Did Catholic social activism disappear after Mexico’s Cristero Rebellion? This article challenges that familiar account by tracing the survival and transformation of the Mexican Social Secretariat, founded in 1920 to coordinate Catholic efforts at social reform.
At its center is Alfredo Méndez Medina, a Jesuit whose experiences in Europe helped shape a Catholic alternative to both capitalism and socialism. His campaign for workers’ organizations encountered resistance from the revolutionary state and from Church leaders seeking to reduce political conflict. Yet the movement endured. Women associated with the Secretariat sustained its social commitments through education and fundraising during the difficult decades that followed.
Under Pedro and Manuel Velázquez Hernández, the organization later renewed its work through labor education, credit cooperatives, and Catholic social teaching. Drawing on archival research and interviews, Stephen Andes argues that these continuing efforts helped prepare the ground for liberation theology in Mexico. The story reveals a movement repeatedly adapting its methods while maintaining a commitment to social justice.
Stephen J. C. Andes · The Americas 68(4), April 2012, pp. 529–562.
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