Nineteenth Century Religious Landscape of Latin America

Religion in Latin America

Third Month

The Transition Transition from What to What? Colony to Independence, and The Church Wars of Independence, 1810-

1825 Age of Enlightenment, Age

of Reason Truth, secular and religious

sources The Bible and Aristotle Atheists, Agnostics, and Deists Regalism Ultramontanism Centralization of the State Charles III Baron von Humboldt, 1799-

1803, in Latin America

American and French Revolutions as models for Latin American Wars of Independence

Simón Bolívar Miguel Hidalgo, and the

Mexican “revolt” or beginnings of the Wars of Independence

Grito de Dolores Guanajuato, granary Conservatives/Liberals Royalists Patriots Laissez-faire economics Adam Smith Virgin de Guadalupe, Virgin of

Remedios

Regalism and the diminishment of the Church in the eighteenth century, especially made evident by the expulsion of the Jesuits

Centralism and how the growing centralism of the State tended to diminish the power/s of the Church

Age of Reason/or Enlightenment, and how the reigning philosophies undermined the authority of the Church.

Influence/s of the French, American, and Haitian Revolutions on the thinking and visions of the Creoles. Separation of Church and State, for example, in wake of American Revolution.

Growing discontent of the Creoles with a system (Spanish colonial government) which seemed less and less inclined, by action and laws, to accede to what the Creoles considered legitimate aspirations, in various areas such as commercial, economic, social and political aspirations.

The Hidalgo Revolt and how it assaulted not only peninsulares, but the lives and sensibilities of Creoles, many of whom actually desired independence, or some form of autonomy within the Spanish Empire, but were unwilling to accept the level of violence and rage of Indians masses who seemed to be taking retribution against ALL whites (peninsulares and Creoles) when they joined Hidalgo’s revolt.

And, how did the new states/leaders deal with the Church in the newly emerging countries?

The transition of the Church into the post-Independence nineteenth century, and the challenges the Church faced as it moved into an area of uncertainty.

The basic political alignments that emerged in the nineteenth century: Liberals and Conservatives.

And, what characteristics or attributes or principals were associated with each, emphasizing that while the Church tended to side with the more traditional Conservatives, the uncertainty of the new relationship with the newly-independent governments plunged the Church into much uncertainty. Like What was going to be the new relationship to

the State? Old State-Church relationship such as existed under the Spanish monarchy? Or, a new one, built on separation of the two. And, if separation, how was the Church to survive and prosper?

The attacks of the Liberals on such areas traditionally reserved to the Church, such as education. How to meet these.

The Church was moving into a period of uncertainty, unsure of where allies were as new political alignments came into being: the Liberals, and the Conservatives.

What happened to the Church was a general decline in the first half of the nineteenth century. Reduction in the clergy, in training in the seminaries, in a general morality, and a disminution of the Church’s power and privileges.

The new forces at work in the world, unleashed by, but not solely by, the industrial revolution and the new “scientific” rational thinking inherited from the Age of Reason.

Some of the issues were:- Increase in wealth and prosperity in the Western world,

although not at all distributed in an equal fashion. Growing curiosity and investigation of our natural world,

leading to new discoveries on such diverse things as the origin of the earth, and, for example, the germ theory of diseases.

Really fantastic progress in modern medicine for example. Anaesthetics but one small example of advances which truly improved man’s control over his world and the things in that world which afflict him.

Electricity, communications, telegraphs, telephones, etc. New understanding into the “psyche” which were pioneered

by people such as Sigmund Freud. In sum, a time of tumultuous change, of growth, of

peace (almost a hundred years of relative peace, or absence of major wars, from the end of the Napoleonic period to the First World War in the twentieth century), and of a belief in progress and inevitable betterment of mankind. Very optimistic.

New understanding into the “psyche” which were pioneered by people such as Sigmund Freud.

In sum, a time of tumultuous change, of growth, of peace (almost a hundred years of relative peace, or absence of major wars, from the end of the Napoleonic period to the First World War in the twentieth century), and of a belief in progress and inevitable betterment of mankind. Very optimistic.

But, in all of this, the dark side: increasing urbanization with the creation of a large, often degraded, working class; gross distribution of the growing wealth, with a few enjoying most the fruits, some, the growing middle classes, getting the benefits filtered down, and the many, increasingly exploited and “downtrodden.”

How to deal with all this? The Church, for example, issued two papal bulls that marked the passage from a stridently anti-modern Church, Syllabus of Errors, to the Rerum Novarum of the 1890s which began to bring the Church into the forum of the life of the people again.

Rerum Novarum, 1891, was the Church’s response to the worst evils of the industrialization/modernization process.

Promoting social and economic justice, supporting working men’s associations, and POINTING toward taking the Church OUT of the formal forms of worship and getting ENGAGED with the emerging problems of the faithful.

.

The Church in the twentieth century—at least up to the emergence of Liberation Theology—(although, of course, Catholic activism was expressed by the formation of political parties in the 1920s through)-- still was closely associated with the oligarchs, ruling classes, whatever we style those who governed.

What Rerun Novarum represented was a new direction the Pope was pushing—albeit gently and not radically—the Church into: engaging with the modern world.

In Rerum Novarum, for example (and read from the Clayton and Conniff text on this section; very valuable source!), both the excesses of capitalism AND socialism were rejected.

Cover a bit of Liberation Theology, but only as a “fast forward” item.

The Church moving away from dependence upon the State, to a more independent position by the twentieth century, for many reasons.

One, leaders and constitutions seemed notoriously unstable in the nineteenth century, making for unreliable relationships. If one constitution or leader favored the Church, how would the next behave.

Liberal leaders and constitutions which were positively anti-clerical, the most notorious example being the Mexican Constitution of 1917 which very openly and specifically attacked Church institutions, leading eventually to the Cristero rebellion of the late 1920s.

And, as the Church became more independent, it in fact went through the “circling of wagons” mentality and emerged stronger in the 20th century, much more flexible and able to move forward without having to depend upon the State for support.

This change, however, was GRADUAL.

In Rerum Novarum, for example (read from the Clayton and Conniff text on this section; very valuable source!), both the excesses of capitalism AND socialism were rejected.

Liberation Theology on the horizon, but did not fully develop until second half of twentieth century.

The Church continued to move away from dependence upon the State, to a more independent position by the twentieth century, for many reasons.

One, leaders and constitutions seemed notoriously unstable in the nineteenth century, making for unreliable relationships. If one constitution or leader favored the Church, how would the next behave?

Liberal leaders and constitutions which were positively anti-clerical, the most notorious example being the Mexican Constitution of 1917 which very openly and specifically attacked Church institutions, leading eventually to the Cristero rebellion of the late 1920s.

And, as the Church became more independent, it in fact went through the “circling of wagons” mentality and emerged stronger in the 20th century, much more flexible and able to move forward without having to depend upon the State for support.

This change, however, was GRADUAL.

Introduce the beginnings of Protestantism in Latin America; largely small Protestant communities, usually of Englishmen, traders, bankers, merchants, in Latin American ports who wished to be able to worship as Anglicans, Methodists, etc.

They found the new governments—especially the Liberal ones—quite willing to allow for religious toleration, although not really ready yet for religious freedom.

From these beginnings, Protestantism would take off in the mid-twentieth century, so that today—for example—fully half or more of Guatemala’s population is Protestant