Clerical Ideology in a Revolutionary Age: The Guadalajara Church and the Idea of the Mexican Nation (1788-1853 ) (review)

Brian Connoughton's study of contending ideologies captures Mexico's nineteenth-century church precisely where scholars are accustomed to finding it: on the defensive. Drawing upon sermons and pamphlets from 1788 through 1853 , the author attempts to restore the church to centrality in the evolution of national ideas. Clerical Ideology is actually a translation of a book published 11 years ago in Mexico, but its insistence on the intellectual vitality and variety of the early republic still guarantees a readership, particularly given the number of recent works exploring the role of the Catholic Church in both colonial and national history.

Connaughton's church is the small circle of Guadalajara's upper clergy. These padres were quite the pamphleteers and made a far more sustained effort at intellectual discourse than, say, their Yucatecan counterparts (perhaps because, unlike the southeastern clergy, tapatío priests found themselves relatively removed from provincial economic life). Throughout the 65 -year time span analyzed, Catholic intellectuals maintained consistency on three points: doctrinal orthodoxy, the organic nature of society, and the ecclesiastical body as society's moral arbiter. They initially welcomed the Bourbon reforms as harbingers of uplift and economic growth, all of which they viewed as including a prominent role for the church. Only with the Hidalgo uprising of 1810 did the clergy begin to rethink matters, for the events of 1810-11 (particularly Hidalgo's brief occupation of Guadalajara) revealed how far the reforms had undermined clerical authority and elite ascendancy in New Spain. From 1814 to 1821 the church championed Ferdinand VII and Spanish rule and therefore found it difficult to adjust itself to political discourse in an independent Mexico. Despite high philosophical issues, much of the matter really turned on issues of practical power, particularly the matter of patronage, whereby the state assumed the right to supervise clerical appointments. Throughout the tempestuous 1820 s and 1830 s, churchmen consistently argued for a concordat between Mexico and the Vatican as a way of normalizing the church-state relationship. But alas, no concordat appeared, and the disasters of the late 1840 s—the faithful assumed—were God's punishment for a Mexico that had strayed. As its final position, church intellectuals came up with the idea of "Providential Mexico," a nation that existed as a political entity but which still had to heed the voice of providence to fulfill its divinely appointed mission. And to discern and follow that mission, Mexico still required clerical supervision. Connaughton argues that the idea of the providential nation provided a critical gap between the concept of Spanish sovereignty and that of the unified nation-state.

Clerical Ideology is not without its downsides. The text is long and at times rather arid. It suffers from an organizational strategy whereby Connaughton follows his theme to the year 1853 , but halfway through he starts over again at independence, now exploring clerical-liberal dialogue. Covering the same ground twice weakens the overall sense of historical progression. The extensive reproduction of clerical writings—their fears, hopes, exhortations, and denouncements—keeps the reader in a prolonged hypothetical state. Despite the book's exhaustive analysis of clerical sermons and pamphlets, the reader will at times wonder about the claims made for the influence of Guadalajara's upper clergy. Did the idea of providential Mexico really carry such weight, and might not the idea, in fact, have broader origins? Many nations, including the most crassly materialistic, see themselves as fulfilling some sort of providential mission. Finally, how much did any of this play outside of Guadalajara itself? After all, Mexican conservatives never gave the clerics as favorable a treatment as the latter thought they deserved.

On the positive side, Clerical Ideology helps deepen and expand our understanding of the young republic's intellectual...