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The Compatibility of Church and State in Mexico

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Frederick C. Turner
Frederick C. Turner*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, University of Connecticut
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Extract

Although Church-State Relations have seldom been viewed from the standpoint of nationalism, they raise a series of questions concerning the patterns of loyalty which citizens render to both Church and State. Historians frequently find common religion to be an element of nationalism, but in the nominally Catholic countries of Latin America references to “common religion” in fact hide major diversities and degrees of belief. If reiterations of a common religious heritage by the mass of a population can strengthen thensentiments of common origin and national purpose, open conflict between religious groups may also belie national unity. Religious and national loyalties may be overlapping and mutually reinforcing, or they may be contradictory and antagonistic. The nature of the loyalties differs in time even within the same national context.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Inter-American Studies , Volume 9 , Issue 4 , October 1967 , pp. 591 - 602
Copyright
Copyright © University of Miami 1967

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References

1 On the shift in relations under Lázaro Cárdenas, see Brown, Lyle C., “Mexican Church-State Relations, 1933-1940,” A Journal of Church and State, VI, No. 2 (Spring 1964).Google Scholar

2 Tannenbaum, Frank, Peace by Revolution (New York: Columbia University Press, 1933), p. 61.Google Scholar

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8 The New York Times, May 23, 1911, p. 1:7.

9 Dr. Atl [Gerardo Murillo], Palabras de un hombre al pueblo americano (Orizaba, Ver.: n.p., 1915), pp. 43, 44.

10 Reprint entitled Speech of General Alvarado, Governor of the State of Yucatán, At the Closing Session of the Second Pedagogic Congress, Held at Mérida (n.p.: n.p., 1916), p. 13.

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19 Quoted in Elias, Arturo M., The Mexican People and the Church (New York: n.p., n.d.), p. 48.Google Scholar

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