BOOK REVIEWS
©Copyright 1998, Texas Catholic Historical Society.
Notice: No book review may be reprinted or otherwise published, in print or electronically, without written permission from Catholic Southwest.
 

Frank Walsh. Sin and Censorship: The Catholic Church and the Motion Picture Industry. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996. Pp. 424. $35.00

The handful of Roman Catholics instrumental in writing the 1930 Motion Picture Production Code and in establishing the industry structures that for almost thirty years ensured its enforcement took some pains to conceal their roles from the public. As Daniel Lord, S.J., one of the Code's primary authors, acknowledged in his autobiography, Played by Ear, "I heartily agreed that it would be the greatest possible mistake to announce that the actual authorship of the code, the words in which it was expressed, could be laid at the feet of a Catholic priest, and a Jesuit at that" (p.303). Whatever might be said about the failures of the Code in intention, execution, and effect, in this aspect its originators succeeded--the story of Catholics and the Code is today largely unknown.

Several recent books have brought the story into the open. By far the best is Frank Walsh's Sin and Censorship: The Catholic Church and the Motion Picture Industry. The story of Catholic involvement with the movies is two-fold: the Hollywood office of the Production Code Administration (PCA) had the clout it had largely because of the perennially-looming threat of a nation-wide Catholic boycott by the Legion of Decency; the Legion, in its turn, exercised much more influence than the average pressure group because of its informal and unofficial ties to the PCA. Walsh tells these intertwined stories thoroughly and engagingly.

Organized chronologically, Walsh's book begins with the pre-Code era, the 1910s and 1920s, exploring early fears about the power of the new medium and the bewildering variety of attempts to exert some control over it. He then documents the process by which the PCA and the Legion of Decency emerged in the early 1930s as the predominant structures in balancing mass entertainment, community standards, and changing times. His discussion of the complicated negotiations of 1933-1934 is exhaustively detailed yet riveting. Walsh then goes on to examine how the PCA and the Legion interacted during the height and decline of their influence. He recounts numerous case studies of the negotiations over specific movies--all of which are meticulously docu-

mented, making the best scholarly use yet of the potential synergy between the extensive archives of the PCA and the NCWC (as well as literally dozens of others). The story ends in the 1960s with the movie industry's adoption of the age-based ratings system we know today, which dealt a final, fatal blow to both the Production Code and the Legion of Decency.

Walsh's excels at a number of things that others have minimized or missed entirely. He exhibits an informed and nuanced understanding of the theological and institutional context out of which Catholics were operating. This understanding makes what could have been a dry (or, worse, snide) recounting of the many battles surrounding the PCA and the Legion fascinating and informative. Walsh is shrewd about the politics and personalities involved without being reductively cynical, and is therefore able to chronicle the full range of foibles and rivalries in and among his subjects without condescension. Sin and Censorship will please scholars and general readers as both religious and cultural history, and will be the standard work on its subject for a long while.

Una M. Cadegan
University of Dayton

Rev. Francis F. Guest, O.F.M. Hispanic California Revisited: Essays by Francis F. Guest. O.F.M., ed. Doyce B. Nunis, Jr.. Santa Barbara: Santa Barbara Mission Archive Library, 1996. Pp. xvi, 389. $39.85.

Apologia pro vita sua comes to mind as one reads through the first of the eight essays of Friar Guest. Although it is not an apologia for his own life, it may be for the former friars who attempted to missionize the Native Americans of California during the Spanish mission period. Friar Guest, according to the introduction of Dr. Nunis, is an especially erudite, and reasoned person. His approach is quite scholarly; it is almost pedantic at times, as he attempts to shed light on an era of history that has come under scrutiny with the advent of the beatification of Blessed Junípero Serra, O.F.M..

Friar Guest's approach is classical, scholastic, and contemporary in presenting the case for understanding the missiology of the padres

franciscanos who came to Alta California to christianize the Native Americans. The author does not apologize for the methods used, but asks the reader to consider that it was a different era, a different mentality, a different world view that the padres came with to evangelize; and that we are to be careful not to impose twentieth-century world views, sciences and Americanisms on an eighteenth-century, European method and philosophy of evangelization of native peoples.

Friar Guest's knowledge of the eighteenth century, both in Europe and in the Americas speaks well for itself. As he says, each of the pieces is to be scrutinized and then placed in the whole, and not forced into place. He does not claim to look at all of the pieces in the patchwork quilt of eighteenth-century California missions; but he has put under the microscope of erudition certain aspects (and put the pieces together without force) of the California missions in such a way as to give a better understanding of the era to the twentieth-century reader. He also leaves questions unanswered, pieces yet to be scrutinized by the further research of other interested persons. Friar Guest's contribution, ironically, is that he has not given the reader a definitive answer to all the questions of the era under scrutiny. He does give well-considered answers to certain aspects of the missionized Native Americans and the cultural shock of both the Native Americans and the Franciscan padres. In a sense, because Friar Guest is a Franciscan, his essays are an apologia pro vita sua since he is an inheritor of the history of the Franciscan padres who went before him in the missions of California. (But then again, are we not all called to give our own apologia pro vita sua in the light of our own ancestry, education, culture and attitudes?)

Friar Guest presents us with a view: truth is not grasped in its totality, but it is grasped in pieces that fit together and lead to a better comprehension of the totality. For scholars, teachers of the western, southwestern, and southeastern colonial history of what is now the United States of North America, especially where the Spanish Franciscans evangelized Native Americans, this book can be a great asset in understanding a culture that has helped to shape so many areas of the United States of North America.

Friar Barnabas Diekemper, O.F.M.
Chicago, Illinois

Ron Tyler, et al., eds. The New Handbook of Texas. Austin: Texas State Historical Association, 1996. Six volumes. Pp. Xxii, 6,945. $395.00.

Depending on the researcher's goals or needs, perusing The New Handbook of Texas can be either very enlightening or extremely frustrating. At least 300 entries deal with Catholic issues, people or institutions. Overall, they give a sense of the significant role Catholics and Catholicism played throughout Texas's history and introduce readers to the diversity of the Catholic experience in the state. From the early Spanish and French missionary efforts to establish a foothold in land already occupied by a variety of peoples through the nineteenth century creation of German and East European settlements to the twentieth century attempts to battle prejudice within the church as well as from the outside world, the numerous entries explain both how Catholics affected the development of Texas and what impact different peoples and events had on Catholics in Texas. Readers will also be struck by how old, and yet how young, the Catholic Church in Texas really is. Although the earliest churches were established in the seventeenth century, the diocesan structure of today's church is a twentieth century phenomenon. Protestantism overtook the Roman church during the nineteenth century as the population of Texas grew. Only in the twentieth century did the numbers of Catholics appear to grow in sufficient numbers to justify the creation of new dioceses.

The fact that there is no adequate explanation for this resurgence of Catholicism in the twentieth century exposes the basic limitation in the Handbook's usefulness. This is, after all, an encyclopedia rather than a monograph; there is breadth of coverage rather than depth. The result is that the volumes provide readers with the essential facts concerning an individual or event without really analyzing what those facts mean. The situation is further complicated by the lack of context in some of the entries. For the amateur historian this could prove especially frustrating since events seem to happen in a vacuum with no apparent connection to any other events or people. It also leads to a number of unanswered questions since a controversy or person will be mentioned without any adequate explanation. The limitation of space certainly necessitated much of this context-cutting, but in some instance, the knife cut too deeply.

Moreover, because different people wrote different entries the quality of the writing varies significantly. Some are fairly straightforward, factual explanations; others suffer from over-editing, which leaves them almost incomprehensible. Still others are beautifully written and extremely useful. In addition to the inconsistency of the writing, these different authors sometimes told slightly different versions of the same story. This would not be a problem for someone examining all of the entries related to a particular topic; it would be if a researcher only looked at one entry. That person might not get the whole story.

The structure of The Handbook also creates another subtle, but significant problem. Although there is much information in these volumes describing the institution of the church and the people who influenced it, the various writers have not captured the less concrete aspects of the religion and its importance to its congregation. "Catholic" might as well be "Democrat" or "German" in terms of setting Texans apart from one another. Only on rare occasions does the reader ever get a sense of the spiritual dimension of Catholicism and how this might have affected developments in Texas. A few of the entries, especially the longer overviews, acknowledge the less temporal aspects of the religion and so offer a more well-rounded view.

The editors did try to eliminate some of these problems by including long sections covering broad topics such as the "Catholic Church" or "Mexican-Americans and Religion." Both of these sections help to bring the rest of the entries into chronological and thematic order. I would recommend reading them first if you are not familiar with Texas history in any depth. In addition, there are symbols marking names, places, and events which have their own entries, making a sort of cross referencing system. Interested readers also benefit from a list of sources at the end of each entry; this serves the dual purpose of footnote and bibliography. From the listings, it appears that primary sources were used whenever possible.

On the whole, then, The New Handbook of Texas is a useful resource for finding specific information on various topics. Within the limitations of the form, the books serves as a good reference point for anyone interested in getting a broad overview of Texas.

Mary C. Brennan
Southwest Texas State University

Peter Lester Reich. Mexico's Hidden Revolution: The Catholic Church in Law and Politics since 1929. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1995. Pp. x, 193. $28.95.

Using new primary sources and oral interviews, Reich provides persuasive evidence that, contrary to previous assessments, President Cárdenas (1934-1940) was not primarily or solely responsible for improvement in church-state relations. The healing of relations after the Cristero War (1926-1929) was a continuation of a long tradition of extralegal cooperation since colonial times. Based primarily on secondary sources, the last chapter attempts to show that the same approach was successful even in more radical revolutions (Spain, Brazil, Cuba, France, and Russia).

Reich concentrates on the period from 1929 to 1942, but uses secondary sources to characterize the Church's approach in the prior centuries as accommodationist, allowing it to maintain some of the privileges of the royal patronage. Three phases are thoroughly covered: (1) 1929-1931 when the arreglo ending the Cristero War provided a brief respite from anticlericalism; (2) 1931-1935 which saw a resurgence of anticlericalism; and (3) 1935-1942 when the basis of a modus vivendi was worked out. For the government, the author speculates, the accommodation was beneficial in that it allowed it to "centralize political power" (p.24), it received the benefit of the Church's support for its social programs, and it kept the Church at bay with the threat of enforcement of anticlerical laws while continuing to appear revolutionary. For the Church, cooperation meant the return of some of its property, help in controlling lay extremists, Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) condemnation of abortion and opposition to Protestant activities, and unofficial influence in state affairs.

The influence of moderate, lay organizations controlled by the hierarchy from 1929 to 1942 through the Bishops' Mexican Social Secretariat is revealed. The Secretariat was staffed by priests who served lay organizations as "ecclesiastical assistants" (p.99) and it obtained funds from wealthy Catholics. It was lay organizations that pressured the government to attenuate the anticlerical, socialist, and sex education laws of the 1930s.

Another revisionist view Reich presents is the cooperation of government and Church officials as well as lay persons at the regional and local level. By looking at three geographic variations, he provides evidence that far from a nationwide anticlericalism, there were differences in approach but the same pattern of rapprochement.

The chapter dealing with the period after 1942 pulls together many examples of collaboration but is less satisfactory because fewer primary sources are available. The 1991 reforms to the Constitution of 1917 are only cursorily dealt with.

One can quibble with a few statements. It is questionable that the Church considered the sanctity of private property as absolute and therefore contradicted "traditional Catholic positions" (p.61) when it supported agrarian reform and the nationalization of oil during Cárdenas's administration. It may be that rather than supporting these laws because they "had little effect on the clergy's ability to function" (p.67), the hierarchy thought they fomented social justice. While the 1972 collective pastoral "left couples free to choose their own method of birth control" (p.106), at one point it declares the rhythm method the only satisfactory one. Nonetheless, Reich offers new solid evidence of a "hidden revolution."

José Roberto Juárez Ph.D.
Texas A&M International University, Retired

Robert A. Orsi. Thank You, St. Jude: Women's Devotion to the Patron Saint ofHopehss Causes. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996. Pp. xxi, 303. $30.00.

The prizewinning author of The Madonna of 115th Street, may have done it again. Thank You, St. Jude is another carefully wrought study based on extensive evidence studied by thought-provoking methods.

To begin his intricate argument, Orsi used the psychoanalytic concept of the family romance, with its mother-son bond that excludes father and daughter and its tendency to encourage female self-sacrifice. Catholic devotional tracts raised the family romance from the id to the superego, glorifying women who submitted to suffering, cheerfully if

possible, silently if not. Following such prescriptions literally posed psychological dangers. This was especially true in the sickroom. Orsi has harsh words for physicians who cared only for the body and clergy who cared only for the administration of the sacraments, leaving many patient needs unmet. The fantasies expressed in devotional literature also posed a double danger to women. They might internalize their assigned role of being responsible for everything but powerless to affect anything. Then, they escape this trap via delusions of access to unlimited power through the cult of Saint Jude.

In some ways, women bought into the female roles of the family romance. They pictured Jude as a handsome young man, who could be a son. He was also a better father figure than the fathers (and physicians and clergy) they knew. However, women also subverted Catholic mores. In the cult of Saint Jude, they found their voices, petitioning the saint to meet their needs and returning favors by spreading the devotion to other women. In prayer to Saint Jude, the women identified their problems, determined what they could and could not do, exercised what power they had, and admitted their limits. They used the cultural resources available to them to handle the difficulties in their lives.

The first two chapters establish the historical setting that provided the cultural resources. Through the centuries Catholicism fostered devotions. The Claretians, charged with a mission to Mexican migrants in Chicago, found in the cult of Saint Jude a source of financial support. Ethnic Catholic women were leaving behind their mothers' practices and developing their own. One almost expects tables charting the most popular items prayed for. However, Orsi sticks to prose to describe how women turned to Saint Jude during key points in their life cycles and when events in U.S. history impinged on their lives. He focuses on the quality, not quantity, of women's experiences.

It is no criticism of Orsi to stress to professors considering Thank You, St. Jude for class that students should read the entire book before discussing or doing papers on it; it is a complex work. The effort will be worthwhile, however. Orsi has much to say about mid-century American Catholicism, religion generally, women's roles, and individual approaches to the spiritual life.

Mary Elizabeth Brown
Marymount Manhattan College

Ferenc M. Szasz and Richard W. Etulain, eds. Religion in Modern New Mexico. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1997. Pp. ix, 217. $60.00 cloth, $19.95 paper.

This volume consists of papers delivered at the 1993 conference, "Religious Cultures in Modern New Mexico," sponsored by the New Mexico Endowment for the Humanities, the University of New Mexico's College of Arts and Sciences, and its History Department's Center for the American West. The editors see this as an important step to fill a lacuna created by scholars who have given only scant attention to the religious history of the Southwest.

The scope of the book is broad in that the papers treat Roman Catholicism, Protestantism, including "A Rhetorical Approach to Protestant Evangelism," Judaism, and Mormonism. Also included are chapters on "Competition for the Native American Soul," and "Boomer Dharma." The latter deals with alternative spiritual communities ranging from recognized Eastern religions to a wide variety of international communities. The papers support the editors' assertion that by 1960 New Mexico had become a "'spiritual magnet' for a wide variety of faiths." (p.viii)

The last chapter, "The United States and New Mexico: A Twentieth-Century Comparative Religious History," is an important contribution. It enables the reader to see the New Mexican situation in the context of the religious climate in the nation as a whole. Certainly, this section of the book and most of the chapters could be expanded into book length histories, which would provide the reader with a deeper understanding of how the specific beliefs of a given religion affected the external history of that confessional group.

The book tells the story of religious zeal that failed to appreciate the religion and culture of Native Americans, which led to the violation of their rights. Further, it recounts the competition of religions, the problems and, in some cases, the scandals that were endured as well as some more recent ecumenical activities. In some denominations internal issue-oriented divisions developed, and members found themselves in greater agreement with those of another faith than with coreligionists.

In regard to Roman Catholic evangelization there has been a movement from "domination" to "service," "accommodation to cultural traditions" by the incorporation of Native American celebra-

tions and rituals into Catholic worship, and an emphasis on "social service."(p.3) In 1987 Pope John Paul II made the Catholic position clear when he encouraged Native Americans to preserve their cultures, languages, and customs.

The reader cannot fail to be impressed by the zeal and accomplishments of the various religious groups. The use of conversion stories, cowboy camp meetings, the work of the colporteurs and circuit riders as part of Protestant evangelism demonstrated a creative approach suited to the geographical conditions of the state. Although each religious group "steadfastly hews to its particular emphasis, all (or almost all) have contributed to the growth of common good, available to believer and unbeliever alike." (p.190)

This well-documented collection is an important step in making the religious history of New Mexico known, in spite of the fact that in the otherwise well-wrought culminating essay Rerum Novarum is attributed to Pope Pius. The annotated bibliographies and the charts and tables of denominational membership are a plus. However, a map of New Mexico would have been helpful. It is to be hoped that Religion in New Mexico, a significant book, will encourage further research on the topic.

M. Francis Regis Carton, S.S.N.D.
College of Notre Dame of Maryland

Laurie Beth Kalb. Crafting Devotions: Tradition in Contemporary New Mexico Santos. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1994. Pp. 237. $70.00 cloth, $37.50 paper.

This volume accompanied an exhibition of New Mexican folk art drawn primarily from the Gene Autry Western Heritage Museum collection in Los Angeles, California. The mission of the museum since its inception in 1984 has been to re-examine the concept of the West through the ideas and attitudes of the cultures living there, rather than just from the traditional view-point of the dominant Anglo-American population.

Likewise, in separate, well-illustrated chapters, Kalb examines the philosophies and purposes of a small group of contemporary, Hispanic santeros (saint makers) seeking to discern how each defines his cultural identity and serves as a model of cultural authenticity.

Luis Tapia, perhaps the best known of the santeros studied, developed his artistic style and philosophy during the national Chicano movement of the 1960s. As he was attempting to define his own ethnicity, his research led him to the creation of santos. Tapia's saints, from the beginning, were not merely reproductions of colonial figures, but rather creations within the political framework of the 1960s, which served as reinterpretations of that earlier tradition and also reflected his current social and cultural environment.

Kalb's second featured artist is the late Patrocinio Barela, born in Arizona but eventually making his home in Taos, New Mexico. A number of stories have evolved since his death about the impetus for his carving. Barela, who was illiterate, never explained his source of inspiration or his motives for pursuing this carving tradition. Nevertheless, his abstracted forms of the 1930s and 1940s make him a favorite of today's Hispanic modernists.

While Barela's carvings were grounded in Catholicism, his abstract figures were thought to extend beyond religious dogma both in content and form by the buying public. During his lifetime, his modernist artistic output was better received in New York than in New Mexico. As an individual, he was ignored by the artistic Anglo elite of Taos, who viewed him as one of the locals. Likewise, he was rejected by the Hispanic community, partially because of his alcoholism and also because of his lack of ancestral santero background. His father had been a curandero (folk healer).

Marco and Patricia Oviedo, a married couple living in Chimayo, are the next carvers examined in Crafting Devotions. Stylistically, the Oviedos create replicas of the northern New Mexican colonial santos, using the techniques and materials of the traditional colonial santeros. Kalb states that the Oviedos manage cultural authenticity by "basing their production more on the demands of the present and on the marketplace than on any personal experience of Spanish colonial life."

The last New Mexican carver, referred to by Kalb as "a folk artist's folk artist," is the late Enrique Rendón. In the tradition of the colonial santeros, Rendón was a devout Catholic and was active in the local

chapter of the Brotherhood of Our Father Jesus. But like most contemporary carvers he saw his santos as commercial products to be sold. One aspect of his work that separates him from many of the twentieth-century santeros was his disregard for the Anglo patrons who control the public markets and his indifference for the Santa Fe art community.

Kalb suggests that the many opposing forces--religion, tradition, ethnicity, the market place, and those who determine what is art--all played significant roles in the saint-making of contemporary carvers. She effectively discusses how each force had an impact upon these five carvers m their artistic output as well as their attitudes toward their work.

Joanne Stevens
Collin County Community College

Jaime Cuadriello, et al. La Reina de las Americas: Works of Art from the Museum of the Basilica de Guadalupe. Chicago: Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum; distributed by the University of new Mexico Press, Albuquerque, 1996. Pp. 135. $24.95 paper.

On a spring day in 1689, Father Damien Mazanet named some spring waters gently flowing through South Texas toward the Gulf of Mexico the river of Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe. In 1738, the same title would become the co-name of the first parish church in Texas, later known as San Fernando Cathedral of San Antonio. The Spanish colonists residing in the area of El Paso also named the majestic mountains northeast of their pueblo in her honor.

Cuadriello's volume is of special significance to Texas because it celebrates the art and history of a venerable icon that has been a part of the state's heritage since colonial times. The book is an impressive collection of Guadalupan images celebrated for their originality and complexity. This is Guadalupanismo, an art form originating in New Spain from the mid-sixteenth century and capturing the grandeur and diversity of its iconographic tradition. The Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum in Chicago selected the Guadalupan exhibition to celebrate its tenth

anniversary. The Museum of the Basilica of Guadalupe in Mexico City provided much of the art work for the exhibition and for the creation of the publication.

The volume's finest polychrome paintings depicting the four apparitions are creations of anonymous colonial artists, some being similar to the works of Miguel Cabrera (p.28). The first apparition is said to have taken place on Saturday morning, 9 December 1531, on Tepeyac hill on the outskirts of Mexico City. A Lady claiming to be the Mother of the one true God appears to Juan Diego, a recently-converted Indian. She is dressed as an Aztec princess and is clothed with the sun. In the late afternoon, he keeps his rendezvous with the lady. He explains that her morning request for a temple in her honor was ignored by the bishop. About noon on the next day, again in the presence of the lady, Juan Diego sorrowfully relates that the bishop requires a sign from the lady as testimony. On 12 December Juan Diego searches for a priest to attend his dying uncle but is intercepted by the lady who cures his uncle and provides some out-of-season roses assuring him that they would render the desired sign.

Although partial accounts of Guadalupe by friars and particularly by Father Miguel Sánchez were extant since earliest times, Luis Laso de La Vega, vicar of the Guadalupe sanctuary in 1649, published the first complete story more than a century after the event. Written in Nahuatl and entitled Nican Mopohua, the Vega narrative is used by Cuadriello to create the historical foundation for the faith and inspiration reflected in the paintings, color plates (laminas de color), sculptures, ex-votos and other objects of veneration and thanksgiving for remedies and protection against natural disasters. From among the many authorities on Guadalupe that further elucidate the artistic significance of the volume, the author includes Luis Becerro Tanco and José Alfaro y Acevedo.

Scholars with ethnic, cultural, and religious specializations concerning the Mexican-American community of Texas and the Southwest would do well to acquaint themselves with this interesting volume. More than eighty forms of artwork could easily make them ponder Guadalupe's historical and timeless splendor.

Gilbert R. Cruz
Glendale Community College

Thomas J. Steele, S.J., ed. New Mexican Spanish Religious Oratory, 1800-1900. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1997. Pp. vii, 229. $60.00 hardcover, $19.95 paperback.

At a time when historians are writing about the Catholic and Protestant experience in the New World from the perspective of the parishioner rather than that of the preacher, Fr. Steele puts the reader back in the pew, albeit a padded one. The material in this collection of nineteenth-century New Mexican sermons runs the gamut from late-medieval mainstream spirituality to the neoclassical stage of Renaissance culture to the Romantic period. The edition concludes with the tantalizing suggestion that "the successive waves of Spanish and viceregal Franciscan friars, Durango diocesans, French and Italian priests, and Anglo Protestants, [may have] by the very fact of their preaching one after the other to the people of New Mexico, enabled New Mexicans to adjust creatively to . . . new economic, political, social, and cultural movements, maintaining control of their destiny and preserving their integrity as a people."

The impressive, scholarly appearance of the handsomely produced hardcover edition, with its intimidating academic title emblazoned in gold lettering, belies the delightful reading experience that awaits between the covers. Both the original Spanish texts as well as Steele's translations are provided, Spanish on the left, English on the right. This will make challenges to the translation much easier, though spot checks of selected passages revealed no significant problems with it. The editor has accomplished his main goal: "To express in English that is readable today the personality and literary style of each speaker as best I was able to discern them in the Spanish original." The footnotes run across the bottom of both pages. After a while, the reader is able to adapt to this somewhat different format.

A sermon by an anonymous Franciscan begins the collection. It is followed by orations delivered by Manuel Antonio García del Valle, Padre Antonio José Martínez, Joseph P. Machebeuf, Jean Baptiste Lamy, Rafael Romero, Vito Tromby, S.J. José Vincente Ferrer Romero (the son of Padre Martínez), Elijah McLean Fenton, Thomas Harwood, Blas Chávez and Lauriano Vargas. José Romero and Fenton were Presbyterians; Harwood, Chávez, and Vargas were practicing Method-

ists when they delivered their sermons; and all the others were Catholics.

The illuminating and helpful introductions which precede each oration and the rich documentation in the meticulously researched notes reveal how knowledgeable the editor is about his field; and here is where the reader is not only enlightened but also entertained. Fr. Steele's erudition is delightfully balanced with wit and, indeed, some whimsy.

It all begins with his invitation: "So fictionalize yourself, and read on!" It ends with his description of the book as "an armchair (or padded-pew) excursion." In between, the reader is treated to phrases and sentences such as: "'screaming eagle' nationalism"; "the la-la land of textbook theology"; "What in the world is . . . [this preacher] talking about?"; "Montezuma was more a CEO than a king"; and, "The Anglo-American revolutionaries against England . . . permitted God to violate the laws of nature a couple of times, then sent him off to behave himself forever after." Bishop Lamy's excommunication of Fr. Martinez is likened to a frontier lynching, and Lamy's Jansenistic Christmas sermon is an example of "Grinch Theology." Abe Lincoln is a "notorious liberal," and Calvin's doctrine of predestination resembles "sorting strawberries by telephone."

One gets the picture; no pedantry here. Reading this volume is time well spent.

Kevin F. Dwyer, O.S.A.
Merrimack College

Charles E. Nolan. St. Mary's of Natchez: The History of a Southern Catholic Congregation, 1716-1988. 2 vols. Natchez: St. Mary's Catholic Church, 1992. Pp. vol. 1: xxxvi, 402; vol. 2: x, 732. Price not available.

When one reads a book by Charles E. Nolan, an archivist, one can be confident that the tome will be clearly focused, well written, and thoroughly researched. Such an assessment is a testimony to Nolan's capabilities as an historian. St. Mary's of Natchez: The History of a Southern

Catholic Congregation is every bit an attestation of how Nolan is able to use his training as a Catholic archivist, buoyed by solid scholarly formation as a professional historian, to write outstanding parish history. In this study he has set a standard by which parish histories likely will be judged.

Nolan's work is divided into two volumes that, through planning, trace the growth of St. Mary's parish from its earliest years through 1988. The author's stated purpose is to create a parish history in which "recalling the past has been intermingled with celebrating the past." (p.1:xx) In this he has succeeded very well. Volume I of The History is subdivided into four parts and begins with a detailed description of St. Mary's of Natchez parish life, especially the liturgical celebration. The year 1888 is the dividing line, after which the author sees St. Mary's entering its modern era.

From there Nolan reaches back to recount the past of the Natchez church from 1716 through 1887, and then pushes forward in his narrative to give an historical overview covering the years 1888-1988. Part four of that first volume, "One Body, Many Parts," recalls the lives of St. Mary's leading clergy, religious brothers and sisters, and lay leaders through 1988.

The second volume concentrates on the post-1888 period, with twentieth-century developments coming clearly into focus. Over two hundred pages are devoted to parish life, and then the book is drawn to a close with an intellectually compelling and spiritually informative conclusion entitled "Reflections on a Southern Catholic Congregation."

During this age of dissent and unhistorical views, when North American Roman Catholics need to be drawn more deeply into their Church's history, Charles Nolan has made a significant contribution with his study of the story of one major southern parish. The parish has always been the medium through which learning takes place and Catholic life is fostered. Thus, to understand the parish's growth in a real historical sense is most important to the Catholic.

Patrick Foley
Tarrant County Junior College 

Christopher Vecsey. On the Padres' Trail. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1996. Pp. xvii, 440. $50.00.

This challenging and ambitious work is the first installment of a projected three-volume effort to describe and to analyze the historical and contemporary responses of certain southwestern Native Americans to Roman Catholicism. In parts one through three, the author proceeds from the first encounter between these peoples and Spanish Franciscan missionaries through the generation since Vatican Council II, offering an historical account based both on secondary sources and archival research. His treatment of contemporary Indian responses to questions concerning the historical record as well as current issues of faith and culture is enhanced by an even-handed presentation of oral interviews and first-hand observations of and participation in Indian conferences and liturgies. Part one deals with northern New Spain, including southern Arizona, and features the Yaqui (Pima) and O'odham (Papago) Indians. Part two concerns the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico, with special attention to Isleta and Santo Domingo. The Indians of southern California, particularly the Luiseño, are considered in part three. The fourth and final part offers a discussion of critics and apologists of the Franciscan missionary efforts in California (and, implicitly, elsewhere in the Southwest), both early and contemporary. A concluding chapter discusses the continuing controversy over the prospective canonization of Junípero Serra, a dispute which has had the unintended effect of a lightening rod for the larger dispute over the entire missionary enterprise among Native Americans.

The scope and breadth of Vecsey's subject is such that a brief review does not necessarily do justice to his scholarship and his sympathetic presentation of what can be at times a most painful, divisive subject. Both a history and an exercise in what might be called historical sociology, Vecsey's approach often allows the sources, and his own interviewees, to speak for themselves. While both sides of the cultural divide, European/Anglo and Native American, are given voice, the emphasis is on the latter, the Indian side of acculturation. How did these peoples respond to missionaries, missionary discipline, the faith? How do their successors view the same subjects? Just how much adoption and/or adaptation of the culture and the faith brought by

Franciscans was there, indeed is there now? While the present emphasis of missionary and evangelization efforts in the Church is inculturation or contextualization, an appreciation that different cultures appropriate the faith in their own terms, the critical, charitable reality remains the Gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ's salvific sacrifice, teaching, and example. Some of what is described as contemporary Indian syncretisms of traditional native culture and Catholic beliefs appear rather questionable, however, in the face of Gospel norms and magisterial teaching, neither to be seen as merely cultural norms.

In our own time, marked both by more sensitivity to the other's culture and at certain moments a debilitating cultural relativism, the moment of the missions, and their aftermath, is a decidedly sensitized story. It is a most human story, measured out in heroism and charity, in brutality and suffering. Vecsey's project is not going to end the conflict attending this story, but it will at least present the story in its richness, and its complexity.

Thomas W. Jodziewicz
University of Dallas

Gerald E. Poyo, ed. Tejano Journey. 1770-1850. Austin: The University of Texas Press, 1996. xvi, 186 pp. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. $21.95.

This book provides a ground-breaking examination of the everyday lives and workaday concerns of the Hispanic residents of Spanish, Mexican, and early Anglo-American Texas with emphasis on the nineteenth century. The volume contains seven important essays by distinguished historians, along with introductory remarks and a conclusion by Gerald E. Poyo. These essays resulted from a scholarly conference, "Tejano Identity, Resistance, and Accommodation, 1770-1860," held at St. Mary's University in San Antonio during the spring of 1993. The conference stressed "continuity and change" and, in so doing, examined how the Tejano residents of Texas adjusted within the span of a single lifetime to the end of Spanish colonial rule, the hegemony of an independent Mexico, and finally to citizenship in the United States.

The essays in this book find common ground in the undeniable assertion that Tejanos had a value-structure that centered on tradition and continuity while the historical events that buffeted them in Texas from the 1770s to the 1860s produced turbulence, accommodation, and change. Nonetheless, Tejano values centering on tradition, religion, and culture permitted them to survive as a group. Accordingly, even as Tejanos were eventually locked within an increasingly intolerant Anglo-American political and social system, they responded by strengthening their religious traditions, consciously celebrating their cultural heritage, and defending their commitment to the land as the economic bulwark in their lives. At the same time, they successfully sought isolation from Anglo-American society in the state.

The essays in this volume therefore highlight the creation and maintenance of Tejano social and cultural autonomy. Jesús de la Teja, in the second essay dealing with the various Texas insurrections between 1810 and 1813, notes that Hispanic Texans had a well-established self-identity by the time of those events. Rooted in pragmatism and self-interest, Tejanos had a powerful commitment to local concerns that would eventually permit them to persevere through turbulent times. Andrés Tijerina's article examines Tejanos under Mexican sovereignty and emphasizes their protective strategies for maintaining group identity, including the evolution of a distinctive Spanish dialect, creation of political autonomy based on land holding, and support of Mexican liberalism. In so doing, Tejanos became an intermediary group between Mexicans south of the Rio Grande and Anglo-Americans in Texas. Stephen L. Hardin, an established authority on the Texas Revolution, notes the Tejano role in that struggle was not monolithic. They played significant parts on both sides of that struggle, although strained relations eventually resulted between Anglo Texans and their liberal Tejano allies including Juan Seguín and Plácido Benavides.

Historian Timothy M. Matovina, in his essay "Between Two Worlds," analyzes the Tejano commitment to the Church during the period of the Republic as a major force shaping group identity. Not surprisingly, their unshakable Catholic allegiance, along with its concurrent reliance on the celebration of feasts and related public festivals, gave Tejanos a powerful mechanism that forged group cohesion. Paul D. Lack, in his assessment of the Córdoba Revolt of

1838-1839, which was centered at Nacogdoches, offers perspective from a new viewpoint. Although mostly confined to East Texas, the revolt led by Vicente Córdoba became a turning point for all Tejanos, especially those from San Antonio who did not participate. Although mostly uninvolved outside East Texas, Tejanos everywhere suffered during the Anglo-American aftermath of the revolt when they too paid with an undeserved, retributive loss of economic, social, and political power which furthered their isolation. The subsequent Tejano search for identity and acculturation after the 1830s is adeptly developed in an essay by Ana Carolina Castillo Crimm, who uses the de León and Garza families of South Texas as case studies. She concludes that, during the 1840s especially, these families lost much at the hands of Anglo-Americans but also maintained a large measure of self-sufficiency and independence. In so doing, they became object lessons for a new era in which Tejanos preserved their ethnic community "by retaining their ties to Mexico, their ranching heritage, their Hispanic culture, and their Catholic religion." (p.123)

It must also be noted that striking illustrations by artist-historian Jack Jackson, along with meticulous maps by Castillo Crimm, greatly enhance this book's inherent value as an important addition to Texas historical literature. Although the essays in this book mostly emphasize the Tejano community at San Antonio, the volume as a whole makes a forceful statement about the adaptability of the entire state's Tejano population, a group of people who faced almost overwhelming social, economic, and political changes within the relatively the short space of two generations. Tejano Journey will long hold a place in any standard bibliography of important studies dealing with Texas history.

Light Townsend Cummins
Austin College

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