A theology if insurrection? Religion and politics in Mexico.

• Author: Floyd, J. Charlene

My children: A new dispensation comes to us today. Will you receive it? Will you free yourselves? Will you recover the lands stolen three hundred years ago from your forefathers by the hated Spaniards? ... Will you not defend your religion and your rights as true patriots? Long live our Lady of Guadalupe! Death to bad government!

Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla

16 September 1810(1)

Chiapas, one of the three poorest states in Mexico, has been called a "rich land with a poor people."(2) Hydroelectric stations in Chiapas produce 55 to 60 percent of the country's electricity, yet 35 percent of the people living in Chiapas do not have access to electricity. Twenty-one percent of Mexico's oil and 47 percent of its natural gas comes from Chiapas. The southernmost state in Mexico, Chiapas yields more than half of Mexico's coffee crop. It is a rich land, yet 42 percent of its inhabitants do not have running water. Sixty-two percent of the people of Chiapas have not finished primary school.(3)

Early in the morning on 1 January 1994, some of the poor people of this rich land, calling themselves Zapatistas (after the Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata) and covering their faces with ski masks or bandannas, entered four cities in Chiapas and posted a manifesto which proclaimed, "Today we say enough is enough..."(4) When Mexico's president Carlos Salinas de Gortari received a message about the uprising in Chiapas, his plans for Mexico's economic, social and political transformation were rudely interrupted. The Zapatista uprising in Chiapas radically reshaped the political and economic reality of Mexico. How did indigenous revolutionaries fit into the political and economic framework of a country striving toward parity with two first-world trading partners, Canada and the United States?

In their urgency to locate the source of the uprising and stabilize the political and economic situation, the government and economic elite in Chiapas accused the Catholic Church of inciting the rebellion.(5) One of the bishops of Chiapas, Samuel Ruiz Garcia, and "his" catequistas, or lay preachers, were identified as responsible. Luis Pazos, well-known Mexican academic and author of the bestseller, [??]Por que Chiapas? (Why Chiapas?) put it this way:

[T]he declarations of the indigenous members of the frente zapatista, (Zapatista front) who explained that they were persuaded to participate in the struggle by the catequistas, cause us to conclude that there are activists shielded in religion behind this insurrection.(6)

The rapidity with which the church was declared culpable raises a number of questions regarding the relationship of religion and politics in Mexico.(7) This was not the first time the church was linked to the political process in Mexico. What are the historical roots of the relationship between religion and politics in Mexico? What is the nature of the work of the Catholic Church in Chiapas which made this accusation possible? Is the accusation plausible?

Historical Roots

Given the breadth and depth with which social scientists have studied the relationship of the Catholic Church to political development in Latin America, the dearth of work focusing on Mexico is striking. Staunch anti-clericalism, adopted as official state policy in 1857 and later underscored and strengthened in 1917, has reinforced the notion that the church has played little or no important role in Mexico's political development. Perhaps giving more weight than is merited to official policy and constitutional mandates, most observers ignore the church and examine other institutions and forces in their study of the Mexican political system. Yet the importance of Catholicism in Mexico should not be underestimated. Between 89 and 95 percent of the Mexican people consider themselves Catholic.(8) Catholicism is a key component of Mexican national identity and has been for almost 500 years.

The man credited with providing the initial spark for the Mexican independence movement in 1810 was a priest, Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla. He assembled his parishioners before dawn and invoked the name of Mexico's indigenous saint, the Virgin of Guadalupe, as he asked those who had gathered, "Will you free yourselves?"(9) Hidalgo's haphazard army worked its way south to Mexico City, taking, and often pillaging, towns along the way. After winning a battle on the outskirts of Mexico City, Hidalgo decided to retreat rather than attempt to take the capital.(10) Six months later rebel leaders, including Hidalgo, were captured. Hidalgo was stripped of his religious orders and executed.

Jose Maria Morelos y Pavon, a mestizo (mixed race) parish priest and former seminary student of Hidalgo, quickly took Hidalgo's place. As priests, both Hidalgo and Morelos had been well-educated. Both were inclined to question the existing social and political mores and their vocation afforded them access to like-minded intellectuals, as well as to their indigenous parishioners. They were able to draw on the institutional structure of the Catholic Church (Hidalgo secured the involvement of approximately 400 priests in the independence movement and, as noted above, initiated the independence movement by assembling his own parishioners) and the authority evoked by the use of religious symbols.

More measured in his tactics than Hidalgo, Morelos managed to isolate Mexico City. He then held a congress with Indian, criollo (Mexican-born Spaniards) and mestizo (mixed race) representatives, to settle the terms of independence. The tide turned against them during the congress, however, as the Spanish rallied those who thought that the independence movement was becoming too far-reaching in its demands. In the fall of 1815 Morelos was captured, brought to Mexico City, defrocked and executed. The wars for independence continued until 1821 when the Spanish crown, weary of fighting, recognized Mexican independence.

The period following independence was marked by political conflict in which proponents of liberal and conservative political philosophies attempted to assert their dominance. Political scientist Roderic Camp describes Mexican liberalism as "a mixture of borrowed and native ideas that largely rejected Spanish authoritarianism and tradition, and instead drew on Enlightenment ideas from France, England and the United States." Political liberty, increased citizen participation in government, freedom of speech and support for small landholders were components of Mexican liberalism. Mexican conservatives, on the other hand, pursued a strong central executive, convinced this was imperative to maintain order and encourage economic development. They emphasized industry, rather than bolstering the small-landholder class, as the way to achieve economic prosperity.(11)

The position of the church within society emerged as a key point of contention, the liberals attempting to diminish the church's power and the conservatives attempting to sustain it. Independence left Mexico with a fragile, insecure state and a wealthy, organizationally solid Catholic Church.(12) The church was Mexico's largest latifundista (large landed estate holder).(13) Besides the wealth generated by its property, the church ensured a steady stream of income from sacramental fees. The church was responsible in large part for education and oversaw its own legal and intricate patronage systems. Liberal opposition to the privileged status these various elements afforded the church was vehement.

Convinced that such a prestigious and influential church was an obstacle to prosperity and progress, the liberals pursued secularization. They were proponents of personal liberty and therefore set out to diminish the Catholic Church's position as a social institution and to make religion, in the words of noted Mexican political scientist Soledad Loaeza-Lajous, an "exclusively individual phenomenon."(14) But even more compelling was the liberals' belief that private property was the foundation of modern society; hence their intense desire to weaken the position of the church as property owner.

The liberals scored a solid victory when the Ley Lerdo (Lerdo Law) was enacted in 1856. Written by Secretary of the Treasury Miguel Lerdo de Tejada, the law was intended to weaken the political and economic status of the church, which liberals believed provided vital support to their conservative opponents. The law required the church to sell any property not used in day-to-day operations. In the following year, additional laws were passed mandating that all births, deaths and marriages be registered by civil rather than religious authorities, and prohibiting the church from charging exorbitant fees for administering the sacraments. The conservatives, who counted significant members of the church hierarchy among their most committed adherents, actively opposed the anti-clerical policies of the liberal government, creating extremely contentious church-state relations.

The situation changed when Porfirio Diaz assumed the presidency in 1876. Although his political roots can be traced to liberalism, Diaz recognized the church's potentially legitimizing role. Unlike his predecessors, he did not try to limit or eliminate the church. Instead Diaz embraced and successfully co-opted the church. His administration entered into a relationship with the Catholic Church hierarchy that helped to stabilize the Diaz regime. As Loaeza-Lajous points out:

Instead of destroying [the Church], he knew how to make use of it by integrating it into the power structure. once he recognized the value of the capacity for social control Catholicism could exert.(15)

During the two-and-a-half decades in which Diaz held power, the church developed a cozy relationship and a very powerful alliance with the state. Thus, when revolt and rebellion confronted the Diaz government in 1910, the Catholic hierarchy was an early target. At the end of the revolution in 1917, anti-clerical...