Religious Conflict and Catholic Resistance in 1930s Oaxaca

Abstract

Oaxaca moved in step with the rest of Mexico from 1929–32 enjoying a religious respite during the presidency of Pascual Ortiz Rubio before suffering a relapse in the years 1932–37.¹ Renewed persecution was linked to conflicts inside the “revolutionary family” (over the Maximato, the presidential succession and Lázaro Cárdenas’s arrival as president, and the subsequent elimination of Plutarco Elías Calles), and to the battle over “socialist education.” The years 1935–36 were, perhaps, the hardest for Catholics and their Church, whose leaders followed the policy of passive resistance (Resistenz) ordered by Rome, and condemned, both out of conviction and obedience to the papal line, any form of armed struggle (Widerstand).²