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  • Mexican Revolutionary Anticlericalism: Concepts and Typologies
  • Adrian A. Bantjes (bio)

Introduction

In recent years, an impressive effort has been made to supersede established interpretations of religious conflict in revolutionary Mexico that dismissed religious motivations as superstructural derivatives of “true” socio-economic and political factors. This has been accomplished by—pardon the cliché—“bringing religion back in” to the study of the Mexican Revolution.1 Yet while our post-secular understanding of Mexican religions and their impact has been vastly enhanced, the same cannot be said of revolutionary anticlericalism and irreligiosity, which have similarly been dismissed as mere tools in the hands of a cynical, Machiavellian revolutionary leadership intent on mystifying a credulous people.2

The goal of this special issue is to explore the motivations, manifestations, and impacts of the pervasive anticlericalism that characterized revolutionary discourse and policy. The essays included below examine a range of actors that contributed to Mexico’s attempted cultural revolution: local [End Page 467] politicos, Freemasons, constitutional clergymen, and radical teachers. In their case studies, the authors unearth the rich and diverse roots that fed anticlericalism during the Mexican Revolution. As is often the case in Mexico, these origins tend to be rather complex. While the Enlightenment project and its liberal, anarchist, and socialist interpretations were its main source, together with a widespread popular anticlericalism, we must also acknowledge the influence of less well-documented beliefs, such as reformist Christianity, spiritism, and deism. This rich discursive mélange interacted with local political, socio-economic, and cultural factors to determine the development of anticlerical thought and action.

Unfortunately, historical research in this area has so far struggled to deploy clear conceptual definitions. Thus, a few elementary distinctions must be made. The term “anticlericalism,” which specifically refers to opposition to clericalism, must, of course, be distinguished from anti-Catholicism, anti-Christianity, deism, irreligiosity, and atheism. As French historian René Rémond reminds us, anticlericalism is in no way incompatible with religiosity, and detailed studies of nineteenth-century Mexico confirm this.3 Anticlericalism’s primary target is the separate, often privileged status of a clerical “caste” that is perceived as hypocritical, immoral, and avaricious, especially when viewed from the perspective of the egalitarian concept of popular sovereignty typical of the modern nation state.4 At the same time, it frequently exhibits profound deist and reformist religious tendencies.

However, Rémond also makes clear that while moderate political anticlericalism merely advocates the independence of the state and freedom of conscience, more radical forms of anticlericalism can easily spill over into a broader attack on the “clericalized” laity and the religious phenomenon itself. In nineteenth-century France, a commonly held deism evolved in some cases into a sweeping rationalist rejection of all religiosity.5 At times, the secularizing state became, to borrow Rémond’s phrase, “an instrument of the extinction of beliefs.” France’s late nineteenth-century laïcisme de combat, which emerged after the debacle of 1848, and was fed by Positivism, reactivated “its most irreligious ferments.” In its sectarian manifestation, laïcisme became “an antireligion with an ambition to replace traditional faiths.”6 It should thus be stressed that while anticlericalism does not [End Page 468] by definition imply an anti-religious position—this point has been made repeatedly by Latin Americanists such as J. Lloyd Mecham, who pointed out that many early liberals and Freemasons were also devout Catholics,7—it has the potential to transform itself into irreligion.

Another cluster of key terms that require definition includes “laicity” (laicidad in Spanish, laïcité in French), and “laicism” (laicismo in Spanish, laïcisme in French)8, terms which are increasingly used in current Mexican academic discourse as well as in debates on Church-State relations and are highly relevant to earlier periods as well. In French usage, laïcité refers to “a conception and organization of society based on the separation of Church and State,” while laïcisme denotes the “doctrine of those who are partisans of the laicization of institutions, notably of education.”9 Rémond defines laïcisme as “the ideology that inspired [laicity] but set itself up as a counter-religion.”10 Laïcisme de combat is used to describe a particularly pugnacious...

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