This work, published now for the third time, appeared first in serial form in Estudios Históricos between 1943 and 1945 and then came out in book form in 1946. The present edition, with only minor changes from the previous, is now presented as volume I of a projected two-volume work which when completed will carry the story of Mexican-Vatican relations to the present.
Father Medina Ascensio has written a scholarly and dispassionate account of the diplomatic and ecclesiastical relations between the Holy See and the several governments or would-be governments of independent Mexico from 1810 until 1836. Acknowledging his debt to the pioneering work of Pedro Leturria on the Vatican’s position with respect to the independence movement in Latin America, Medina Ascensio has based his study on multi-archival sources and documentary collections. The author himself sees the present volume divided basically in two parts. Chapter one deals with the first five years of the independence period, when the bishops solidly opposed independence, and the rebels vainly sought support from Archbishop John Carroll of Baltimore in his capacity as Apostolic Nuncio of North America. The remaining five chapters recount the attempts of the Mexican governments from Iturbide to Santa Anna to reestablish normal relations with the Holy See and make good their claims to the Patronate.
Medina Ascensio makes his position clear on the controversial issues, but seldom permits his opinions to intrude upon the scholarly nature of his endeavor. He tends to favor Iturbide; he dislikes the regalists; and he believes that the Patronate was a grant of the Holy See to be revoked at will, and not an inherent right of sovereignty to be inherited by the new governments from the crown of Spain. These points are never labored, and the work is no polemic. Rather it is a calm and reasoned analysis of the problems facing the Church and the Mexican state and how they were handled in the period under discussion. What we could wish for in addition, however, is the human side of the story. Seldom if ever are the bare bones of diplomatic and political developments fleshed in with the vital characteristics of the participants, their strengths, their weaknesses, and their personal drives. Despite this failing, the work is a solid achievement worthy of serious consideration.
