A Revolution in Local Catholicism? Oaxaca, 1928–34

Abstract

In the 1930s Father Ausencio Canseco described himself as a diligent spiritual soldier, serving Oaxaca’s coastal mountains “doctrinando, predicando, y sacramentando.”² As model seminarian and young priest in the 1890s, Canseco caught Archbishop Eulogio Gillow’s eye, and thus found himself assigned an important and notoriously difficult parish in 1902—Santa Catalina Juquila, home to the region’s most popular Marian devotion. The community was a rural nerve center as a shrine site, regional head parish, district seat, and municipality. Juquila was also a hub of coffee production and a magnet of unrest. Chatino Indians crying “Death to those wearing pants!” sacked the town in 1896 before authorities crushed the rebellion and decreed that Chatinos don trousers. From 1913 until the late 1920s, armed bands representing various local factions and revolutionary affiliations fought over Juquila and took turns plundering its church, homes, and businesses. Canseco, nonetheless, managed to remain in post and serve the parish’s far-flung villages, despite violence and what he considered the insidious efforts of new civil authorities to gain control of the Virgin’s festival and pilgrim donations. Archdiocesan authorities even asked Canseco to resolve problems in neighboring parishes, sending him to mediate conflict along the coast and investigate a colleague’s schismatic dalliances.

Antes de llegar a las grutas hay una cruz en donde se hace penitencia; sin esto no es posible ver nada… Al llegar frente a la gruta se ve desde luego que de una orilla destila agua y la entrada es toda de piedra. Desde luego no se ve absolutamente nada, pero si todos rezan con devoción, aparece instantáneamente la Virgen Maria y un Ángel, aquella echa la bendición y desaparece. En seguida las piedras se transforman en una especia de pantalla y desfilan por ella las imágenes de la Virgen del Carmen, la Soledad, y la de Juquila.¹

[Before arriving at the caves there is a cross where penitences are performed; without doing that, it is not possible to see anything … On arriving at the cave, it is seen at once that water runs down one side and that the entrance is made of stone. Of course, absolutely nothing is seen, but if everyone prays with devotion, the Virgin Mary and an Angel appear instantly, the Virgin giving a blessing and then disappearing. Right away, the stones are transformed into a kind of screen across which pass the images of the Virgins of Carmen, La Soledad, and Juquila.]