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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 December 2015
It is sad but true that few Mexicans of our day, even erudite ecclesiastics and faithful Catholic lay historians, know very much about the prelates who led their church during the difficult years from the achievement of independence in 1821 to the commencement of the Reform movement in 1854. Perhaps some will mention a Portugal of Michoacán or a Vasquez of Puebla or a Garza y Ballesteros of Mexico. Not many, however, will remember a Franciscan friar whose life and works have almost been forgotten but who certainly deserves to be remembered by his countrymen and co-religionaries. A famous Catholic review, published in the city of Mexico, carried this note in its issue of September 17, 1857:
With the most profound sorrow we announce to our readers that on the eleventh of this month in this capital the Most Illustrious Fray José María de Jesús Belaunzaran died at the age of eighty-five.
1 La Cruz, Tomo V, numero 19, p. 657.
2 Ibid., p. 660, quoting another Catholic periodical, El Eco Nacional, whose account will be followed from this note onward.
3 There are several interesting essays on Archbishop Fonte in Sánchez, Pedro J., Episodios Eclesiásticos de México (Mexico, 1948)Google Scholar. Even though he left Mexico in 1823, he was not asked to give up his see until 1839.
4 La Cruz, p. 665, quoting El Eco Nacional. Vasquez was the first Mexican bishop consecrated after independence. An outspoken and staunch Mexican patriot, he was also a leader in defending church rights.
5 The diocese of Linares was erected on December 25, 1777, as suffragan of the archdiocese of Mexico, by Pius, Pope VI. Its seat was at Monterrey. Cf. Hipólito Vera, Fortino, Catecismo geográfico-historico-estadístico de la iglesia Mexicana (Amecameca, 1881), pp. 248–249 Google Scholar.
6 L« Cruz, p. 661. Several sources, among them Carlos Pérez Maldonado, La Ciudad Metropolitana de Nuestra Señora de Monterrey, p. 1131, note that Belaunzarán consecrated his cathedral on June 4, 1833.
7 He was succeeded by Bishop Salvador Apodaca, consecrated in January, 1844. Apodaca lived only five months after the ceremony. Cf. Vera, op. cit., pp. 256–257.
8 La Cruz, p. 661.
9 Op. cit., p. 662. The liberal historian, Francisco Sosa, in his invaluable El Episcopado Mexicano (Mexico, 1877), pp. 222–223, says that Posada y Garduño “can be judged a worthy successor to the prelates that the Mexican church had during the Spanish domination; and this satisfaction derives from the fact that the illustrious priest… was born and educated in Mexico and owed his elevation to the episcopacy to his compatriots.”
10 La Cruz, p. 662.
11 Ibid., pp. 662–669. Opposite p. 662 is a lithograph which gives an excellent idea of the solemnity and impressiveness of the ceremonies. Worthy of note, too, is the statement, p. 669, by the Oratorian father that even though the “Ley Lerdo” (which had caused the sale of church property) had left his community in a deplorable financial state, it had refused all co-operation in covering the cost of the funeral and burial of the dead bishop.
12 Téllez, Emeterio Valverde, Bio-Bibliografía Eclesiástica Mexicana (1821–1943 Google Scholar), Tomo I, Obispos (A — I) (Mexico, 1949), p. 163. Valverde, renowned Bishop of León, reproduced most of the information contained in the articles referred to above but in condensed form. He also printed a bibliography of Belaunzarán under ten points but it is obviously incomplete. It should be noted here that the Bio-Bibliografia, in three volumes, is one of the best available sources of information on the Mexican clergy since independence.
13 For background material see Murray, Paul V., “Las relaciones entre la iglesia y el estado en Mexico, 1829–1833,” Revista Jus (Mexico, 1946)Google Scholar; “The Church and the First Mexican Republic, 1823–1830” in Records of the American Catholic Historical Society of Philadelphia (March, 1937), pp. 1–89; Mariano Cuevas, Historia de la Iglesia en Mexico (El Paso, 1928), V; F. B. Steck, The Historical Background of the Church-State Problem in Mexico (St. Louis, Mo., 1936).
14 Cuevas, op. cit., p. 198.
15 Ibid., p. 200. The document is printed in full in Colección Eclesiástica Mejicana (4 vols.; Mexico, 1834), III, 365–379. Bishop Juan Cayetano Portugal of Michoacán (1783–1850) was consecrated in 1831. He suffered exile in the dispute with the Gómez Farias government. It is said that, shortly after his death, Cardinal Antoneli advised the Mexican government that the Pope had resolved to name him cardinal. Cf. Vera, op. cit., pp. 165–166.
16 Cf. Colección Eclesiástica Mejicana, III, 64, 111, 274, 348, 358, 362, 365, 379, 383; IV, 206, 209, 214, 217, 276 for the documents mentioned in the text.
17 Op. cit., IV, 277. Sent on April 30, 1834.
18 Op. cit., III, 113 note.
19 La Cruz, p. 662.