Mexican Revolution Archives

A Texas Historian’s Perspective on Mexican State Anticlericalism

Housed in a miscellaneous folder in the Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection is an assortment of thirteen broadsides, letters, newspapers, and drafts of two articles by prominent Texas historian Herbert Gambrell (1898-1982). Gambrell had a long and prestigious academic career studying Texas history as a fixture at Southern Methodist University. These documents all originate from a summer research trip to Mexico City, where, in 1925, Gambrell studied the creation of a new, factional, schismatic Mexican Church, the Apostolic Mexican Catholic Church (known by its Spanish acronym, ICAM), in order to better understand the causes and impacts of the budding movement. These papers give us a particularly interesting view into Mexican cultural life in the 1920s through the lens of Church relations and offer understanding of state-sponsored anticlericalism during this period.

Black and white photograph of leaders of the 1910 Mexican Revolution after the First Battle of Ciudad Juarez (SMU Central University Library via Flickr). — Leaders of the 1910 Mexican Revolution after the First Battle of Ciudad Juarez (SMU Central University Library via Flickr).

In February 1925, one hundred men took over the Catholic Church of La Soledad in Mexico City, removed the head priest of the church, and announced that they were converting it into the Apostolic Mexican Catholic Church (ICAM). An ex-clergyman by the name of Joaquín Pérez then entered and announced he was the “Patriarch” of this new Church. Breaking off from the Roman Catholic Church, the ICAM pledged allegiance to the Mexican state instead of recognizing the Papacy in Rome as the spiritual head of the church. Picking and choosing which Catholic dogmas, or fundamental tenants of the faith, to keep, this new church allowed priests to marry, offered mass in Spanish, instead of Latin, left biblical interpretation to the individual, and did not require members to pay tithes, or financial contributions to the church. ICAM took root in several hundred communities in the southern and central states of Mexico and, in some places, lasted until the 1940.

This incident occurred in the context of renewed anticlericalism and persecution in Mexico and it contributed to the start of the Cristero Rebellion, when from 1926 to 1929, Catholic peasants took up arms against the state in order to restore the place of the Roman Catholic Church in Mexico. The Mexican president, Plutarco Elias Calles (1924-1928), a Protestant and fervent anti-clerical, blessed this schismatic Mexican Church and allowed it to function freely during his presidency. Its creation represented one challenge of many during this time to the position of the Roman Catholic in Mexico.

Photograph of the front facade of the Church of La Soledad in Mexico City, Mexico — Church of La Soledad, Mexico City (via Wikimedia Commons).

Herbert Gambrell arrived in Mexico City only six months after the birth of this schismatic church. The drafts of his articles come from interviews with the head of the ICAM, Joaquín Pérez, and Mexican Secretary of the Chamber and Government, López Sierra. Also included in this folder are newspaper clippings relating to the ICAM, a reprint of the ICAM’s main ideology, called Bases fundamentals, a personal letter, and a short letter from López Sierra asking him to share the findings from his articles.

Trying to contextualize the creation of the new church, Gambrell starts out by commenting that this is not the first effort to lead Mexicans away from the Catholic Church in Rome, but this is one of the most successful examples. The ICAM arose from a long nationalistic tradition in Mexico, as the church’s slogan, “Mexico for Mexicans,” suggests. Nevertheless, the church remained controversial in Mexico. Gambrell notes that there were pamphlets plastered all around the city reading “Viva el papa!” (Long live the Pope) alongside those proclaiming “Muera el papa! Viva Mexico,” (Death to the Pope, Long Live Mexico) suggesting the controversy remained unresolved.

Gambrell’s observations about the creation of the ICAM emphasize the disjointed implementation of certain segments of the Mexican Constitution. After the Mexican Revolution of 1910, the Constitution of 1917 was written with a liberal, secularist, political view: various articles limited the power of the Catholic Church within Mexico in an effort to strengthen the government. Because Article 130 of the Constitution required the nationalization of all church property, Gambrell remarked that the ICAM ran into obstacles because their private Churches were not publicly owned “templos.” Another 1917 article required foreign-born priests to be removed from their positions in the Catholic Church, many of whom were replaced by Mexicans. The ICAM’s nationalist message was less powerful now that the Catholic Church was less “foreign.”

Black and white photograph of Mexican president, Plutarco Elias Calles standing with members of the Apostolic Mexican Catholic Church — President Calles stands center, with a mustache (via Wikimedia Commons).

The budding evangelical church was not without faults, according to Gambrell. He comments on one of the major faults of the movement, namely the absence of proper leadership. The ICAM was also more political than spiritual: “It is semi-political in its makeup . . . a religious movement which does not come from a deep spiritual ideal can succeed more or less apparently, but does not triumph in a definite way.” Gambrell concluded that the success of the new church would only show itself with time.

Gambrell’s insights provide a particularly fascinating perspective as he, himself, came from an evangelical family, growing up with a Baptist pastor. His opinions were formed through the lens of his own experiences as the son of a Baptist pastor. Gambrell believes that ICAM marked an important step towards what he considered real progress and celebrates that “Rome’s grip has been weakened, seriously weakened, by the movement, nor will she ever be able to regain what she has lost.” With documents written in both English and Spanish, this collection is an accessible resource for interrogating state anticlericalism and the 1917 Mexican constitution.

Sources:

Herbert Gambrell Papers, “The New Catholic Church of Mexico,” Benson Latin American Collection, (all quotes come from this collection of documents).
David C. Bailey, Viva Cristo Rey, The Cristero Rebellion and the Church-State Conflict in
Mexico, (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1974)

War Along the Border: The Mexican Revolution and the Tejano Communities edited by Arnoldo De León (2012)

By Lizeth Elizondo

The Mexican Revolution knew no borders. Mexicans migrated north seeking refuge from its tumult, Tejanos, (Mexican-American Texans) assisted the fight by supplying weapons and incorporating these new immigrants into their communities. Other Tejanos and African Americans from Texas even joined the Mexican revolutionary forces. Texans were then, both directly and indirectly, by choice or by circumstance, part of this historic period.

Prior to the publishing of War Along the Border: The Mexican Revolution and the Tejano Communities, the lived experiences on the Texas side of the border had never been told in a transnational historical perspective. Raul Ramos sums up the importance of this approach in writing that “people, families, ideas, capital, goods, and violence crossed back and forth across the border to the point that self-contained national narratives lose their power to explain and make sense of the past.”

Book cover of War Along the Border: The Mexican Revolution and Tejano Communities edited by Arnoldo De León

The porousness of the boundary between the United States and Mexico during the Mexican Revolution is eloquently captured in this edited volume. The histories told illuminate the lived realities of communities on both the Mexican and the U.S. side during this tumultuous period. One need not be an expert on the variety of revolutionary factions, alliances, and motivations. The opening essay by Paul Hart offers readers a concise historical background that contextualizes the larger ideals of the Mexican Revolution. From this point forward, the reader is guided through more intimate scenes of the period.

The emphasis on the lived experiences of Tejanos makes this a path-breaking endeavor. Rodolfo Treviño tells the intimate family history of his grandfather’s immigration. In sharing one family’s struggle to survive after migrating, Treviño elucidates the possible similarities between his family’s history and the history of many others, who like his grandfather, emigrated from Mexico into Texas during this period. As a cotton picker, Geronimo Treviño – and other Mexican immigrants both male and female—helped propel the agricultural industry in Texas. As Treviño explains, these are the forgotten histories of “ordinary people doing extraordinary things in American history.” The exceptional story of Felix Tijerina, proclaimed to have been the first Mexican-American millionaire in Houston, also serves as an example of an overlooked history of a remarkable American. The chapter details Thomas Kreneck’s quest for unearthing the truthful birthplace of Tijerina, a self-proclaimed American citizen. Kreneck’s pursuit takes him across the border, where he discovers the small villa where Tijerina so adamantly denied having been born. American citizenship during a period filled with racism and opposition to the influx of immigrants from Mexico, explains Kreneck, helps to contextualize Tijerina’s obstinate desire to be recognized as an American at all costs. In fact, Kreneck discovered Tijerina’s birthplace only after Tijerina’s death. Felix Tijerina died as a proud American.

Black and white photograph of Mexican rebels camped outside Juárex, Mexico, 1911

Mexican rebels camped outside Juárez, Mexico, 1911 (Image courtesy of Library of Congress)

Not all stories left untold revolve around successful rags-to-riches sagas. Violence, racism and death were also consequences of the Revolution on the American side of the border. Two chapters describe in detail the triangle of violence that resulted from the Plan de San Diego, the Revolución de Texas, and the Texas Rangers. Richard Ribb outlines the violent repercussions lived by Tejanos and Mexicans, after discovering that social revolutionaries called for the Mexican and Mexican-American community to join forces in an armed uprising against the United States, scheduled for February 20, 1915, that would seek to kill all Anglo Americans. The discovery of this plot initiated a period of Anglo violence toward the Mexican-American population regardless of their involvement or support of the plan. La Revolución de Texas as Trinidad Gonzales details, was different than the Plan de San Diego in ideology; however, the lived experiences of Tejanos at the wrath of the Texas Rangers and Anglo vigilantes, was the same. Supporters of La Revolución de Texas, clearly outlined their motives for their uprising as a response to the continual racism experienced in Texas. Ironically, this forthright challenge to prejudice served as a catalyst to massacre hundreds of Tejanos and Mexicanos. A year later, in 1916, El Paso experienced its own form of Revolutionary violence. Miguel Levario evaluates the influence of the El Paso Race Riot fueled by the slaughter of American engineers at Santa Ysabel, Chihuahua, in categorizing Tejanos as “un-American.” The race war and race-related violence in Texas during the period of the Mexican Revolution claimed the lives of Anglo Americans, Tejanos, and Mexicans.

The violence and death experienced on both the Mexican and the American sides of the U.S.-Mexico border also ironically created niches of opportunities for some women. The essays by Juanita Luna Lawhn and Sonia Hernández convey the ways in which women sought safe-haven in the United States from this revolutionary violence. Lawhn unearths the experiences of elite women in exile. She utilizes newspaper records to trace the lives of the wives of famous revolutionaries with surnames like Madero, Villa, and Carranza. Hernández on the other hand, relies on bi-national archival research to excavate the experiences of women in the labor industry, as well as their social and political activism during the revolutionary period.

Black and white photograph of members of the U.S. Army's Pancho Villa Expedition camped in San Jerónimo, Chihuahua, Mexico, 1916

Members of the U.S. Army’s Pancho Villa Expedition camped in San Jerónimo, Chihuahua, Mexico, 1916 (Image courtesy of the U.S. Federal Government)

The contributors to War Along the Border entangle the Mexican Revolution with transnational history and American history. By focusing on the experiences of Tejanos, by disregarding the political boundaries of the international border in their research, and by choosing to present this period as one of multinational influences, these scholars sketch a rich historical account of the Mexican Revolution as it affected Americans. War Along the Border is an invaluable contribution to the histories of Texas, the Mexican Revolution, Tejanos, Mexican-Americans, Mexicans, and the history of the United States in the early twentieth century.

For Greater Glory (2012)

By Cristina Metz

“¡Viva Cristo Rey! Long Live Christ the King!” The rallying cry of the men and women who fought for religious freedom against Mexico’s revolutionary anti-clerical laws gave the movement its name. The Cristero Rebellion (1927-29) was a bloody uprising waged in central and western Mexico less than a decade after the end of the Mexican Revolution (1910-20). Director Dean Wright’s For Greater Glory (opening June 1, 2012) tells the tragic and violent story of President Plutarco Elías Calles’s zealous implementation of the anti-clerical laws inscribed in the 1917 Constitution and popular reactions to it. Tension between the Catholic Church and state had heightened after the Revolution. For liberal politicians—those who favored the modern over tradition—the Church was an outdated institution that threatened their modernist state-building projects. The anti-clerical laws were designed to decrease the Church’s power by, for example, prohibiting it from providing primary education and from intervening in national politics. By 1926, the Church became more vociferous in its opposition to the laws and Calles responded by sending in federal troops to enforce them.

Many reviewers of For Greater Glory will undoubtedly focus on the desire for religious freedom dramatized in the film. Such a view, however, overlooks the film’s other important contributions, not least of which is that it alerts us to the power struggle between two of Mexico’s major institutions. Would the ecclesiastical structure submit to the authority of a secular state or would the Church become a state within a state answering to the Vatican, not the Mexican president? The value of For Greater Glory is that it portrays these concerns and extends beyond them by also offering viewers insight into the impact of religion on daily life in 1920s Mexico, the opposition tactics that cristeros adopted, a history of the conflict, and into how history itself is constructed.

President Plutarco Alias Calles

Andy García plays General Enrique Gorostieta Velarde (1889-1929), a retired army general whose military prowess was well-known, but who had retired to a life as a soap manufacturer. As Calles enforces restrictions upon Catholic clergy and public displays of religiosity, Gorostieta clashes with his wife Tula (played by Eva Longoria) over his anti-clerical liberalism and her concern for the Catholic education of their daughters. As Gorostieta’s family adjusts to the changes—Tula becomes responsible for her daughters’ religious education—two other important storylines develop.

The Liga Nacional de Defensa Religiosa (League for the Defense of Religious Liberty) organized opposition to Calles’s law, initially adopting non-violent tactics to fight the restrictions on Catholic life. In response, Calles deployed federal troops to stamp out opposition. Troops desecrate churches, execute priests, and persecute cristeros, both in the film and in real life. It is this violent repression and religious persecution that pushes the League and others to radicalize. The film shows individuals reacting to threats against their civil rights – their right to religious expression – showing how politics and religion came together to drive participation in the Cristero Rebellion. League members take up arms along with 20,000 others, smuggle munitions to the fighters in the field, and form an intelligence network. The League also hires General Gorostieta to unify all of the Cristero armies under one centralized command.

Why was religion so important to Mexicans in this period to propel them into armed revolt? A third storyline that focuses on 13-year-old José Luis Sánchez del Río (who Pope Benedict beatified in 2005), shows the many ways religion saturated daily life. When we meet José, his godfather, Mayor Picazo, is dragging him by the ear to church to apologize to Father Christopher, the local priest, for having misbehaved toward him. José must do penance by cleaning the church. All of this conveys the deference, inculcated at an early age, that the laity had toward the clergy and that underpinned the Church’s authority in early-twentieth-century Mexico. As we watch José complete his penance and begin training as an altar server, we glimpse the central role that religion plays in daily life during this period. Families attend mass together, their homes display religious paintings, and we see children and adults go through the Catholic rites of passage, or the holy sacraments (baptism, communion, marriage, etc.). Seen in this light, the reaction to Calles and repression of the Church becomes much more complex. For some, participation in the rebellion had to do with non-religious concerns and the film shows this. For others, however, civic life was intertwined with religious life and participation in the uprising was as much about defending the civil right to freedom of religious expression as it was about defending markers of one’s identity. After all, Mexicans in 1927 did not go to city hall to get married or to register births and deaths—such major life events were validated by one’s priest and recorded in the local parish record.

The cristeros developed their own reasons for joining the rebellion, but events also occurred at the highest level of national and international politics that they had little chance of influencing. Interspersed among the scenes of Gorostieta readying his army, of League collaborators mobilizing, and of José finding his revolutionary self and suffering for it, is another important story about twentieth-century international relations, especially between Mexico and the United States. While the federales were killing priests and desecrating Catholic churches, the United States saw its economic and political interests in Mexico threatened. In one scene, President Calvin Coolidge sends Ambassador Dwight Whitney Morrow to Mexico to negotiate a resolution to the war that will protect U.S. oil interests. In exchange for oil concessions, the U.S. decides to sell military weaponry to the Mexican government. Not unsurprisingly, Ambassador Morrow becomes a key figure in peace talks, not between the state and cristeros, but between the state and the Church, the two institutions who were fighting for legitimacy and hegemony. In the film, all of this happens without cristero input. In fact, while Calles and Morrow discuss an end to the conflict that would protect U.S. interests and appease American members of the Knights of Columbus who pressured the State Department into acting on behalf of their besieged Mexican Catholic brethren, Gorostieta is busy building a unified cristero army out of many smaller militant groups. Unbeknownst to him and the other cristero generals, many of whom had fought in the Revolution, the stakes and tactics of war had changed. What began as a local conflict would be shaped by Cold War geopolitics, new military technologies, and a new mode of governmentality embodied by the political party that would rule Mexico for 70 years, the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (Institutional Revolutionary Party, PRI).

A pro-Catholic Church fighter standing in front of an abandoned church during the Cristero Rebellion.

This film is, superficially, a descendant of spaghetti western kitsch with all of the expected gunfights and feats of bravado, but upon closer analysis, it offers much more than that. It is about war and new methods of communication. Railroads, telegraphs, and photographic images made possible greater global integration, inasmuch as information about the cristeros spread around the globe more rapidly. The film also provides viewers with an entertaining lesson in the sources that historians use to construct narratives of the past. In this case, Gorostieta’s letters to his wife, photographs, presidential speeches, and records of diplomatic intervention provide the primary sources of a narrative that shows elite perceptions of the cristeros and ordinary peoples’ own perceptions of themselves and their role in national and regional politics. Finally, For Greater Glory offers an explanation for why people radicalize in response to government action, reminding viewers that war is never simple.

The Cristero Rebellion inspires homage and this film is dedicated to those who fought and died in the rebellion, yet there are a few surprising holes. Gorostieta says in one scene that “women are as important to this war as any soldier” yet the lone female figure shown collaborating with the League plays a minor role in the larger narrative and the range of female cristero activity shown in the film is limited to the collection of signatures in petition drives and smuggling bullets. Women from all social classes acted as cristeros or as their supporters in a wide range of ways. Notwithstanding, For Greater Glory is a moving and informative film and deserves a wide audience.

For more on the church-state crisis of the post-revolutionary period in Mexico you might enjoy:

Matthew Butler, Popular Piety and Political Identity in Mexico’s Cristero Rebellion: Michoacán, 1927-29 (2004)

And here on NEP: Matthew Butler’s review of Graham Greene’s novel, The Power and the Glory, which takes place during the same period.

Watch “For Greater Glory” here.

Photo credits:
National Photo Company, “Gen. P.E. Calles,” 31 October, 1924
National Photo Company via The Library of Congress
Unknown photographer, Untitled
Unknown photographer via locaburg/Flickr Creative Commons

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