy expressed its 
full support of the government when war was declared on the 
Axis. Catholic leaders as such, including, for example, Manuel 
Gomez Morin, immediately urged that their supporters lend every 
aid to the government in the common cause, even though many 
had been among the most ardent partisans of strict neutrality. 
One of the most interesting indications of the position of Mexican 
Catholicism vis a vis the issues of the day is the the public ad-
dress of Mariano Alcocer, given in the Palace of Fine Arts in 
October of 1942. At that time, the Committee on Civilian De-
fense organized a series of lectures by persons representing diverse 
tendencies. In the name of the Church and to express the posi-
tion of the Archbishop, Mariano Alcocer was invited to speak. 
Aside from the importance of his statement, the astonishing thing 
is that this was the first time perhaps in decades that a Catholic 
spokesman had been invited by an official agency to speak in 
public on matters pertaining directly to the Church. 

The statement was officially approved by the ecclesiastical 
censors and may be taken as the viewpoint of the Mexican Church. 
The topic developed was "La Iglesia y el Totalitarismo" ("The 
Church and Totalitarianism"), an able and brilliantly organized 
exposition of the views of the Church on questions affecting the 
modern world through the menace of totalitarianism. The ad-
dress is a complete and absolute condemnation, on the basis of 
papal pronouncements, of Nazism, racism and the various mani-
festations that totalitarianism has taken. Sr. Alcocer proceeded 
to recite the story of the efforts of the Holy Father to maintain 
peace and avoid the tragedy to which Nazism was inevitably 
leading. He included mention specifically of the valiant resistance 
of other great Catholic leaders to the barbarism of our times: 
Cardinal Faulhaber, Archbishop Groeber, the Fulda Pastorals, 
Cardinal Gerlier in France and the legion of others who have 
lifted their voices in defense of human dignity and the rights of 
man and of the Church. The speaker reiterated the statement of 
the Archbishop, given on May 30, 1942, to the effect that the 
civil authority is the one charged with determining the interna-
tional position of a nation. It is the duty of Catholics to support 
the civil power, unless it be evidently contrary to conscience. In 



The Catholic Revival in Mexico 55 
the case of doubt, the government should be supported. This is 
perhaps the clearest and most pungent expression of the Catholic 
position and defines without the least ambiguity the attitude of the 
Hierarchy and in all probability of most responsible Catholics. 

DISCUSSION TOPICS 

1. Discuss the general divergencies of Catholic opinion in Mexico. 
2. Explain the reasons for the general attitude toward relations with the 

United States. 
3. What is the opinion regarding the Franco regime in Spain? 
4. Describe the activities of Communism and the Soviet Embassy in Mexico. 

What effect do these have on Catholic opinion in Mexico? 
5. What is the attitude with regard to the purposes and aims of the 

United Nations"in the present war? 
Suggested Readings 

The Diplomatic Career of Joel Roberts Poinsett, Dorothy M. Parton. The 
Catholic University of America, Washington. 1934. 
"The Soviet Wooing of Latin America," Carleton Beals. Harper's Magazine, 
Aug. 1944. No. 1141. 
Our Good Neighbor Hurdle, John W. White. Bruce. Milwaukee. 1943. 
Chapter VI. 
The Spanish-Speaking of the Southwest, Report of Seminar held at San 
Antonio, Texas. Department of Social Action. N. C. W. C. Washington. 
1943. 
"Mexico and the War," Harry Sylvester. Commonweal, June 30, 1944. 



VII. THE CHURCH AND THE AGRARIAN QUESTION 

It would be pure audacity to deal with the complex problem 
of land tenure and the indigenous population in a few brief pages. 
The question of land and its distribution is obviously the factor 
sine qua non in Mexican economy. The question has been treated 
ad nauseam by scores of writers. Some have seen in the organiza-
tion of the ejido, or communal lands, "Mexico's way out." Others 
have given high praise to the efforts of the government to break 
up the great estates and bring into existence the small land owner. 
The question of a just transfer of lands is also at stake. Many 
Catholics, guided mainly by their bitterness toward the govern-
ment and the Revolution have been prone to condemn completely 
not only the execution of the agrarian laws but the purpose and 
idea behind the laws. There is still in. Mexico a very strong 
hacendado mentality among many Catholics. Their systematic 
opposition to the government in its economic program is in part a 
reflection of the animosity generated during the religious contro-
versy. The type of mind which engaged in the Cristero movement, 
which opposed the instructions of the Holy See to seek a modus 
yivendi, and not to involve the name of the Church in an armed 
insurrection, on the basis that the Pope was misinformed and de-
liberately led astray, is a mind which still exists and which has 
to be reckoned with in all considerations of the Catholic question 
in Mexico. This viewpoint is not shared by the younger genera-
tion of Catholics, except in extreme cases. Some of the older 
leaders, who lived through the trying days of 1926-29 and who 
were involved in the Junta de Defensa Religiosa, have been un-
able to adapt themselves to the times. A few extremists form the 
Escuadra Tradicionalista which is decidedly out of touch with the 
trend of the times. Most Catholic leaders accept the reality of 
the reform, many are not unwilling to accept that on the land side 
the Revolution performed a task which sooner or later had to be 
performed. The Mexican land question could not go on as it was 
under Porfirio Diaz. Whatever may be said of the Diaz regime, 
and it has its defenders, its program in the rural areas was ob-
viously out of harmony with the terrible necessities of Mexico's 
millions of Indians and farmers. Responsible Catholic thinking 
today does not reject the idea of land distribution or even the 

56 



57 The Catholic Revival in Mexico 
breaking up of the estates to make land available for the indigent 
peasant. On the contrary, responsible Catholic thinking along 
this line follows fairly closely the action of the government itself. 

The discrepancy lies mainly not on the purpose or intent, but on 
the actual execution of the Constitution in matters regarding land. 
Acción Nacional, for example, makes available, from time to time, 
statistical material which seems to indicate that the production 
of corn, and other basic articles has fallen off since 1910; al-
though it may be that more corn is produced by farms for home 
use and does not get into the statistics. Similar figures state that 
the family income is lower today than it was at the time of the 
collapse of Diaz. A vast amount of ineptitude has unquestionably 
prevailed in the administration. I t must be remembered, in hon-
esty, that the Mexican Revolution was an outburst of hurricane 
proportions and that it did not possess the technically equipped 
personnel to handle such a complex problem as land redistribution. 
It has taken years to bring even a semblance of order out of the 
ravenous desire for land. Technical economists, experts in rural 
problems and the like have been lacking. The administration has 
frequently been faulty. That does not argue against the purpose 
nor against the need for a program which would break the back 
of landlordism—the curse of Mexico and the greatest stigma in its 
economic life. Moreover, thirty years have passed since the Revo-
lution began. One generation is not enough to produce a full re-
form on a scale as vast as this. Let one but reflect on the after-
math of the French Revolution in its confiscatory measures and 
the long time beneficial effects that it produced in the modification 
of the conditions of land tenure. One need only consider the pain-
ful process in England toward a readjustment of social and eco-
nomic life. Many Catholics are perfectly willing to recognize these 
realities. It is an absurdity to condemn the government and the 
Revolution on every score simply because of the anti-religious 
measures. The kernel of economic reform was deeprooted in the 
thinking of the Revolution. In a rudimentary form quite fre-
quently, in a manner suited to arouse infinite hostility in other 
cases the Revolution did produce a profound change in the eco-
nomic organization of Mexico's rural economy. Let us distin-
guish sharply between the principle and the method; between the 
original purpose and the often faulty administration in carrying it 
out. 

Intelligent Catholics recognize that Mexico cannot turn 
back; the work has been done, for better or for worse. Inciden-
tally, it might be added that most of Latin America will probably 



58 The Catholic Revival in Mexico 
have to suffer a like process sooner or later. The recent pastoral 
of the Archbishop of Bogotá on the matter of large land holdings 
is a straw in the wind. The Church certainly cannot align itself 
with vested interests which seek to perpetuate a system which 
differs only technically from serfdom. This mistake would be 
little short of disastrous. The Mexican Church, since the agree-
ments of 1929 and especially under the present administration, 
shows no signs officially of wishing to identify its interests in the 
least with those who still cherish the idea that a return to the 
days of Don Profirió would be the solution of Mexico's ills. Utter 
and complete intransigence is emotional, not rational. Catholics 
do not have to sacrifice principles to admit that the Mexico of 
1944 is a Mexico that has grown out of the Revolution, whatever 
the final verdict will be on its virtues or faults. 

For the purposes of this brief exposition, reference may be 
made to an interesting polemic that took place in Catholic circles 
in Mexico during 1938 regarding the agrarian problem. At that 
time, Father José Toral Moreno of Guadalajara published in the 
pages of Abside (April, 1938), a study entitled, La propiedad y el 
Estado ante el derecho natural (Property and the State in Rela-
tion to the Natural Law). This article, plus the replies to vari-
ous refutations, appeared in a brochure entitled simply El agra-
rismo, completed by another and smaller pamphlet, El agrarismo 
(suplemento). This controversy was perhaps the most significant 
that has taken place among Catholic intellectuals in recent years 
concerning the problem of land, agrarianism and the action of the 
government in carrying out a redistribution. 

The problem originally posed was a simple one and entirely 
within the realm of morals. Could an agrarista, that is, a farmer 
who was offered and accepted land taken by the government from 
the land owners, continue as a good Catholic and receive absolu-
tion? The problem obviously was a grave one in the light of the 
fact that numerous Catholic peasants were granted lands which, 
according to one school of thought, were simply taken from their 
legitimate owners, and.the new proprietors became in consequence 
the recipients of stolen property. Father Toral examined the 
question of property in the light of natural law. He cites the pro-
vision of Article 27 of the Constitution which grants the nation 
the ownership of land and the right to transmit it to private indi-
viduals to become private property. These expropriations can 
only be carried out in accord with the public good and through 
indemnity. Father Toral discusses the practical failure of the 
indemnity provision in terms of the collapse of confidence in the 



59 The Catholic Revival in Mexico 
bonds issued to cover this obligation. This does not affect his 
thesis that the farmer receiving such lands is not obligated to make 
restitution to the original owner. 

Joaquin Garcia Pimentel replied to this statement in an article 
called El desastre del agrarismo. This is based primarily on the 
practical and economic failure of the system, with statistics to 
show how faulty the administration has been. The author con-
cludes with the statement that the citing of Rerum Novarum and 
Quadragesimo Anno cannot be used to defend the present Mexican 
agrarian system. The debate went on in numerous issues of 
Abside, with considerable heat engendered in presenting the clash-
ing points of view. 

The purpose of bringing out this controversy and the character 
of the argument is to show that fundamentally there is a strong 
current of Catholic thought which is not prepared in the least to 
condemn per se the whole varied agrarian program of the Mexican 
government. Unfortunately there is no uniformity of criterion. 
It reveals, however, what has already been pointed out in other 
parts of this brochure that Catholic opinion is divided on many 
issues, that there are Catholics who are fully aware of the social 
significance of the times and others who refuse to budge beyond 
1900 in their thinking. 

The agrarian question, as has been indicated, is the root of the 
problem. With it is intimately linked the problem of the Indian 
population, divided into seventeen linguistic groups at every level 
of development. The Church has a long and highly honorable 
tradition with reference to the protection of the Indian masses. 
Julian Garces and Vasco de Quiroga are noted for the policy of fair 
treatment and Don Vasco for creating an economy that was also 
a way of life. The question today, economic in its essence, often 
falls outside the scope of the action of the Church. The thing 
has become complicated by the fact that the so-called "left" and 
"right" have split precisely over the attitude toward the Indian. 
Much confusion and muddy thinking have resulted from the fact 
that among the extreme "right," there is a tendency to emphasize 
the Hispanic to the complete detriment of the Indian. On the 
other hand, the "left" indulges in a eulogy of the primitive Indian 
which makes him little short of a creature of unbounded and un-
mitigated virtue. In this is mixed the problem of the day: hos-
tility to the Spain of Franco, hostility toward Europe and emo-
tions which have their origin in political questions but which have 
been applied to the problem of the Indian masses. 

The Church in Mexico today is prudent, sagacious and patient. 



60 The Catholic Revival in Mexico 
It is not hurrying. Archbishop Martinez exemplifies, to perfec-
tion, the papal admonition of willingness to work out a harmonious 
solution. The Church is flourishing as it never has before. The 
laws are against it, but above that law, the instrumentalities of 
the Catholic faith have multiplied. The faith of Mexico is deep 
and abiding. The Virgin of Guadalupe has protected her Mexi-
can people. 

DISCUSSION TOPICS 

1. What general opinions are held regarding the ejidos, or communal lands? breaking up of large estates? small privately-owned holdings? transfer of lands ? What is the basis of objection of a certain number of Catholics to the agrarian laws? 
2. What is responsible Catholic thinking on the subject? 
3. Distinguish between the purpose and the execution of the land laws. 
4. Summarize the quoted controversy on the morality of individuals accept-ing confiscated land from the government. 
5. What is the character of the Indian population of Mexico ? Why is the agrarian problem so important in connection with it? 
6. What has been the traditional attitude of the Church toward the In-dians? What are the two general extreme attitudes today? 
7. Summarize the general situation of the Church in Mexico today. 

Suggested Readings 

Men of Mexico, James A. Magner. Bruce. Milwaukee. 1942. (See espe-
cially chapter on Don Vasco de Quiroga.) 
Mexican Expropriation. International Conciliation Bulletin, No. 345. 
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. New York. 1938. 
Mexican Agrarian Revolution, Frank Tannenbaum. Macmillan. New 
York. 1929. 
Mexico: Text of Decrees on Nationalization of Property. N. C. W. C. 
Washington, D. C. 
Mexican Bishops' Pastoral, Work of thé Church for Social Betterment. 
N. C. W. C. Washington. 193S. 











THE Catholic Association for International Peace is a membership organization. Its object is to further, 
in accord with the teachings of the Church, the "Peace of 
Christ in the Kingdom of Christ," through the preparation 
and distribution of studies applying Christian teaching 
to international life. 

It was organized in a series of meetings during 1926 
and 1927—the first held just following the Eucharistic 
Congress in Chicago, the second held in Cleveland that 
fall to form an organizing committee, and the third in 
Easter week, 1927, in Washington, when the permanent 
organization was established. 

The Association works through the preparation of 
committee reports. Following careful preparation, these 
are discussed both publicly and privately in order to secure 
able revision. They are then published by the organiza-
tion. Questions involving moral judgments are sub-
mitted to the Committee on Ethics. 

The Association solicits especially the membership 
and co-operation of those whose experience and studies 
are such that they can take part in the preparation of 
Committee reports. 

A junior branch of the Association was composed of 
students in International Relations Clubs in more than a 
hundred Catholic colleges and in Catholic clubs of secu-
lar universities. The separate clubs were united in geo-
graphical federations known as Catholic Student Peace 
Federations and received the co-operation and assistance 
of the parent organization. These Student Peace Federa-
tions have formed the nucleus of the more recently or-
ganized International Relations Commission of the Na-
tional Federation of Catholic College Students, in rela-
tion to which the Catholic Association for International 
Peace stands in an advisory and consultative capacity. 



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