Guerra Cristera

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The Guerra Cristera was a civil war that was fought in Mexico from 1926 to 1929 between the government and peasant militias close to the Catholic Church . On the one hand, the survey was directed against the implementation of the anti-clerical provisions of the Mexican constitution of 1917 and thus had the character of a culture war , but on the other hand it was also a rebellion against the intervention of the central state in the interests of the village communities.

Background and process

Cristeros

The stabilization of Mexico after a decade of civil war made it possible for President Plutarco Elías Calles to devote himself more to the economic reconstruction of Mexico. After the redevelopment of the deficit state budget, the main focus was on the introduction of a modern tax system and the expansion of the infrastructure and the education system. However, as a result of the implementation of the anti-clerical provisions of the 1917 constitution and the establishment of a Mexican state church independent of Rome in February 1925, a new source of conflict emerged, which in 1926 expanded into a comprehensive rebellion against the Calles regime. This, the so-called Cristiada , mainly covered the central and western highlands of Mexico or the states of Colima , Jalisco , Michoacán and the Bajío region of the states of Guanajuato and Zacatecas and the south of Coahuila , where Catholicism is particularly strong in the mostly rural population was anchored. Here the Catholic Church was an indispensable part of everyday life for the population, it offered people spiritual refuge, moral guidance and political orientation. The people of these areas were therefore ready to protect “their” church against the “attacks” of the “godless” state and its functionaries. The local clergy, in turn, not only encouraged them in these efforts, but mostly also provided active support of all kinds and in some places even provided the leaders of the increasingly rampant revolt against the central state.

In the Cristero uprising, both sides acted with extreme brutality, from which women and children were not excluded. Torture and rape, summary executions of real and alleged cristeros and their supporters and sympathizers, scorched earth tactics and the deportation of the population of individual regions were reprisals frequently used by the government. The US sent President Calles military equipment, weapons and military advisors to help fight the revolt. The Cristeros destroyed state schools, murdered numerous teachers and government officials, and killed many civilians who did not unconditionally submit to their ideas in retaliatory acts and bandit attacks.

Cristeros hanged along a railway line in the state of Jalisco (photo from 1927).

Domestically, Calles' power was very great until 1934, although he was no longer president. The interim president Emilio Portes Gil initiated negotiations with the Church in 1929, with the US Ambassador Dwight Morrow as mediator. This led to the agreement of a modus vivendi , which was described as chaotic , and which provided for an improvement in the situation for the Catholic Church. In essence, the state renounced the application of the 1917 laws and the church should be reluctant to claim their rights. However, there were gross violations of this agreement. About 5,000 Cristeros who continued the war against the instructions of the bishops were murdered despite the amnesty in force under the agreement . It was not until the presidency of General Lázaro Cárdenas del Río in the 1930s that a lasting improvement in the relationship between church and state began. Within the Mexican Church, however, tensions arose between the representatives of the hierarchy and former cristeros, who felt betrayed by the interventions of the bishops and the Vatican. A part of the Cristeros organized from 1937 in the Unión Nacional Sinarquista .

The Modus Vivendi lasted until 1992. This year, the relationship between church and state was reorganized through a comprehensive constitutional reform. The Vatican and Mexico then established diplomatic relations.

literature

Fiction

Scientific works

  • Lothar Groppe : Michael Pro SJ. A Mexican rascal becomes a priest and a martyr. Circle of Friends of Maria Goretti, Munich 1989.
  • Jean Meyer Barth : La Cristiada. The Mexican People's War for Religious Liberty. Square One Publishers, New York 2013, ISBN 978-0757003158 .
  • Jean Meyer Barth: The Cristero Rebellion. The Mexican People between Church and State 1926–1929 (= Cambridge Latin American Studies). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge u. a. 1976, ISBN 978-0-521-10205-6 .

Movie

  • For Greater Glory: The True Story of Cristiada (2012; Dt .: God's General - Battle for Freedom ). Directed by Dean Wright .

Web links

Commons : Guerra Cristera  - collection of images, videos and audio files

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b William A. Borst: The Mexican Kulturkampf. The Christeros and the Crusade for the Greater Glory of God. In: Mindszenty Report , Volume 54, No. 8 (August 2012), pp. 1-3 (online) .
  2. ^ Matthew Butler: The Church in "Red Mexico". Michoacán Catholics and the Mexican revolution, 1920-1929. In: The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 55 (2004), pp. 520-541.
  3. ↑ Michael J. Gonzales: The Mexican Revolution, 1910-1940. University of New Mexico Press: Albuquerque 2002, ISBN 978-0-8263-2780-2 , pp. 212f.
  4. ^ Paul Badde : Beheaded acolytes, trees full of hanged men. In: Die Welt , March 23, 2012, accessed October 1, 2019.
  5. ↑ Armin Wertz : "We die like dogs". In: Journal21 , April 9, 2013, accessed October 1, 2019.
  6. ↑ Groppe (1989), p. 163.
  7. ↑ Cristiada in Mexico. In: Critical online edition of the Nunciature reports Eugenio Pacellis (1917-1929). Online project at the University of Münster , keyword no. 207, accessed on October 1, 2019.
  8. ↑ For Greater Glory: The True Story of Cristiada in the Internet Movie Database (English)