As Catholics in Mexico responded to the new situation created by Vatican II, they worked out an ever-improving relationship with the state. In the 1970s the Mexican government offered assistance to the church in the construction of the New Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe; the original church, the Old Basilica, had become unsafe because its foundations were sinking. It clearly was in the government’s best interest to adopt a less hostile stance toward the church because an overwhelming majority of Mexicans considered themselves Roman Catholic. The strength of Catholicism was demonstrated by the huge crowds that greeted John Paul II on each of his visits to Mexico starting in 1979. In 1992 Mexico and the Holy See resumed diplomatic relations, and anticlerical laws still on the books, such as those proscribing the Jesuits and denying priests the right to vote, were repealed. The end of official anticlericalism encouraged some priests to speak out in favour of the poor and the Native Americans; among them was Samuel Ruiz, bishop of Chiapas, who was accused of inciting the peasant rebellion of the Zapatista National Liberation Army in 1994 but acted as a mediator between the rebels and the government.
Old Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Villa de Guadalupe Hidalgo, Mexico.Shostal Associates
The history of the church in the rest of postcolonial Latin America was in many ways similar to its history in Mexico. By the middle of the 20th century, Latin American Catholicism remained strong but had endured periods of government hostility and increasing secularism. During the 1960s the cosmopolitan influences of Vatican II, the self-generated renewal of the church, and a new, socially responsible leadership contributed to the development of a more radical form of Catholicism. Inspired by the episcopal conference of 1968, which proclaimed its advocacy of the poor, the church in Latin America endorsed the vernacular mass and taught that sin was a matter of personal actions and unjust social structures.
Liberation theology was widely supported throughout Latin America, and Christian base communities, which expanded the role of the laity in the church, assumed an influential place in church and society. Committed to drastic social reform and associated in some countries with programs of violent revolution, liberation theology was exemplified by Dom Hélder Câmara of Recife, Brazil, and by Camillo Torres, a priest killed in his role as a Colombian guerrilla. In some Latin American countries, even clergy who preached nonviolence were persecuted and killed by the military because they were perceived as sympathetic to leftist guerrillas. In El Salvador, for example, Archbishop Oscar Romero was assassinated in 1980 while celebrating mass, and three American nuns were raped and murdered later that year; in 1989 the military killed six Jesuit priests.
During the papacy of John Paul II, the church hierarchy in Latin America gradually became more conservative, a result of the pope’s appointments to the church hierarchy as well as his directive that priests refrain from involvement in secular political activity. The renewed conservatism in the church reinforced the long-standing gap between official and popular Catholicism in Latin America. As in Mexico, Roman Catholicism was challenged by Protestant missionaries and the growing minority of converts to non-Catholic Christian churches. Spanish and French missions in North America
While the colonies that would become the United States were being settled under the influence of British and continental Protestantism, Spanish Catholics had already established missions in Florida and elsewhere. Franciscans accompanied settlers and soldiers to New Mexico in 1598 and to Texas in 1690. In 1687 the Jesuit Eusebio Francisco Kino began work in Arizona, establishing a mission near Tucson that became a centre for mission stations. Jesuits from Baja California were on the verge of moving into Alta California when their order was suppressed. In 1769 the Spanish Franciscan Junípero Serra founded a mission in San Diego, the first of 22 stations that would stretch up the California coast. Spanish missionary efforts came to an end in the early 19th century, and their record was one of mixed success at best. The missionaries in North America never received the full support of the Spanish government as had their counterparts in the south, the heart of the Spanish American empire. The missionaries also failed to learn the languages of the Native American population and, therefore, were unable to convert the indigenous peoples. Spanish efforts in the American West and Southwest did, however, lay the foundation for the eventual development of an organized church governed by an episcopal hierarchy.
To the east of Texas, the French Catholics settled in Louisiana by 1718. Similarly, to the north, French explorers, traders, and conquerors settled much of eastern Canada and brought with them a Catholic church that has remained dominant there up to the present. French missionaries also penetrated the Great Lakes region and the Mississippi valley, but few traces of their efforts remained after English-speaking settlers arrived in the North American interior late in the 18th century. Roman Catholicism in the United States and Canada United States
Although French Catholics participated in the exploration and colonization of the Mississippi valley, among the 13 colonies of the emerging United States only Maryland, which had been settled in 1634 and established in 1649, included an appreciable number of Catholics before American independence. Catholics were often unwelcome in—and even excluded from—many other colonies, where Congregational or Episcopal churches were supported by law; indeed, only one colony, Pennsylvania, allowed mass to be celebrated in public. According to some estimates, there were at most 25,000 Catholics in a colonial population of about 4,500,000 at the time of independence in 1776.
From the first, however, the leadership of the Catholic church enjoyed a respected place in American society. Charles Carroll, a member of a notable colonial Catholic family, served in the Continental Congress and the U.S. Senate and signed the Declaration of Independence. He also helped to write the Maryland state constitution, which guaranteed freedom of worship for all Christians. His cousin, John Carroll, the first bishop in the United States and the first archbishop of Baltimore, pioneered in exploring positive relations between Catholic religionists and their fellow citizens. One issue that troubled John Carroll’s last years was “trusteeism,” a debate over lay versus clerical control of ecclesiastical institutions and properties. The efforts of lay trustees to govern the temporalities of the church often brought them into conflict with bishops and priests. Administration of church property by the laity was consistent with American practice, and the trustees maintained that they promoted the church’s democratic principles and the interests of parishioners against the hierarchy. In 1829, long after Archbishop Carroll’s death, the First Provincial Council in Baltimore ruled against lay control of ecclesiastical property and strengthened the authority of the bishops. Although the issue of trusteeism would emerge again, the decisions of the council defined the administrative structure of the church and established a precedent that was restated at subsequent councils.