Catholic Church and Catholicism in the construction of citizenship in Chihuahua, 1915-1931

Abstract

The contribution of the Catholic Church to the democratization process is recognized in the second half of the XXth century, however it existed even in earlier times. Mexico provides an example of this early role of the Catholic Church in the process of citizen formation and democratization, during the long «liberal» dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz. Here, the performance of the Catholic Church in this sense will be examined in a regional space, the state of Chihuahua, from the end of the Porfiriato to the consolidation of the post-revolutionary regime. The thesis defended here is that the Church and Catholic civil society acted in the sense of promoting the emergence of modern citizenship and democratic participation in regional politics, acting as a brake on the anti-democratic and totalitarian drifts that were taking shape. in the structures and the new political class of the post-revolutionary regime.