No CrossRef data available.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 February 2008
This article analyses Catholic resistance to the anti-clerical laws of the 1920–1940 period in various municipalities in eastern Michoacán. It argues that the diverse strategies adopted by Catholics in each region was more a response to the variety of local power dynamics at play, than an expression of different religious expressions (sacramental versus ‘popular’ Catholicism). It concludes that the predominance of pacific forms of resistance was the result both of efforts on the part of the ecclesiastical hierarchy to reach a modus vivendi with the Mexican state, and of social expressions of Catholicism ‘from below’.
Este artículo analiza la resistencia católica a las leyes anticlericales del periodo 1920–1940 en varias municipalidades del oriente de Michoacán. Señala que las diversas estrategias adoptadas por los católicos en cada región se debieron más a una respuesta a las variadas dinámicas de los poderes locales en juego, que las diferentes expresiones religiosas (catolicismo sacramental versus uno más “popular”). Concluye que el predominio de las formas pacíficas de resistencia fue el resultado de los esfuerzos de parte de la jerarquía eclesiástica para lograr un modus vivendi con el Estado mexicano y de las expresiones sociales de un catolicismo “desde abajo”.
Palabras clave: Iglesia Católica Mexicana, anticlericalismo, resistencia católica, facciones políticas, Estado mexicano post-revolucionario.
Este artigo analisa a resistência católica às leis anti-eclesiásticas do período de 1920–1940 em vários municípios de Michoacán ocidental. Ele argumenta que as diversas estratégias adotadas por católicos em cada região eram mais um reflexo das diversas dinâmicas de poder locais em jogo, do que uma manifestação de diferentes expressões religiosas (catolicismo sacramental versus catolicismo ‘popular’). Conclui que a preponderância de formas de resistência pacíficas resultava em parte dos empenhos da hierarquia eclesiástica em alcançar um modus vivendi com o estado mexicano e das expressões sociais do catolicismo ‘vindo de baixo’.
Palavras-chave: Igreja Católica mexicana, anti-cleriquismo, resistência católica, facções políticas, estado mexicano pós-revolucionário
1 Nicolás Larín provides a Marxist reading and Antonio Ríus Facius the hagiographic Catholic interpretation of the Cristero conflict: Larín, La rebelión de los cristeros, 1926–1929 (México, 1968); Rius Facius, Méjico cristero. Historia de la ACJM, 1925 a 1931 (Mexico, 1966).
2 Robert E. Quirk, The Mexican Revolution and the Catholic Church, 1910–1929 (Bloomington, 1973), David Charles Bailey, Viva Cristo Rey! The Cristeros Rebellion and the Church-State Conflict in Mexico (Austin, 1974), Alicia Olivera, Aspectos del conflicto religioso de 1926 a 1929. Sus antecedentes y consecuencias (Mexico, 1966), Jean Meyer, La Cristiada, 3 vols (Mexico, 1993).
3 Jrade, Ramón, ‘Inquiries into the Cristero Insurrection against the Mexican Revolution’, Latin American Research Review, vol. 20, no. 2 (1985), p. 64Google Scholar.
4 Matthew Butler, Popular Piety and Political identity in Mexico's Cristero Rebellion: Michoacán, 1927–29 (Oxford, 2004), pp. 5–6; Adrian A. Bantjes Aróstegui, ‘Iglesia. Estado y religión en el México revolucionario: una visión historiográfica de conjunto’ en Prohistoria, no. 6 (2002), p. 214; Ramón Jrade, ‘Counterrevolution in Mexico: The Cristero Movement in Sociological and Historical Perspectiva’, Unpubl. PhD. diss., Brown University, 1980, p. 62.
5 An assessment of the different historiographical interpretations of the 1910 revolution can be found in Manzo, Enrique Guerra, ‘Pensar la revolución mexicana: tres horizontes de interpretación’, Secuencia, no. 64 (2005), pp. 51–78Google Scholar; Enrique Florescano, El nuevo pasado mexicano (México, 1999) and; Luis Barrón, Historias de la Revolución Mexicana (México, 2004).
6 Marjorie Becker, Setting the Virgin on Fire. Lázaro Cárdenas, Michoacán Peasants, and Redemption of the Mexican Revolution (Berkeley, 1995); Christopher R. Boyer, Becoming Campesinos. Politics, Identity, and Agrarian Struggle in Postrevolucionary Michoacán, 1920–1935 (Stanford, 2003); Butler, Popular Piety.
7 Jennie Purnell, Popular Movements and State Formation in Revolutionary Mexico. The Agraristas and Cristeros of Michoacán (Durham, 1999).
8 Jrade, ‘Counterrevolution’, pp. 7–35 and 196–8, and ‘Inquiries’, pp. 65–6. Jrade corrects and improves on the arguments presented by José Díaz Estrella and Ramón Rodríguez Cruz in El movimiento cristero: sociedad y conflicto en los Altos de Jalisco (México, 1979).
9 Jrade, ‘Counterrevolution’, p. 196; Purnell, Popular Movements and State Formation, pp. 4–19.
10 The municipality of Zitácuaro was the cabecera of the electoral district that comprised the municipalities of Tuzantla, Benito Juárez, Susupuato, Jungapeo, Ocampo, Angangueo and Tuxpan. Given that the political conflicts of the cabecera of this district tended to affect all the municipalities, reference is also made to them.
11 The clergy and Catholics were opposed to articles 5, 24, 27 and 130 of the Constitution, which established (respectively): the prohibition on creating monastic orders; confinement of religious ceremonies exclusively to official places of worship and only then under state supervision; the expropriation of Church property and capital by the state (all churches, parish houses and locales of religious associations were made property of the nation); regulation of religious functions and the number of priests authorised to officiate religious services. A broader explanation appears in Antonio Ríus Facius, Méjico, pp. 2–15. Additionally, educational secularism, as specified in Article 3 of the 1917 Constitution also enraged Mexican Catholics. Their discontent mounted with the successive reforms of the 1920s and 1930s which banned priests from establishing or directing primary schools and declared that all private schools had to be officially approved and monitored. When attempts were made to introduce co-education (1932) and socialist education (1933) in state schools, their opposition became more radical. See Enrique Guerra Manzo, Caciquismo y orden público en Michoacán, 1920–1940 (Mexico, 2002), pp. 185–94, and Guadalupe H. Monroy, Política educativa de la revolución (1910–1940) (Mexico, 1985).
12 In its understanding of relations of power and resistance, the post-revisionist historiography has tended to rely on the essentially structuralist reading proposed by James C. Scott, in Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts (New Haven, 1992). This article also draws on the complementary approaches of Norbert Elias and Michel Foucault. Foucault conceived of power as a relation of governance between at least two actors and understood its exercise as something involving the resources, strategies and resistance of those actors. Elias, by contrast, interprets power as a functional relationship of dependence between the parties involved and observes more keenly the changing sources (or resources), quotas and balances of power produced between individuals and groups in any given social configuration. See Norbert Elias, Conocimiento y poder (Madrid, 1994), pp. 53–4 and Michel Foucault, ‘El sujeto y el poder’, in Hubert L. Dreyfus and Paul Rabinow, Más allá del estructuralismo y la hermenéutica (Mexico, 1988), p. 239.
13 For the case of Ciudad Hidalgo, see Butler, Popular Piety; for Zamora and Coalcomán, Boyer, Becoming Campesinos and Guerra Manzo, Caciquismo y orden público.
14 The Catholic block is here understood as comprising all those actors who, despite their differences, actively or passively promoted the defence of religion, the extension of civil liberties and the annulment of laws which limited religious freedom. The state block refers to the state and its local allies.
15 Ralph Dahrendorf defined the concept of ‘vital opportunities’ as the possibility of individuals to choose, a possibility which is, in turn, constrained by the links between them (their adscription to structures and cultural referents). There can be no social action without referents which provide that social action with meaning, as social action does not occur in a vacuum. Instead it is shaped by two elements: ties such as the family, the neighbourhood, churches, political parties, nation, social position and so forth, which constitute structures and values; and opportunities to choose (freedom). Dahrendorf considered that social conflicts involved the search for vital opportunities, both by dominant and dominated sectors of society, although they were expressed in different ways by each sector. The view advanced here is that the political class is not only charged with maintaining public order and governability, but also with increasing – or blocking – vital opportunities. The regional brokers who were such a fundamental element of the political class of the period, and who are particularly scrutinised here, tended to utilise social demands in order to exercise leadership and mediation, and in this sense they can be understood as generators of vital opportunities. See Ralph Dahrendorf, Oportunidades Vitales (Madrid, 1983), pp. 49–64 and 89–90 and El conflicto social moderno (Madrid, 1990), pp. 10–47.
16 Norbert Elias, Michel Crozier and Erhard Friedberg developed this sociological interpretation in different ways. Michel Crozier and Erhard Friedberg saw culture as ‘a repertoire of programmes for the choice of strategies’, which actors could even reject in any given moment, choosing other alternatives. Their theoretical proposal and research tried to show the ways in which actors realise innovations, learn new rules of the game and try to put them into practice through processes of trial and error in different social fields. For his part, Norbert Elias argued that individuals possess different layers or repertoires of values that correspond to the multiple and interrelated ways they are integrated into society. The intensity of identification varies greatly from one layer or field to another. Individuals tend to interiorise contradictory layers in their patterns of behaviour, with some being active and others latent. In their day-to-day life, the layer which is most connected to the social configuration on which their vital opportunities depend will be the most important. See Michel Crozier and Erhard Friedberg, El actor y el sistema (México, 1990), pp. 30 and 314–26; Norbert Elias, La sociedad de los individuos (Barcelona, 1990), pp. 74–5 and 232–3.
17 This comprised the electoral districts of Maravatío, Zinapécuaro and Zitácuaro.
18 José Alfredo Uribe Salas argues that the rise of these two mining centres allowed them to ‘rival those of Guanajuato, Zacatecas, Hidalgo, México, Chihuahua, Sonora, and others’, although he does not offer any comparative data to support this claim. See Salas, José Alfredo Uribe, ‘Minería y poder empresarial en Michoacán: la contrarrevolución en Tlalpujahua’, Relaciones, no. 32 (1987), pp. 76–8Google Scholar.
19 Butler, Popular Piety, pp. 39–41, Ramón Alfonso Pérez Escutia, La revolución en el oriente de Michoacán, 1900–1920 (Morelia, 2005), pp. 25–7.
20 The participation of Zitácuaro in the civil war was considerable. Juárez himself sent a letter of congratulations to the municipality; see Alfonso Espitia Huerta, Pueblos republicanos de Michoacán, (Morelia, 1972), pp. 27–8.
21 Jean-Pierre Bastian, Los disidentes. Sociedades protestantes y revolución en México, 1872–1911 (México, 1989), pp. 99–100; Butler, Matthew, ‘Cristeros y agraristas en Jalisco. Una nueva aportación a la historiografía cristera’, Historia Mexicana, vol. 52, no. 2 (octubre-diciembre 2002), p. 524Google Scholar, referring to the case of the municipality of Ocampo also claims that ‘after 1880 mass conversions to Protestantism took place’.
22 The first time was on the orders of the realista Captain Felix Calleja, on 12 January 1812; the second was at the hands of the santanista guards on 1 April 1855; and the third by Belgian troops under the command of the conservative Ramón Méndez, on 15 April 1865. See Moisés Guzmán Pérez, ‘Zitácuaro: la ciudad liberal, 1880–1910’, in Gerardo Sánchez Díaz et al., Pueblos, villas y ciudades de Michoacán en el Porfiriato (Morelia, 1991), p. 227.
23 Bastian, Los disidentes, p. 100, Butler, Popular Piety, pp. 42–3.
24 Bastian, Los disidentes, pp. 100–1; see also, Guzmán Pérez, ‘Zitácuaro’, pp. 240–1.
25 Verónica Oikión Solano, Los hombres del poder en Michoacán, 1924–1962 (Zamora, 2004), p. 87.
26 Butler, Popular Piety, pp. 43–5 and 88–104, Bastian, Los disidentes, pp. 99–102.
27 Other partisan forces appeared in the region, but did not manage to take root: for example, the Partido Voluntad Popular, the Partido José María Morelos, the Partido Demócrata Mexicano. See Pérez Escutia, La revolución en el oriente and Oikión Solano, Los hombres del poder.
28 Butler, Popular Piety, pp. 44.
29 Oikión Solano, Los hombres del poder, pp. 87 and 91, Butler, Popular Piety, pp. 68–9, El Baluarte (Zitácuaro), 21 February 1926.
30 Butler, Popular Piety, p. 73.
31 Boyer, Becoming Campesinos, pp. 125–6 and Butler, Popular Piety, p. 73–4.
32 Neftalí N. Cejudo to Sidronio Sánchez Pineda, Zitácuaro, 29 September 1923, Archivo General de la Nación (henceforth AGN), Obregón-Calles, caja 348, exp. 818-L-47. Oikión Solano, Los hombres del poder, pp. 89–94.
33 Oikión Solano, Los hombres del poder.
34 Butler, Popular Piety, pp. 110–1.
35 José A. González Alcantud, El clientelismo político. Perspectiva socioantropológica (Barcelona, 1997), provides a good summary of this literature.
36 Butler, Popular Piety, p. 134.
37 Ibid., pp. 134–5
38 Ibid., pp. 137–8.
39 Ibid., pp. 169–76. Butler states that religious persecution depended to a large extent on the balance of local political forces. He claims that while in the northeast of eastern Michoacán the church was protected by municipal authorities and their parishes, in Zitácuaro they suffered for opposing reasons. However, he underplays the fact that passive resistance was more intense in Zitácuaro than in the north east precisely because of this.
40 Moisés Guzmán Pérez, Nuestra Señora de los Remedios (Morelia, 1999), pp. 79–84; Crispín Duarte Soto, chronicler of Zitácuaro, provides a detailed account of the religious and civic festivals in the municipality which combined liberal and Catholic traditions: Crispín Duarte Soto, Zitácuaro. Compilación de artículos (Ciudad Hidalgo, 2000), pp. 159–79.
41 Archivo Histórico de la Catedral de Morelia, Archivo del Arzobispado de Michoacán (henceforth cited as AHCM-AAM), F: Diocésano, Sección Gobierno, Siglo XX, serie Parroquias, subserie Visitas, caja 65, exp. 1.
42 AHCM-AAM, F: Diocesano, Sección Gobierno, Siglo XX, serie Parroquias, subserie Visitas, caja 65, exp. 15.
43 Pérez Escutia, La revolución en el oriente, pp. 57–8.
44 Martín Sánchez Rodríguez, Grupos de poder y centralización política en México: el caso de Michoacán (Mexico, 1994), p. 76.
45 Vicente Marín Iturbe, Jungapeo en la historia (Mexico, 1966), pp. 68–73.
46 Pérez Escutia, La revolución en el oriente, pp. 303–4 and 311.
47 Archivo General e Histórico del Poder Ejecutivo del Estado de Michoacán (henceforth AGHPEM), Ramo Gobernación, Subramo Conflictos Políticos, caja 2, exp. 42.
48 For example, in April 1921 Múgica's attempt to take over the Colegio Teresiano and install the Escuela Normal de Morelia immediately led to acute confrontations with the Catholic opposition. But by far the most significant case was the confrontation between Catholics and mugiquistas in the streets of Morelia between 8 and 12 May 1921, occasioned by the profanation of the city's cathedral. Boyer, Becoming Campesinos, pp. 166–71; Sánchez Rodríguez, Grupos, pp. 188–9.
49 Sánchez Rodríguez, Grupos, pp. 216–31.
50 Archivo Histórico de la Secretaría de Educación Pública (henceforth AHSEP), Sección Dirección General de Educación Primaria en los Estados y Territorios, serie Dirección de Educación Federal, Michoacán, 1923, caja 24, exp. 48.
51 Oikión Solano, Los hombres del poder, p. 82.
52 Ibid., pp. 82–3.
53 The ACJM in Michoacán was organised through diocesan unions supported by the clergy. After its establishment in 1912 it worked to ideologically influence society through a variety of means: study circles, schools for adults, libraries, cooperativism and credit unions. In the 1920s it had spread to La Piedad, Pátzcuaro, Zinápecuaro, Angangueo, Purépero, Tlalpujahua, Zacapu, Zitácuaro, Morelia and Zamora. It was established in Zitácuaro in 1913. Oikión Solano, Los hombres del poder, p. 83, Andrés Barquin y Ruiz, Bernardo Bergöend, S. J. (Mexico, 1968), pp. 155 y 165.
54 Presidente municipal de Zitácuaro a Oficial Mayor de la Secretaría de Gobernación, 29 April 1926, Zitácuaro, AGHPEM, Ramo Gobernación, Subramo Asuntos Religiosos, caja 2, exp. 36.
55 Excelsior, 5 May 1926.
56 Enrique Ramírez a Plutarco Elías Calles, Morelia, 29 April 1926, AGHPEM, Ramo Gobernación, Subramo Asuntos Religiosos, caja 2, exp. 38.
57 The Catholics of Jungapeo expressed similar sentiments. In a petition directed to the government of Michoacán, in which they requested permission for the priest to officiate, they claimed that of 5,800 inhabitants of the municipality, 5,500 were Catholic and only 300 of ‘different beliefs’ (AGHPEM, Ramo Gobernación, Subramo Asuntos Religiosos, caja 2, exp. 36). No precise data is available on the proportion of Catholics and Protestants in Zitácuaro, but there is data on the number of priests and churches. A report by the municipal president of Zitácuaro dated 17 August 1926 and sent to the state executive, specified that there were Catholic churches in Nicolás Romero, Crescencio Morales, Donaciano Ojeda, Francisco Serrato, Los Bernal, Los Alzati (where an additional chapel existed), Los Contreras, Curungueo (in construction), Coatepec de Morelos, Chichimequillas, Aputzio de Juarez, Enandio, as well as the main church of San Juan in the municipal cabecera. With respect to ‘evangelical temples’, they were only found in the municipal cabecera, in Coatepec de Morelos, Chichimequillas and Aputzio de Juárez. In all, then, there were four protestant and 13 Catholic churches (AGHPEM, Ramo Gobernación, Subramo Asuntos Religiosos, caja 3, exp. 47). With relation to the number of priests, four were Catholic and three Protestant (Butler, Popular Piety, p. 42). This perhaps indicates that the majority of the faithful in Zitácuaro were Catholic. The state census indicates that in the 1920s only one per cent of michoacanos belonged to a non-Catholic religion.
58 Neighbours of Tlalpujahua to Plutarco Elías Calles, Tlalpujahua see 8 April 1926, Archivo General de la Nación, México, Fondo Dirección General de Gobierno, (henceforth AGN, F: DGG), serie Generalidades de cultos religiosos, caja 53, exp. 2.340 (13).19. On 8 May 1926 the Catholics of Zinapécuaro addressed themselves to their municipal president in similar tones to complain about Law Number 62 (Archivo Histórico del Congreso del Estado de Michoacán, henceforth ACEM, Legislatura LIII, Varios, exp. s.n., carpeta 7, caja 1).
59 Butler, Popular Piety, pp. 193–6.
60 On the impact of sinarquismo see, Servando Ortoll, ‘Los orígenes sociales del sinarquismo en Jalisco (1929–1939)’, Encuentro vol. 1, no. 3, 1984, Jean Meyer, El sinarquismo, el cardenismo y la iglesia, 1937–1947 (Mexico, 2003). Ortoll observes that the success of sinarquismo was due in large part to its ability to take advantage of the failings of the system: exhorting the ejidatarios to demand title, credit and reallocation of land, amongst other things. Ortoll, ‘Los orígenes sociales’, p. 103.
61 See, Félix Gómez a General Isauro García Rubio, Zitácuaro, 14 July 1944, AGHPEM, Ramo Gobernación, Subramo Conflictos Políticos, caja 2, exp. 36, where a detailed report is presented of the vicisitudes of sinarquismo in the municipality of Zitácuaro.
62 AGN, F: DGG, serie Violación Ley de Cultos, caja 29, exp. 2.347 (13).50.
63 Report of the municipal president of Tuxpan to the governor of the state dated 8 February 1928, AGHPEM, Ramo Gobernación, Subramo Asuntos Religiosos, caja 8, exp. 47. Francisco G. Licona denounced similar acts to those of Queréndaro in Tlalpujahua, in a secret missive sent to the Secretario de Gobernación dated 9 April 1927, AGN, F: DGG, serie Violación Ley de Cultos, caja 29, exp. 2.347 (13).48. For its part, on 6 April 1927, the CROM told the secretario de Gobernación that its comrades in the district of Zitácuaro – particularly in the south – had informed them that ‘under cover of darkness suspicious groups travel from one place to another […] having discovered that they are no less than clerics accompanied by fanatics who clandestinely celebrate religious services at the same time spreading seditious propaganda [… In addition] some nuns meet in a private school with clerics and Catholic teachers and pray every night and on Sundays in the afternoon.’ AGN, F: DGG, serie Violación Ley de Cultos, caja 29, exp. 2.347 (13).47.
64 Butler, Popular Piety, p. 186, claims that it was not until Manuel Chaparro was sent by the LNDLR that the cristero rebellion became more intensified in Ciudad Hidalgo.
65 Ibid., pp. 175–6.
66 Oficial Mayor de la Secretaría de Gobernación al gobernador de Michoacán, Mexico, 19 January 1932, AGHPEM, Ramo Gobernación, Subramo Asuntos Religiosos caja 3, exp. 7–2.
67 In May 1932, Cárdenas approved a law, decree number 100, which allowed only three priests to practice in each one of the eleven electoral districts of the region, another measure which enraged Catholics and the church hierarchy. On 14 May Cárdenas sent a telegram to Calles in which he stated the ‘approval of this law could provoke agitation on the part of those affected, but I do not believe they will do anything which could be a problem’. Cited in Oikión Solano, Los hombres del poder, p. 138.
68 Archivo Histórico del Poder Judicial del Estado de Michoacán (AHPJM), Juzgado de Primera Instancia, Distrito de Zitácuaro, Penal, 1932, Legajo 3, exps., 179, 189 y 190.
69 Oficio del subsecretario de Gobernación al gobernador de Michoacán, México, 2 March 1932, AGN, F: DGG, serie Violación Ley de Cultos, caja 8, exp. 2.347 (13).15550. Similar infringements of the law occurred in Jungapeo in June 1933, where the local priest officiated without official permission. AHPJM, Juzgado de Primera Instancia del Distrito de Zitácuaro, Penal, 1933, Legajo 3, exp. 98.
70 Priest Wenceslao Ruiz was going to this meeting when he was arrested.
71 AHPJM, Juzgado de Primera Instancia del Distrito de Zitácuaro, Penal, 1932, Legajo 1, exp., 10. In this same file, see the letter of 5 September 1932 from the municipal president of Jungapeo to the agent of the Ministerio Público, where the official charged with ensuring public order in La Florida indicated he had found out that a meeting of clerics and a mass in the ‘Huerta Grande’ was about to be celebrated, led by the traitor Ángel Camargo […] and that in that meeting some sindicalizados would take part. He asked for support in order to ‘surprise them’.
72 In this manner, the seeds of a clandestine Catholic culture were sown, which would incorporate other pro-Catholic organisations, such as the ACM, la UNS, el MURO y YUNQUE. On the last two of these see Álvaro Delgado, El Yunque y la ultraderecha en el poder (Mexico, 2005).
73 Inspector Federal de Educación Federal a Secretaría de Gobernación, 4 May 1935, AHSEP, Educación Federal, Michoacán, caja 158, exp. 84.
74 AGN, F: DGG, serie Asesinatos, caja 41, exp. 2.012.2 (13)52.35.
75 Oficio del abogado consultor Manuel Avilés al Jefe del Departamento Consultivo de la Secretaría de Gobernación, 4 March 1935, AGN, F: DGG, serie Violación Ley de Cultos, caja 9, exp. 2.347 (13).15615.
76 Since its inception the ACM comprised four organisations, divided into two main branches, masculine and feminine. Each branch was divided into two organisations, according to age and marital status: the Unión Femenina Católica Mexicana (UFCM), for married and adult women, the Unión Católica Mexicana (UCM), for adult and married men, Acción Católica de la Juventud Mexicana (ACJM), for young men and Juventud Católica Femenina Mexicana (JCFM), for young women.
77 Archivo Histórico de la Universidad Iberoamericana (henceforth AHUI), F: Archivo de la Acción Católica Mexicana, Sección Junta Central de la ACM, Junta Diocesana, carpeta 2.10.12, Cuestionarios 1933–1934.
78 AHUI, F: Archivo de la Acción Católica Mexicana, Sección Junta Central de la ACM, Junta Diocesana, Comisión de Actividades Religiosas, carpeta 2.4.12, Cuestionarios Parroquiales 1938–1940.
79 Roberto Blancarte, Historia de la iglesia en México 1929–1982 (Mexico, 1993), pp. 33–4.
80 For example, the PAN candidate for the election of federal deputies in July 1943, Luis Calderón Vega – father of the victor of the presidential elections of July 2006, sent a telegram to Miguel Alemán on 4 July of the same year wherein he denounced the ‘illegal installation’ of an electoral booth in the municipal cabecera of Jungapeo, which was allegedly set up at six in the morning ‘without the participation of voters’. AGN, F: DGG, serie Elecciones Diputados Federales, caja 35, exp. 2.311.D.F.(13).1. And so began the sad politico-electoral experience of those Catholics who decided not to abandon formal politics.
81 Similar petitions were put forward by juntas vecinales from different places in the municipality of Zitácuaro; see Archivo Histórico de la Secretaría de Desarrollo Social, Morelia, Fondo: Secretaría de Hacienda, Sección Bienes Nacionales, serie Bienes Inmuebles, caja 173, exp. 4203/283(723.5), templo de San Juan Zitácuaro.
82 Guzmán Pérez, Nuestra Señora, pp. 89–92.
83 Buitrón, Apuntes, p. 93. The current chronicler of Zitácuaro, Duarte Soto, accepts the omnipresence of Catholicism in the municipality, to the extent that religious festivals outstrip civic festivals: Duarte Soto, Zitácuaro.
84 Bastian, Disidentes, p. 105.
85 See Butler, Popular Piety, Boyer, Becoming Campesinos, Purnell, Popular Movements and State Formation, Guerra Manzo, Caciquismo.