Seeds of Struggle/Harvest of Faith: The Papers of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe Catholic Cuarto Centennial Conference on the History of the Catholic Church in New Mexico ed. by Thomas J. Steele, S.J., Paul Rhetts and Barbe Awalt (review)

318BOOK REVIEWS with a dying regime. But the tensions of the growing secularization of society that the universal church was facing showed up in Spain as well, along with disputes over the Church's approach to economic problems. By the early 1970's the clergy began to prepare for the change of regime as Franco weakened, and in fact the Church became one of the most important protagonists in bringing about democracy when the dictator died. But with the new democratic regime, the Church faced more difficult problems: it had taken a positive stand on human rights and freedom, but was now met with the pluralism of the new Spanish society. Furthermore, the new pope,John Paul II, became unhappy with the liberal stance of the Spanish clergy, and conservative churchmen in Spain came into leadership positions. The concordat of 1953 was replaced in 1979 with the "Partial Agreements," which retained some concessions for the Church, but the clergy had to face the secularistic reforms of the socialist government which dominated the 1980's and early 1990's. By the mid-1990's, Brassloff points out perceptively, the Church found itself caught in the problem of the Church everywhere, that of "the enemy without —postmodern secularisation—and the enemy within—an increasingly disaffected and pluralised membership." And with only thirty percent of the people practicing Catholics, she hopes that the solution will be "less institution and more community of believers." José M. Sanchez Saint Louis University American and Canadian Seeds ofStruggle/Harvest ofFaith: The Papers ofthe Archdiocese ofSanta Fe Catholic Cuarto Centennial Conference on the History of the Catholic Church in New Mexico. Edited by Thomas J. Steele, SJ., Paul Rhetts, and Barbe Await. (Albuquerque: LPD Press. 1998. Pp. xx, 436. $4995 clothbound ; $27.95 paperback.) A decade before the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock, eight Franciscan missionaries and other Spanish subjects in Juan de Oñate's expedition established the permanent foundation of New Mexican Catholicism. This book's twentythree essays span the four centuries of Catholic life that began with Oñate's 1598 entrada into New Mexico. The professional and local historians who collaborated on the volume presented their papers at the Cuarto Centennial Conference on the History of the Catholic Church in New Mexico held in September, 1997, at Santa Fe. Roughly one-third of the papers treat subject matter from the colonial period; another third examine developments in the hundred years following the mid-nineteenth-century takeover of New Mexico by the United States. Of the remaining essays, three explore the evolution of Catholicism in a locale from colonial times to the present,while two others deal BOOK REVIEWS319 specifically with the period of the Mexican Republic (1821- 1848). The range of topics encompasses aspects of the missionary enterprise, the New Mexican apostolic work of the Franciscans and subsequently the Jesuits, the establishment and development of the diocesan church, the pioneering role of Catholic women in the region, the Penitentes, and the evolution of devotions like those to St. Michael, Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, and "La Conquistadora." Thomas Steele, S.J., merits acclaim as the primary editor who helped turn the various papers into a polished collection of essays. Several essays offer new evidence and particularly insightful analysis on various elements of New Mexican Catholic history. For examplejoseph P Sánchez examines El Farol Indiano,Augustinian Father Manuel Perez's fascinating 1713 manual in which "Catholic doctrine and Indian culture come together in an attempt by missionaries to reconcile the two" (p. 53). Robert Wright's thorough study of priests in New Mexico from 1780 to 1851 demonstrates that extant primary documentation is not consistent with the standard thesis of a largely clergyless Catholicism plagued by "decline, neglect, and scandal" (p. 220) during this period. Juan Romero offers a nuanced analysis of the renowned priest Antonio José Martínez, especially Martinez's response to the 1847 Taos Rebellion. Romero illuminates some of the complexities in the life of Martinez, an historical figure too often narrowly depicted solely as a Catholic apostate or as a hapless victim of U.S. imperialism and die ecclesial rule of French prelate Jean Baptiste Lamy Given the rich and...