Local Church, Global Church: Catholic Activism in Latin America from Rerum Novarum to Vatican II

Description

This important volume investigates the many forms of Catholic activism in Latin America between the 1890s and 1962 (from the publication of the papal encyclical Rerum Novarum to the years just prior to the Second Vatican Council). It argues that this period saw a variety of lay and clerical responses to the social changes wrought by industrialization, political upheavals and mass movements, and increasing secularization. Spurred by these local developments as well as by initiatives from the Vatican, and galvanized by national projects of secular state-building, Catholic activists across Latin America developed new ways of organizing in order to effect social and political change within their communities. Additionally, Catholic responses to the nation-state during this period, as well as producing profound social foment within local and national communities, gave rise to a multitude of transnational movements that connected Latin American actors to counterparts in North America and Europe. The Catholic Church presents a particularly cohesive example of a transnational religious network. In this framework, Catholic organizations at the local, national, and transnational level were linked via pastoral initiatives to the papacy, while maintaining autonomy at the local level. In studies of the nineteenth- and twentieth-century Catholic renewal in Europe and the Americas, scholars have rarely given ample analysis of the translocal and transnational interconnections within the Catholic Church, which became critical to the energy, plurality, and endurance of Latin American Catholic activism leading up to, and moving through, the Second Vatican Council. By studying Latin America as a whole, Local Church, Global Church examines a larger degree of transnational and translocal complexity, and its investigative lens spans regional, hemispheric, transatlantic, and international borders. Furthermore, it sheds new light on the complex and multifarious forms of Catholic activism, introducing a fascinating cast of actors from lay organizations, missionary groups, devotional societies, and student activists. Dedication Contents Acknowledgments Introduction: Toward a New History of Catholic Activism in Latin America • Stephen J. C. Andes and Julia G. Young Part I: Catholic Social Encyclicals across Borders 1 Messages Sent, Messages Received? The Papacy and the Latin American Church at the Turn of the Twentieth Century • Lisa M. Edwards 2 Catholic Vanguards in Brazil • Dain Borges Part II: Martyrdom and Catholic Renewal in the Mexican Revolution 3 Eucharistic Angels: Mexico’s Nocturnal Adoration and the Masculinization of Postrevolutionary Catholicism, 1910–1930 • Matthew Butler 4 Transnational Subaltern Voices: Sexual Violence, Anticlericalism, and the Mexican Revolution • Robert Curley 5 Secret Archives, Secret Societies: New Perspectives on Mexico’s Cristero Rebellion from the Vatican Secret Archives • Yves Solis 6 The Transnational Life of Sofía del Valle: Family, Nation, and Catholic Internationalism in the Interwar Years • Stephen J. C. Andes Part III: Fighting for the Soul of the University 7 A “Third Way” in Christ: The Project of the Corporation of Mexican Students (CEM) in Cold War Mexico • Jaime M. Pensado 8 Catholic Campuses, Secularizing Struggles: Student Activism and Catholic Universities in Brazil, 1950–1968 • Colin M. Snider Part IV: Development or Liberation? 9 The Antigonish Movement of Canada and Latin America: Catholic Cooperatives, Christian Communities, and Transnational Development in the Great Depression and the Cold War • Catherine C. LeGrand 10 Popular Cultural Action, Catholic Transnationalism, and Development in Colombia before Vatican II • Mary Roldán 11 The Maya Catholic Cooperative Spirit of Capitalism in Guatemala: Civil-Religious Collaborations, 1943–1966 • Susan Fitzpatrick-Behrens Final Reflections: Historicizing Catholic Activism in Latin America • Stephen J. C. Andes and Julia G. Young Bibliography Contributors Index