A Review of For God and Liberty:  Catholicism and Revolution in the Atlantic World, 1790-1861

For God and Liberty: Catholicism and Revolution in the Atlantic World, 1790-1861 by Pamela Voekel (Oxford University Press, 2023)

The Age of Revolution, often associated with the dissemination of ideals of the secular French Enlightenment and a desire to break the chains of “irrational,” “pre-modern” faith, turns out in Voekel’s account to be a Catholic civil war. Ideals of freedom, liberty and fraternity were transmitted through Catholic intellectual channels and interpreted by reformers through the lens of Church history, precepts and documents.  Catholic reformers and ultramontane supporters of hierarchical control by the pope and monarchy engaged in a battle of ideas through newspapers, pamphlets and books.  Voekel establishes that Liberal reformers were motivated by a Catholic faith that was equally profound as that of Conservative Catholics.   Moreover, she demonstrates that both Conservatives and Liberals were forced to engage in democratic processes to assert their ideals of Catholicism.

 Some of the most “radical” reformers who advocated for democracy and in some cases independence from both Spain and Rome turned to the past, appealing to precedents in early church history and biblical exegesis for models of democratic order not only in politics, but also within the church.  They fought to empower local churches calling for election of bishops and clergy and deriding “illegitimate” papal power and greed.  Voekel provides detailed accounts of individual reformers like Fray Servando Teresa de Mier identified as the intellectual author of Mexican Independence. Mier brought a library of Catholic Enlightenment literature to foment ideals of democratic liberty in Mexico.  While individuals like Mier played crucial roles, Voekel also demonstrates that they were part of a transatlantic network of reformist Catholics.  

By contrast, Voekel identifies Catholic religious orders, including the Jesuits with a conservative ultramontane faith supporting the hierarchy of Pope and Crown and, in turn, being supported by them.  Voekel also identifies and delves into specific reformist factions, like the Sanjuanistas in Mérida whose control of the local press at times gave them the upper hand against Conservatives.  In a chapter focused on Central America, Voekel illustrates how economic interests like those of the Aycinena family that dominated credit in El Salvador intersected with religious interests and political reforms.

Among the most compelling chapters of the book is chapter 4:  “The View from The Vatican.”  Voekel illustrates how the Vatican sought to retain its power as transnational reformers appealed for change.  She notes that in these conflicts the small church of El Salvador where a schism emerged due to conflicts over who would be bishop, became as important to the Vatican as France.  The future of Catholicism and the power of the Roman church rested on Latin America, she tells us.

For God and Liberty is directly relevant and important for reconsidering the Age of Revolution in Latin America as a religious conflict in which liberal reformers were as deeply defined and imbued with Catholic faith as were their conservative counterparts.  The book thus has relevance not only for understanding the Age of Revolution in Latin America, but also for reconsidering the post-independence nineteenth-century.  Discussions about Liberal vs. Conservative conflict that dominated the political landscape of post-independence 19th-century Latin America tended to equate Liberals with secular modernity as emerging professionals and advocates of individual rights, civil courts and states, public education, and most significantly, separation of Church and State.  By contrast, Conservatives came to be identified with traditional land-holding elites, corporate rights, and Catholic religion as the official state faith.  Voekel’s detailed accounts of the fault lines between “Liberals” and “Conservatives” demonstrates that both were devout Catholics, but with different perspectives of how to achieve the ideal of a Catholic community of faith and whether the Pope or local, democratic entities should be empowered to direct local Catholic churches and parishes in Latin America.  

While the focus of the work is on 19th-century Latin America and the Atlantic world, the research may also have implications for reconsidering the Cold War in Latin America and especially in Central America, which is also a focal point of Voekel’s analysis of the Age of Revolution.  The importance of Catholic Liberation Theology and the emergence of Evangelical Protestantism are recognized as components of the Cold War armed conflicts and dictatorships in Latin America.  Yet, the research is bifurcated.  One school of thought emphasizes a competition between Marxist-inspired organizers in Central and South America defined by transnational ties to Cuba and U.S.-influenced supporters of capitalism and often dictatorship, while the another focuses on faith-based social movements linked to Catholic intellectual networks defined by priests and key Catholic institutional spaces. 

Other researchers focus on the emergence of Evangelical Protestantism, with some examining it in relation to Catholicism broadly or Liberation Theology specifically, but with limited focus on the ways in which the ideas formed the backbone of competition between and among reforming Catholic, Cold War and Conservative strains in the Cold War context.  In other words, to my knowledge, no researcher has made the claim as does Voekel for the Age of Revolution that the Cold War in Latin America (and, perhaps transnationally) was as much about religion as it was about politics.  Indeed, if it has been difficult for modern researchers to look for religion in the Age of Revolution which they identify as the birth of modern, secular, scientific democracy, then to see faith as core to the political context of the Cold War was even a greater stretch.  Yet, there is no question that for participants in the conflicts in Central and South America faith was inextricably linked with political conflicts.

Voekel’s work can be read in dialogue with recent research by Silvia Arrom, Robert Curley, Erika Helgen, Bonar Hernandez and Eddie Wright Rios which seeks to show concretely how Catholicism remained embedded in political structures in Mexico, Brazil, and Central America through the 19th and 20th centuries.   

Voekel shows concretely how Catholicism imbued political debate, how political and religious debate became imbricated in economic structures controlled by powerful individuals, and why it is impossible to understand the Age of Revolution without reference to faith.  Thus, Voekel’s masterful work may serve both as a guide for understanding the Age of Revolution and its aftermath through the lens of a transatlantic Catholic Civil War and a means of considering the possibility of viewing the armed conflicts and dictatorships in Central and South America during the Cold War era as a transatlantic Catholic Civil War.  The book includes so many actors, conflicts and associations, it is at times difficult to keep track.  Yet, Voekel’s historical feat is, in fact, to trace the religio-political ideals and machinations of global Catholic actors over decades showing how and why their power ebbed and flowed and through what mechanisms.  For God and Liberty provides a fascinating read, and is worthy of intense study.

Susan Fitzpatrick-Behrens is a professor of Latin American history at California State University, Northridge.  Her research examines religion, indigenous communities, and gender in Guatemala and Peru, emphasizing transnational religious networks and their intersections with global aid during the Cold War.  She is currently working on a book manuscript tentatively titled:  Strange Bedfellows: Catholic-Civil Alliances and their Unintended Outcomes in Revolutionary Guatemala, 1943 – 1996.