American Catholics and the Mexican Revolution, 1924-1936 (review)

This book provides a detailed account of the various methods by which the American Catholic hierarchy, clergy, and laity attempted to influence official U.S. policy toward the Mexican government's anticlericalism in the years following the Revolution of 1910-20. Redinger skillfully analyzes the interplay among different institutional levels within the far-from-monolithic Church of this period. The study is based solidly on American Catholic archives and U.S. diplomatic papers, and on unfortunately too few Mexican sources.

The book begins with a useful survey of key events: the restrictions on religious practice and education imposed by the Mexican Constitution of 1917; the enforcement of these provisions by the 1924-28 Calles administration; the popular "Cristero" rebellion of disaffected Catholics in the western highlands; the 1929 Church-state modus vivendi brokered by U.S. ambassador Dwight Morrow, and the lessening of overt anticlericalism in the middle 1930's. In its reaction to the Mexican crisis, the American Catholic hierarchy was badly split: leading archbishops' responses ranged from withdrawing U.S. diplomatic recognition from Mexico, economic boycotts and formal protests, to open support for successive U.S. administrations' largely passive policies. In particular, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Ambassador Josephus Daniels brought out these divisions. While some prelates praised them, others demanded the electoral defeat of the former and the removal of the latter for their acquiescence towards Mexico's more radical religious and educational reforms. According to Redinger, these mixed signals were responsible for the hierarchy's failure to improve concretely the lot of Mexican Catholics (p. 34).

More effective than most of the archbishops was Monsignor John J. Burke, C.S.P., who as general secretary of the Church-sponsored National Catholic Welfare Conference helped negotiate the 1929 modus vivendi and obtained an informal protest from FDR to the Mexican ambassador in 1935. Individual clerics also contributed to American Catholic mobilization, although their stances were so divergent that Redinger cannot generalize about them other than to comment, rather vaguely, that they reflected a "Thomist unity between Americanism and Catholicism" (p. 115).

The two chapters of lay organizations and leaders are the most interesting and original part of the book. The national Catholic organization, the Knights of Columbus, failed to achieve its stated goals that FDR replace Ambassador Daniels and publicly condemn the anti-Catholic persecution, but did increase U.S. government interest in the issue and helped induce informal recommendations to Mexican representatives. Like the leaders of the episcopate, spokespeople for the laity did not articulate a consistent viewpoint, but created a climate of "official interest" that facilitated the settlement of the crisis (p. 169). The book concludes with an assessment that Catholic leaders and organizations "influenced Coolidge's and Roosevelt's consciousness," although they did not cause an overt change in official policy (p. 183).

If there is any flaw in Redinger's excellent monograph, it is that he rarely employs Mexican primary or secondary sources. He takes official revolutionary anticlericalism at face value, despite published research showing that legal enforcement varied regionally as to its duration and intensity. The inconsistent application of the 1917 Constitution may have factored into the U.S. government's failure to take a stronger stand. Further, it is not clear what Catholic protests achieved, as the "consciousness" of U.S. presidential administrations amounted to little in practice. Nevertheless, the book is a fine survey of religious mobilization at different institutional levels, and illustrates well the problems of creating a unified policy within the diverse American Catholic community of the early twentieth century.