Event Title
Cristero Rebellion: Failures of a Revolutionary Project
Location
Diamond 343
Start Date
30-4-2015 11:00 AM
End Date
30-4-2015 11:55 AM
Project Type
Presentation
Description
By 1910 at the end of the oppressive rule of Porfirio Diaz, rationalist and socialist ideals had greatly influenced the decline of the Catholic Churchs institutionalized power in Mexico. Rationalists and socialists in urban areas believed that government was derived from natural rights and social contract, and that among these rights were liberty and equality which had no greater enemy than the Catholic Church. However, this loss of power did not cause the majority of rural Mexicans to change their identities as Catholics. Most indigenous and Mexican peasants did not attend Mass, yet they revered their village saints for their supposed ability to impact daily events, and frequently publically displayed their worship through pilgrimages and processions. Rationalist and socialist ideals in the Mexican Revolution engendered anticlericalism amongst politicians and the urban populous. These men saw themselves as modernizers and the Catholic Church as an obsolete remnant of the Porfiriato as well as the cause of fanaticism in rural Mexico. This ideological divide between elites and peasants and the urban and rural populous became a source of intense tension throughout the Mexican Revolution, culminating in la Cristiada in 1926. While initially concentrated in central Mexico, by 1929 this conflict had spread to thirteen states, with 50,000 cristeros still in arms. 90 priests had been executed by federal troops, and 25,000 Mexicans had died in combat.
Faculty Sponsor
Ben Fallaw
Sponsoring Department
Colby College. Latin American Studies Program
CLAS Field of Study
Interdisciplinary Studies
Event Website
http://www.colby.edu/clas
ID
1153
Cristero Rebellion: Failures of a Revolutionary Project
Diamond 343
By 1910 at the end of the oppressive rule of Porfirio Diaz, rationalist and socialist ideals had greatly influenced the decline of the Catholic Churchs institutionalized power in Mexico. Rationalists and socialists in urban areas believed that government was derived from natural rights and social contract, and that among these rights were liberty and equality which had no greater enemy than the Catholic Church. However, this loss of power did not cause the majority of rural Mexicans to change their identities as Catholics. Most indigenous and Mexican peasants did not attend Mass, yet they revered their village saints for their supposed ability to impact daily events, and frequently publically displayed their worship through pilgrimages and processions. Rationalist and socialist ideals in the Mexican Revolution engendered anticlericalism amongst politicians and the urban populous. These men saw themselves as modernizers and the Catholic Church as an obsolete remnant of the Porfiriato as well as the cause of fanaticism in rural Mexico. This ideological divide between elites and peasants and the urban and rural populous became a source of intense tension throughout the Mexican Revolution, culminating in la Cristiada in 1926. While initially concentrated in central Mexico, by 1929 this conflict had spread to thirteen states, with 50,000 cristeros still in arms. 90 priests had been executed by federal troops, and 25,000 Mexicans had died in combat.
https://digitalcommons.colby.edu/clas/2015/program/338