Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-skm99 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-28T08:51:40.464Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Anticlericalism, Politics, and Freemasonry in Mexico, 1920–1940

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Benjamin Smith
Benjamin Smith*
Affiliation:
Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

On 16 April 1938, the school teacher of the Mixtec village of San Andrés Dinicuiti reported that the Easter week procession had taken place, despite government regulations prohibiting public displays of worship. During the event, the faithful had marched through the streets shouting “Long live religion, death to bad government, death to the state governor, death to the president of the republic.” When they arrived at the local school, they yelled “Death to the masons, long live religion” before denigrating the teacher's parentage. During the 1920s and 1930s, devout Catholic peasants throughout Mexico repeatedly denounced the presumed link between government, school teachers, anticlericalism, and the masons. The popular condemnation obviously emanated in part from the ecclesiastical hierarchy's frequent anti-masonic pronouncements. The Apostolic Delegate's charge that masons were “the cause of our persecution and almost all our national misfortunes” was reiterated in countless bulletins, manifestos, and pastoral letters throughout the country. In 1934, the Bishop of Huajuapam de León, which controlled the parish of San Andrés Dinicuiti, reminded local priests that they were to refuse to accept masons and members of the government party as godparents for baptisms, confirmations, or marriages. A year later, Mexican Catholic Action argued that government policies of socialist education and agrarismo were the “impious work of anti-Christian masons.” However, despite this popular cross-class conviction, there is little historical work on the actual role of the masons in modern Mexico. By examining the archives of the Grand Lodge of Oaxaca, this article posits that Masonic lodges were key to the process of post-revolutionary state formation. As the state sought to assert control over a divided country, freemasonry's anticlericalism not only offered a model for cultural practice, masons also formed a vanguard of willing political emissaries. However, the institution's influence should not be overstressed. It was often curtailed by internecine disputes, political infighting, and an essentially conservative leadership.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 65 , Issue 4 , April 2009 , pp. 559 - 588
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Archivo General del Poder Ejecutivo del Estado (AGPEO), Asuntos Católicos, 1940, Justo Ramírez to Luis G. Ramírez, 16 April 1938

2 Rich, Paul, Guillermo de Los Reyes, “The Cárdenas Masonic Lodge Schemes: Labor, Ritual, and Secrecy During the 1930s,” Paper presented at the Latin American Studies Association, Chicago, 23–27 September 1998;Google Scholar Abascal, Salvador, Lázaro Cárdenas: Presidente Comunista (Mexico, D.F.: Editorial Tradición, 1988), p. 227;Google Scholar Macfarland, Charles S., Chaos in Mexico, The Conflict of Church and State (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1935), pp. 192–193.Google Scholar

3 Archivo de la Diócesis de Huajuapan de León (ADHL), Bishop Méndez del Río, instrucciones al clero, 15 November 1934.

4 Archivo de Acción Católica Mexicana (AACM), ACM, instrucciones pastorales, 12 June 1936.

5 Joseph, Gilbert and Nugent, David (eds.) Everyday Forms of State Formation: Revolution and the Negotiation of Rule in Modern Mexico (Durham: Duke University Press, 1994).Google Scholar

6 Zalee y Rodríguez, Luis J., Apuntes para la historia de la masonería en Mexico (de mis lecturas y mis recuerdos) (México, D.F.: Talleres de la Penitenciaría del Distrito Federal, 1950);Google Scholar Davis, Thomas B., Aspects of Freemasonry in modern Mexico: an example of social change (New York: Vantage Press, 1976);Google Scholar Mateos, José María, Historia de la Masonería en México dede 1806 hasta 1884 (Mexico, D.F.: n.p., 1884);Google Scholar Chism, Richard E., Una contribución a la historia masónica de México (Mexico, D.F.: Editorial Herbasa, 1993).Google Scholar

7 Jean-Pierre, Bastían, “Una Ausencia Notoria: La francmasonería en la Historiografía mexican-ista,” Historia Mexicana 44:3 (1995), pp. 439–460;Google Scholar Trueba Lara, José Luis, Masones en México, Historia del poder oculto (Mexico, D.F.: Grijalbo, 2007).Google Scholar

8 Guedea, Virginia, En busca de un gobierno alterno: Los Guadalupes de México (Mexico, D.F: UNAM 1992).Google Scholar

9 Costeloe, Michael, The central republic in Mexico, 1835–1846: Hombres de bien in the age of Santa Anna (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993);CrossRefGoogle Scholar Vásquez, Josefina Zoraida, “Los primeros tropiezos” in Ignacio Bernal et al. (eds.), Historia general de Mexico (Mexico, D.F: El Colegio de México, 1976), 3, pp. 1–81.Google Scholar

10 Carmen Vásquez Mantecón, María del, Muerte y vida eterna de Benito Juárez: El deceso, sus rituales y su memoria (Mexico, D.F.: UNAM, 2006).Google Scholar

11 Brandenburg, Frank, The Making of Modern Mexico (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., Prentice-Hall [1964]), pp. 95–105;Google Scholar Guerra, Francois Xavier; México: del Antiguo Régimen a la Revolución (México, D.F.: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1988);Google Scholar Bastían, Jean-Pierre, Protestantes, liberales y francmasones: Sociedades de ideas y modernidad en América Latina, siglo XIX (Mexico, D.F.: Comisión de Estudios de Historia de la Iglesia en América Latina: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1990);Google Scholar Bastian, Jean-Pierre, “Protestants, Freemasons, and Spiritists: Non-Catholic Religious Socabilities and Mexico’s Revolutionary Movement, 1910–1920” in Butler, Matthew (ed.), Faith and Impiety in Revolutionary Mexico (London: Palgrave, 2007), pp. 75–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

12 Friedrich, Paul, The Princes of Naranja, An Essay in Anthropological Method (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1986), pp. 126–127;Google Scholar Garner, Paul, Porfirio Díaz, Del heroe al dictador, una biografía (Mexico, D.F.: Planeta, 2003), pp. 39–40;Google Scholar Chassen, Francie R., Oaxaca del Porfiriato a la Revolución, 1902–1911 Unpubl. Ph.D diss., Universidad Autónoma de México, 1986, p. 271.Google Scholar

13 González Navarro, Moisés, Masones y cristeros en Jalisco (Mexico, D.F.: El Colegio de México, 2001);Google Scholar Meyer, Jean, “El anticlerical revolucionario, 1910–1940” in Palafox, Ricardo Avila, Assad, Carlos Martínez and Meyer, Jean (eds.), Las Formas y las Políticas del Dominio Agrario, Homenaje a François Chavilier (Guadalajara: Universidad de Guadalajara, 1992), pp. 284–306;Google Scholar Bantjes, Adrian, “Idolatry and Iconoclasm in Revolutionary Mexico: The De-Christianization Campaigns, 1929–1940,” Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos, 13:1 (Winter, 1997), pp. 87–120;Google Scholar Bailey, David, Viva Cristo Rey: The Cristero Rebellion and the Church-State Conflict in Mexico (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1974), pp. 157,Google Scholar 172, 197, 276; Vaughan, Mary Kay, Cultural Politics in Revolution, Teachers, Peasants and Schools in Mexico 1930–1940 (Tuscon: University of Arizona Press, 1997), pp. 90,Google Scholar 111, 120, 135; Horcasitas, Beatriz Urías, “De Moral y Regeneración: El Programa de “ingenería social” posrevolucionario visto a través de las revistas masónicas mexicanas, 1930–1945,” Cuicuilco, 11:32 (2004), pp. 87–119.Google Scholar

14 Bautista García, Cecilia Adriana, “Maestros y masones: La Contienda por la reforma Educativa en México,” Relaciones, 26: 104 (Otoño, 2005), pp. 219–276, pp. 220–221.Google Scholar

15 The archive is located in the Grand Lodge of Oaxaca in central Oaxaca City. It is ordered chronologically in bound books. The secretary of the archive gives limited access to researchers between the hours of 9.30pm and 11.30pm. Although the archive stands on the open shelves in the lodge, it seems that some connection of friendship, kinship or compadrazgo is necessary for easy access. I was fortunate enough to gain access through a relation who was also a mason of some standing in tire lodge.

16 The names of Masonic lodges seem to fit into four categories. First, many lodges, reflecting their basis in certain aspects of Christian mythology, took their names from the lexicon of orthodox Christianity, e.g. Redención, Cristo. Second, other lodges relied on names derived from more esoteric myths surrounding the construction of Solomon's temple. For example, Booz, which literally means “the moving fire” was the name of one of the pillars of the temple and represented the sun. Third, many of the central lodges took formulaic names, which reflected masons’ desire for unity or progress, e.g. Unidad Mexicana or Porvenir del Istmo. Fourth, lodges were called by the names of famous masons. Most obviously the grand Lodge of Oaxaca was later called the Grand Lodge Benito Juárez. Other names are more difficult to trace and probably either related to local masons or forgotten practitioners of the rites, e.g. Frank Lampaban.

17 All the data for this section is based on the Archivo de la Gran Logia “Benito Juárez” de Oaxaca (AGLBJO), GLD 48–58, 1926–1934.

18 Ramírez, Manuel Ceballos, El Catolicismo Social: Un Tercero en Discordia Rerum Novarum. La Cuestión Social y la Movilización de los Católicos Mexicanos, ¡891–1911 (Mexico, D.F.: El Colegio de México, 1991), p. 16.Google Scholar

19 Overmyer-Velázquez, Mark, “A New Political Religious Order: Church, State and Workers in Pori-firan Mexico,” in Nesvig, Martin Austin (ed.) Religious Culture in Modem Mexico (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Pub., 2007), pp. 129–156.Google Scholar

20 Archivo Particular de Genaro Vásquez Colmenares, Constitución, Estatutos, Reglamento y Leyes Penales de la Gran Logia Simbólica de Libres y Aceptados Masones del Estado de Oaxaca (Oaxaca de Juárez: Oaxaca: n.p., 1927).

21 AGLBJO, GLD 52, Reglamento Interior de la Logia Independencia, 1928.

22 Ibid., 53, Financial reportof Gran Logia, 27 December 1929.

23 Ibid., 49, Logia Redención to Gran Logia de Oaxaca, 20 July 1926.

24 Ibid., 50, Logia Cristo to Gran Logia del Estado, 12 February 1926.

25 Constitución, Estatutos, Reglamento.

26 Rodríguez, Zalce y, Apuntes, 2, pp. 404–407.Google Scholar

27 AGLBJO, GLD 52, Logia Cristo to Gran Logia del Estado, 27 July 1928.

28 Ibid., 57, Logia General Vicente Guerrero to Gran Logia de Oaxaca, 3 January 1§30.

29 Ibid., 48, Gran Logia Valle de México to Gran Logia de Oaxaca, 12 February 1926.

30 Ibid., 50, Logia Redención to Gran Logia de Oaxaca, 15 August 1927.

31 Rodríguez, Zalce y, Apuntes, 2, pp. 375–88.Google Scholar Also see examples in Meyer, , “El anticlerical revolucionario,” pp. 288–289.Google Scholar

32 AGLBJO, GLD, 53, Fraternidad, May 1929; AGLBJO, GLD, 53, Logia de Campeche, undated 1928.

33 Ibid., 53, Fraternidad, May 1929.

34 Ibid., 47, Logia de Tehuacan to Gran Logia de Oaxaca, 15 April 1926.

35 Rodriguez, Zalce y, Apuntes, 2, pp. 87–114.Google Scholar

36 AGLBJO, GLD 48, Calixto Méndez to Gran Logia de Oaxaca, 6 February 1928.

37 Rodríguez, Zalce y, Apuntes, 2, pp. 92–95.Google Scholar

38 AGLBJO, GLD 50, Grap Logia Valle de México to Gran Logia de Oaxaca, 17 February 1927.

39 Ibid., 53, Gran Logia de Tamaulipas to Gran Logia de Oaxaca, 6 August 1929.

40 Fowler-Salamini, Heather, Agrarian Radicalism in Veracruz, 1920–1938 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska, 1978).Google Scholar

41 AGLBJO, GLD 52, Gran Logia de Jalapa to Gran Logia de Oaxaca, 2 May 1928.

42 Ibid., 53, Logia “Frank Lambapan” to Gran Logia de Oaxaca, 30 September 1929.

43 Ibid., 52, Gran Logia de Tapachula to Gran Logia de Oaxaca, 3 March 1929.

44 Ibid., 53, Gran Logia de Tuxtla Gutiérrez to Gran Logia de Oaxaca, 7 August 1929.

45 Balam Ramos, La Masonería en Yucatán.

46 AGLBJO, GLD 53, Gran Logia Oriental Peninsular to Gran Logia de Oaxaca, 3 February 1929.

47 Ibid., 50, Logia Acción Benito Juárez to Gran Logia de Oaxaca, 6 February 1927.

48 Meyer, Jean, El conflicto religioso en Oaxaca (1926–1938) (Oaxaca de Juárez, Oax.: UABJO, 2007).Google Scholar

49 AGLBJO, GLD 48, Minutes of Gran Logia de Oaxaca, 17 April 1926.

50 Ibid., 48, Carlos Bustamante to Gran Logia de Oaxaca, 8 May 1926.

51 Ibid., 53, Valle de México to Logia de Oaxaca, 30 December 1929.

52 Ibid., 53, Fraternidad May 1929.

53 Zalce y Rodríguez, Apuntes, II, p. 125.

54 Ibid., Apuntes, II, p. 299.

55 Urías Horcasitas, “De moral y Regeneración,” pp. 99–100.

56 de Los Rios, Rafael L., La Institución Masónica y La Revolución Mexicana (Mexico, D.F.: n.p., 1935).Google Scholar

57 AGLBJO, GLD 60, Policarpo T. Sánchez to lodges of Oaxaca, 14 November 1932.

58 Ibid., 60, Minutes of meeting of Logia Cristo, 5 December 1932.

59 Ibid., 60, Gran Logia de Oaxaca to lodges of Oaxaca, 19 November 1932.

60 Brandenburg, , The Making of Modern Mexico, p. 102.Google Scholar

61 Rich, Paul, Guillermo de los Reyes and Antonio Lara, “The Rite that Wasn’t: The Cardenista Masons of Mexico,” Heredom, The Transactions of the Scottish Rite Research Society, 8 (1999–2000).Google Scholar

62 AGLBJO, GLD 60, Gran Logia de Oaxaca to Gran Logia “Valle de México,” 5 December 1932.

63 Ibid., 66, Gran Logia de Tamaulipas to Gran Logia de Oaxaca, 3 June 1934. In an act of selective memory, Zalce y Rodríguez claims to transcribe the minutes of the congress in full but fails to mention Cárdenas or his separatist lodge. Rodríguez, Zalce y, Apuntes, 2, pp. 388–423.Google Scholar

64 Ibid., 67, Circular 2 of Gran Logia de Oaxaca, 23 October 1934.

65 El Oaxaqueño, 25 November 1934.

66 Ibid., 6 April 1935.

67 AGLBJO, GLD 68, Gran Logia de Oaxaca to Anastasio García Toledo, 4 April 1935.

68 Ibid., 65, Logia Osiris to Gran Logia de Oaxaca, 3 February 1933.

69 Ibid., 68, Logia Porvenir del Istmo to Gran Logia de Oaxaca, 23 December 1935.

70 Ibid., 69, Logia de Miahuatlán to Gran Logia de Oaxaca, 4 December 1935.

71 Ibid., 67, Gran Logia de Oaxaca to lodges of Oaxaca, 16 November 1934.

72 Ibid., 69, Logia Cristo to Gran Logia de Oaxaca, 19 November 1935.

73 Ibid., 69, Logia Independencia to Gran Logia de Oaxaca, 7 September 1935.

74 Ibid., 69, Logia de Miahuatlán to Gran Logia de Oaxaca, 4 December 1935.

75 Ibid., 67, Gran Logia de Oaxaca to the local congress, 19 September 1934.

76 Ibid., 69, Logia General Vicente Guerrero to Congreso Local, 6 April 1935.

77 Ibid., 69, Gran Logia de Oaxaca to Gran Logia “Valle de México,” 2 May 1935.

78 AGPEO, Educación, Padres de Familia of Matías Romero to Governor García Toledo, 23 January 1935.

79 Ibid., Gobernación, Padres de Familia of Juchitán to SEP, 7 August 1936.

80 AGLBJO, GLD 69, Elpidio Ayuso to Gran Logia de Oaxaca, 9 February 1935.

81 Ibid., 68, Miguel Ramírez to Gran Logia de Oaxaca, 17 April 1934.

82 Ibid., 68, Gabriel Aspirez to Gran Logia de Oaxaca, 6 February 1935; Smith, Benjamin, “Anti-clericalism and Resistance in the diocese of Huajuapam de León,” Journal of Latin American Studies, 37:1 (2005), pp. 469–505.Google Scholar

83 Arévalo, Salvador Sotelo, Sotelo, Adonaí and Sánchez, Martin (eds.), Historia de mi vida. Autobiografía y memorias de un maestro rural en México, 1904–1965 (Mexico, Instituto Nacional de Estudios Históricos sobre la Revolución Mexicana, 1996).Google Scholar Or see Padilla, Tanalis, Rural Resistance and the Land of Zapata, The Jaramillista Movement and the Myth of the Pax Priista, 1940–1962 (Durham, Duke University Press, 2008)Google Scholar

84 AGLBJO, GLD, Logia “Benito Juárez” to Gran Logia de Oaxaca, 19 February 1935.

85 Ibid., 73, Jerónimo Salazar Canedo to Gran Logia de Oaxaca, 20 September 1937.

86 Ibid., 60, Logia Acción to Gran Logia de Oaxaca, 30 March 1932.

87 Archivo Histórico de la Arquidiocesis de Oaxaca (AHAO), Gobierno, Correspondencia, Priest of Tuxtepec to Vicario General, 22 September 1934.

88 AGPEO, Gobernación, Miguel Santos to Secretario del Despacho, 30 September 1942.

89 AGLBJO, GLD, 68, Roberto Salazar to Gran Maestro, 4 Aprii 1937.

90 Ibid., 66, Miguel Rincon to Samuel P. Oropeza, 18 February 1936.

91 Ibid., 64, Manuel Blanco to Gran Maestro, 23 December 1935.

92 For a similar tale of bureaucrats’ failed ambitions see Sandage, Scott A., Born Losers, A History of Failure in America (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 2005).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

93 Vaughan, Mary Kay, Cultural Politics in Revolution: Teachers, Peasants, and Schools in Mexico, 1930–1940 (Tuscon: University of Arizona Press, 1997), p. 63;Google Scholar Vaughan, Mary Kay, “The Implementation of National Policy in the Countryside,”Google Scholar in Young, Eric Van, Sánchez, Ricardo, Wobeser, Gisela von (eds.), La Ciudad y el Campo en la Historia de México. Memoria de la VII Reunión de Historiadores Mexicanos y Norteamericanos (Mexico City, 1992) (2 volumes), 2, pp. 893–904;Google Scholar Becker, Marjorie, Setting the Virgin on Fire: Lázaro Cárdenas, Michoacán, Peasants and the Redemption of the Mexican Revolution (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995);Google Scholar Lewis, Stephen, The Ambivalent revolution: Forging state and nation in Chiapas, 1910–1945 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1995);Google Scholar Lewis, Stephen and Kay Vaughan, Mary (eds.), The Eagle and the Virgin: Nation and cultural revolution in mexico, 1920–1940 (Durham: Duke University Press, 2006).Google Scholar

94 Navarrete, Felix, La Masonería en la Historia y en las Leyes de Méjico (Mexico, D.E: Editorial Jus, 1957), pp. 211–227.Google Scholar

95 E.g. Oaxacan Independence leader, Antonio de León was a devout Catholic but also the founder of a York rite lodge. Rangel Rojas, Guillermo, General Antonio de León: consumador de la independencia del Estado de Oaxaca [y] benemérito del Estado de Oaxaca (Oaxaca de Juárez, Oax.: Ayunamiento de Oaxaca de Juárez, 1997).Google Scholar

96 Lara, Trueba, Masones en México, pp. 207–209.Google Scholar

97 Celia del Palacio Montiel, “Las instituciones del catolicismo social en México. La Prensa,” www.eca.usp.br/.../GT%20%207%20%20Juan%20Gargurevich/Celia%20del%20Palacio%20Montiel.doc

98 El Amigo de la Verdad, 28 March 1885.

99 The following books were recommended to primary school teachers in Huajuapam de León in 1909. All include denunciations of the masons. Reyes, J.A., Nociones elementales de la Instrucción Cívica (Mexico, D.F.n.p.: 1901);Google Scholar Reyes, J.A., Catecismo de historia patria (Mexico, D.E: Herrero Hermanos, 1899);Google Scholar García, Genaro, Nociones de economía política (Mexico, D.F: Sociedad de Edición y Librería Franco, 1933, 23rd edn).Google Scholar Reglamento de Instrucción Primaria para las Escuelas Católicas de la Diócesis de Huajuapam (Huajuapam de León, Tipografía de José G. Velasco, 1909).

100 Archivo de la Parroquia de Petlalcingo, Puebla, Libro de Gobierno 1, 6 May 1907.

101 Ibid., 1,4 August 1916.

102 See essay in this volume and Curley, Robert, “The First Encounter”: Catholic Politics in Revolutionary Jalisco, 1917–1919,” in Butler, Matthew (ed.), Faith and Impiety in Revolutionary Mexico (London: Palgrave, 2007), pp. 131–148, p. 142.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

103 Navarro, Moisés González, Masones y Cristeros en Jalisco (Mexico, D.F: El Colegio de México, 2000), p. 60.Google Scholar

104 Rodríguez, y Zalce, , Apuntes, 2, p. 92.Google Scholar

105 O’Rourke, , La Persecución Religiosa.Google Scholar

106 Rodríguez, Zalce y, Apuntes, 2, p. 124.Google Scholar

107 Ibid., p. 313.

108 Knight, Alan, “The Weight of the State in Modern Mexico,” in Dunkerley, James (ed.), Studies in the Formation of the Nation-State in Latin American (London: ILAS, 2002), pp. 212–253;Google Scholar Rubin, Jeffrey W., Decentering the Regime: Ethnicity, Radicalism, and Democracy in Juchitán, Mexico (Durham: Duke University Press, 1997);Google Scholar Gillingham, Paul, “Rural Teachers and State Facades in Guerrero, 1930–1950,” Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos, 22:2 (Summer 2006), pp. 331–360.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

109 Knight, Alan, “Revolutionary Project, Recalcitrant People,” in Rodríguez O., Jaime E., The Revolutionary Process in Mexico: Essays on Political and Social Change, 1880–1940 (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1990), pp. 227–264.Google Scholar

110 Foment, Carlos, Democracy in Latin America, 1760–1900, Volume 1, Civic Selfhood and Public Life in Mexico and Peru (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003).Google Scholar