Catholic Women and Mexican Politics, 1750-1940

Margaret Chowning's authoritative Catholic Women and Mexican Politics, 1750–1940 argues that, in independent Mexico, women's lay associations not only organized church activities but also created leadership roles for women members, who forged “their own form of ‘citizenship,’” becoming key to the survival of the Mexican Catholic Church in the nineteenth century (p. 3). The monograph unites a “social history of women in lay associations” with political history because “gendered political discourses are made more intelligible when paired with gendered social and institutional histories” (p. 12). Focusing on urban areas and Hispanic or mestizo towns, Chowning depicts how the Catholic Church and especially local priests, sometimes unintentionally, fostered women's leadership and broader activism through these lay associations. This monograph is based on rich resources from the archiepiscopal archives of Oaxaca, Durango, Michoacán, Mexico City, and Guadalajara, as well as collective political petitions, congressional debates, and the liberal and Catholic press. Organized chronologically, the book largely addresses the 1840–1910 period, although the first chapter deals with gender roles in eighteenth-century urban cofradías and the epilogue traces Catholic women's activism into the 1960s. Some periods are covered by two chapters, one on lay organizations and another on political history. I was concerned that this structure would become repetitive, but instead it comprehensibly presents the textured local histories in relation to national politics.Seeking to explain the increase in women's lay organizations, Chowning argues that the independence wars hurt the cofradías’ financial model, reducing male membership. At the same time, fewer priests had responsibility for more parishioners. Amid this context, new women's associations and women's branches of existing cofradías emerged; priests supported them because the women's groups could substantially contribute to church work. Chowning argues that “priests managed to overcome strong cultural (both general and ecclesiastical) preferences for gender hierarchy and disdain for women's capacity to organize, administer, and lead” (p. 74). Among the new organizations, the Vela Perpetua was key because of its transformational model of governance. In 1840, a group of women in San Miguel de Allende proposed a new association that would organize a continuous vigil to accompany their church's consecrated bread and wine. The Vela's constitution required that all officers be women. Men could join the Vela, but they would be under women's authority. For Chowning, this new lay organization, which quickly spread, was radical: “Even if women telling men when they must participate in a vigil seems a small thing in substance, in principle it was gender-role-upending” (p. 81). Moreover, in practice the “impertinent women,” as one Father Victoriano Treviño called the Pátzcuaro Vela members in 1850, fought attempts to undermine their organization's autonomy (p. 92). In this particular case, Treviño wanted Vela funds to repair the baptistry roof. The Vela members wanted to repair the sacristy roof instead. Doña María de la Luz Sierra, for the Vela, chided that Treviño's proposed repairs would only improve a hallway where he drank chocolate, daydreamed, and admired the views. Facing Doña Luz's threat to resign, Treviño seems to have backed down.Amid high-stakes national debates about the role of the church in public life, lay associations appear to have facilitated women moving from support for local religiosity to political action through collective petitions, in 1849 and 1856, opposing religious tolerance. Chowning is careful not to claim causality, as “direct evidence that women's lay associations were active in the petition process is elusive,” but “the presence of women's lay groups almost everywhere petition drives were organized . . . is strongly suggestive” (p. 119). In the 1856-to-1875 period, she argues, “all Catholic women, whether members of a lay organization or not, seem to have felt more empowered to act politically” (p. 147). Importantly, Catholic women's political activism shifted liberal discourse: in the face of Catholic women's petitions against religious tolerance, “liberals were forced to insist vehemently that women must stay out of politics, a position they stuck with for many decades” (p. 122). In contrast, the Catholic press increasingly encouraged Catholic women to organize.Its long time frame is essential to the book's groundbreaking contribution to the historiography on Catholic lay women's activism, which has largely focused on the postrevolutionary period. The perspective gained through this broad time frame allows Chowning to identify the nineteenth century, and not the postrevolutionary period, as transformational for the growth of women's lay associations and Catholic women's political activities. Twentieth-century social Catholicism and Catholic Action both build on these nineteenth-century foundations. Equally importantly, Chowning powerfully reminds readers of how women's history, and using a gendered perspective, can transform historical understanding. This book will become the essential reference point for years to come and should inspire further research into women's political and social activities. With its clear writing, it will appeal to historians and students of Mexico, of women and the church. Additionally, thanks to its long time frame, it lends itself to classes in Mexican history and women's history. It's hard to do this volume justice in such a brief review

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