The Anglican Church in Mexico: From Its Origins To 1958

THE ANGLICAN CHURCH IN MEXICO :
FROM ITS ORIGINS TO 1958

David Allen White
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PREFACE
This report grew out of a paper I wrote in 1972 for a class called Literature of the Humanities when
I was studying for a masters degree in library science at Our Lady of the Lake University of San
Antonio. I knew there were Episcopal churches in Mexico and I was interested to find out how they
came to be there. I enjoyed researching that paper more than any other I wrote, either as an
undergraduate or a graduate student, and I saved it afterwards. In 1972 my sources were somewhat
limited, and so was my information. In the 1990s I was working at the Library of Congress, and found
more information, some of which contradicted what I had already written. I wanted to rewrite my
1972 paper, but did not have the time. So instead I re-edited the paper, adding in lots of footnotes
to tell what else I had found, and how it either supported, disputed, or added to what I had already
written. Finally in 2012, while attending a conference of National Episcopal Historians and Archivists
in Buffalo, I saw an opportunity to rewrite my paper and add to it, in order to present it at a
conference in San Antonio the following year.
I would like to thank Margarita Contreras, my presentation colleague at the 2013 conference, for
directing me toward some online sources, and to Alpha Gillett Bechtel, whose thesis presented in 1966
at San Diego State College, contained valuable interviews with former Mexican bishops Jos
Guadalupe Saucedo and Efran Salinas y Velasco. These sources, plus a book by another former
Bishop of Mexico, Frank Whittington Creighton, give us a picture of the Mexican Church we would
not otherwise have.
David Allen White
April 2013
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I. CHRISTIANITY COMES TO MEXICO

Christianity was brought to Mexico by Hernn Corts (1485-1547). He landed with his army
at Veracruz in 1519, and on 13 August 1521 defeated the Aztec Empire at the Battle of Tlatelolco. The
threefold goal of the Conquest of Mexico was God, Gold, and Glory, not necessarily in that order.
Corts himself obtained much gold and glory, but lost it all and died in obscure poverty in Spain.
As for God, he was represented by Fray Juan de Zumrraga (1468-1548), appointed the first Bishop
of Mexico in 1527.1 He achieved this position through his friendship with King Carlos I of Spain
(1500-1558) who was also Emperor Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire. They were on retreat at the
same monastery during Holy Week one year and remained friends thereafter. He was given the title
Protector de los Indios. According to some accounts, Zumrraga began his episcopate by burning
an Aztec chieftain at the stake for idolatry. He then gathered a great heap of ancient picture writings,
which he regarded as symbols of a pestilent superstition, though they were the only written records
of the ancient Mexican civilization, and burned them. By now someone would have deciphered them,
and what a treasure of information they might have contained! Or so the story goes. The burning of
the chieftain and the destruction of the scrolls may have taken place, but the earliest written account
of the event does not mention Zumrraga in that connection. Contemporary accounts indicate that
he took the plight of the Indians quite seriously and established a tribunal to hear charges of the
Spanish conquerors mistreatment of them.2
Following the Conquest, 600,000 Indians were baptized in 16 years. This was done largely
through the efforts of monastic orders which established missions in the Indian towns. The monks
made a great effort to learn the indigenous languages in order to convert the Indians. It has been
argued, of course, that the monks did not really convert the Indians to true Christianity, but only
provided them with an outward formal Catholicism under which they continued to practice their
Aztec religion.3 In any case, by 1580 more than one hundred grammars of the native languages,
compiled by the monks, had been published in Mexico.4 Zumrraga was elevated to Archbishop and
became the most powerful cleric in the New World. Other dioceses were established in Oaxaca,
Michoacn, Guadalajara, Yucatn, and Durango.5 Zumrraga is revered as a hero, if not necessarily
a saint, and is buried in the National Cathedral in Mexico City.
On 4 November 1571 the Holy Office of the Inquisition was established in Mexico under the
direction of Dr. Pedro Moya de Contreras (1527-1591), a prominent Spanish jurist and churchman,
Gonzlez Blackaller, C. Sntesis de historia de Mxico, 1971. p. 219.
Simpson, Lesley Byrd. Many Mexicos, 1966, p. 43-44.
Gruening, Ernest. Mexico and its heritage, 1934, p. 229.
Churraca Pelez, Agustn. Historia de la Iglesia en Mxico : sntesis, 2005, p. 46.
Gonzlez Blackaller, op. cit., p. 219.
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acting on orders from King Philip II of Spain (1527-1598; also King Philip I of Portugal).6 Citizens
were commanded to denounce suspects, even in their own families. But the Inquisition was concerned
mainly with Jews and heretics and did not actively pursue Indians. It is estimated that no more than
fifty persons were executed in Mexico during the entire colonial period. In Spain this number would
have been exceeded in a single execution. The main work of the Inquisition was the enforcement of
the Index Librorum Prohibitorum.7
The great power that the Roman Catholic Church acquired in Mexico at the time of the
Conquest enabled it to mold the spirit of the Mexican people, to control their education, to direct
their political aspirations, and to shape national policies.
Simpson, op. cit., p. 187.
Gruening, op. cit., p. 179-180.
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II. MEXICAN INDEPENDENCE

The push for independence from Spain was begun in 1810 by a number of Roman Catholic
priests. Two of them stand out: Miguel Hidalgo (1753-1811) and Jos Mara Morelos (1755-1815). It
should not be construed that the Church favored independence, however. The exact opposite is true.
In fact, in 1508 Pope Julius II (Giuliano della Rovere, 1443-1513, nicknamed the Warrior Pope) had
given the control of the Church in the New World to the Spanish Crown, so disloyalty to the King
of Spain was considered an offense against God. The Inquisition condemned the two priests, Hidalgo
for formal libertine seditious schismatic heresy, and judaizing, Lutheran, Calvinist, suspected
atheistic materialism; Morelos for having followed Hobbes, Helvetius, Voltaire, and Luther. 8 The
bishops of the Roman Catholic Church could not support independence because their consecration
vows included an oath of loyalty to the King of Spain.
Mexico received independence from Spain in 1821. The Mexican government changed from
that of a Spanish colony to a constitutional monarchy with an Emperor, Agustn de Iturbide (17831824). The new rulers of Mexico were the Creoles. This word means something different in Spanish
colonies than it does in Louisiana. In the Spanish colonies a Creole was a person of pure Spanish
blood born in the Americas. This is contrasted with those of pure Indian blood, and those of mixed
Indian and Spanish blood, called Mestizos. The life of Indians was no different in the Empire than
it had been before independence.
Because the Church had been under the King of Spain, a controversy arose after independence
as to whether State control of the Church could be transferred to whatever government succeeded that
of the Spanish Empire. Church hierarchy maintained that control of the Church resided in the Pope,
but the government maintained that Church property belonged to the State, and ministers of religion
were licensed by the State. This amounted to government patronage over the Church.9
Iturbides Empire lasted less than a year. He was overthrown and exiled to Europe, but with
a pension. He attempted to regain his throne, landed in Tampico in 1824, and was captured and shot.
Prior to his overthrow, however, he promulgated the Ley General de Colonizacin (General
Colonization Law), which continued in effect. This law pledged the Mexican government to protect
the interests of foreigners in Mexico so long as they practiced the Roman Catholic faith, the only
religion allowed in Mexico. A famous flag, which is said to be the Alamo flag (though this is
disputed), has the year 1824 emblazoned in the center in place of the Mexican coat of arms. The date
1824 represents the Alamo settlers claim to their rights under the 1824 constitution. Among these
rights was the right to own slaves. The Anglo-Celtic Texans10 were mostly from the Southern United
States. Many of them were slave owners and many others aspired to be such. But in 1829 Mexico
Churraca Pelez, op. cit., p. 126.
Gruening, op. cit., p. 190.
10
Tucker, Philip Thomas. Exodus from the Alamo : the Anatomy of the Last Stand Myth, 2010. I am grateful
for the suggestion of this term, which Tucker uses throughout.
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abolished slavery. In fact, the state of Coahuila y Texas had abolished it in 1827, and as early as 1831
Mexico began granting asylum to escaped slaves. This made it difficult for Texans, who intended to
keep their slaves and grow cotton, which was a labor-intensive crop. Texans obeyed the laws of the
states they had come from and ignored Mexican law. Indeed, many of them did not realize they were
not in the United States.11
11
ibid., p. 26-27.
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III. SANTA ANNA, TEXAS INDEPENDENCE, AND THE WAR WITH THE
UNITED STATES
The monarchy of Iturbide was succeeded by a constitutional republic with a series of
presidents who served briefly,12 and then eventually by Antonio Lpez de Santa Anna (1794-1876).
During his rule in the 1830s and 1840s, immigration, especially from the United States, became
problematic. Mexico was considered (erroneously) to be a homogeneous people whose unity was
assured by a common religion, Roman Catholicism. The United States may have been able to adjust
to a pluralistic culture and religious tolerance, but in the eyes of Mexicans, this was because we were
a mixed people of merchants and adventurers, the unwanted and undesirable of European nations.13
Under the Constitution of 1824, which made Roman Catholicism the official religion, and
continued the practice of separate ecclesiastical courts which had existed under the Spanish Empire
and Iturbide, in order to settle in Mexican territory it was necessary to become a Roman Catholic, and
this is what many Anglo-Celtic Texans did, at least on paper. How diligently they practiced this faith
is anybodys guess. While it is true that there were many Irish among the Anglo-Celtic settlers, they
were equally as likely to be Presbyterians from Ulster as Roman Catholics from the southern provinces
of Ireland.14 Mexico wanted its northern territories settled, but eventually Anglo-Celtic Texans
outnumbered Hispanic Mexicans, and their loyalty was not to the Mexican government. Texas
declared independence in 1836 and defeated Santa Anna at the Battle of San Jacinto on 21 April 1836.
It remained a republic for eight years and then was annexed to the United States.
During the period of the Republic of Texas, the southern boundary was in dispute. The
Nueces River, under Spanish rule, had been the boundary between the provinces of Texas and Nuevo
Santander. It is unlikely that the Anglo-Celtic Texans knew anything about this. And the Mexicans
could perhaps be forgiven for thinking it was still the boundary of Texas, since there was no
settlement in the Trans-Nueces, and the Texans had taken over a former Mexican outpost, Fort
Lipantitln, on the Nueces, for defense against Mexican invaders. But once Texas was annexed to the
United States, Anglo-Celtic settlers moved into the Trans-Nueces. This settlement provoked hostilities
and led to a war between the United States and Mexico (1846-1848).15 This war was concluded by the
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (2 February 1848), which fixed the southern boundary of Texas at what
we call the Ro Grande (Mexicans call it Ro Bravo). Mexico was paid $15,000,000 for her lost
territory, which extended to California and as far north as Wyoming.
12
Guadalupe Victoria (1786-1843, first President of Mexico, 1824-1829); Vicente Guerrero (Vicente Ramn
Guerrero Saldaa, 17821831, President 1 April-17 December 1829); Anastasio Bustamante (Anastasio Bustamante y
Oseguera, 17801853, President 1830-1832, 1837-20 March 1839, 19 July 1839-1841); Manuel Gmez Pedraza (1789-1851,
President 1832-1833; Valentn Gmez Farias (1781-1858, President five times in the 1830s and 1840s)
13
... un pueblo mixto, de mercaderes y aventureros, hez y deshecho de todos los pases. Quoted in Bastian, J.P.
Los disidentes : sociedades protestantes y revolucin en Mxico, 1872-1911, 1995, p. 27.
14
Tucker, op. cit., p. 27.
15
Nueces River. The New Handbook of Texas, 1996.
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IV. JUREZ AND REFORM

In 1855 the Mexicans defeated Santa Anna and he was sent into exile by Ignacio Comonfort
(1812-1863), who became president and gave the nation its first taste of liberal government. He was
assisted by a close adviser, Benito Jurez (1806-1872), a full-blooded Zapotec Indian from the
mountains of Oaxaca, who spoke only his native Indian language until he was twelve. Jurez became
apprenticed to a bookbinder, then went to a clerical school, received a law degree from the University
of Oaxaca, became a city judge, secretary to the Governor, member of the House of Deputies, and
then a member of Comonforts cabinet. Under Comonfort, Jurez secured the enactment of a reform
law, known as the Ley Jurez, which regulated judicial procedure and abolished military and
ecclesiastical courts.
After his release, Jurez fled to Quertaro. Comonfort was driven from office under pressure
from the military, and Jurez was installed by the Liberals as President. Jurez promulgated the
Constitution of 1857, giving political recognition to the War of Reform, as it has become known.
This War of Reform provided religious toleration, curtailment of the political power of the Roman
Catholic Church, nationalization of Church property, abolition of monastic orders, and separation
of Church and State.
The Archbishop of Mexico, Jos Lzaro de la Garza y Ballesteros (1765-1862), announced that
every official who swore allegiance to the new Constitution would be excommunicated until he
publicly retracted his oath. The Bishop of Michoacn, Clemente de Jess Mungua y Nez (18101868), supported the Archbishop in stating that no Catholic could approve eleven of the articles of
the new Constitution.16 Specifically these were Article 3, concerning secular education; Article 5, which
allowed members of religious orders to renounce their vows; Article 6, free speech; Article 7, free press;
Article 12, the abolition of titles and the privileges of nobility; Article 13, the suppression of
ecclesiastical courts; Article 27, which prohibited corporations from owning land; Article 36, the
duties of citizens, which included registration, service in the militia and the right to vote; Article 39,
the sovereignty of the people; Article 72, which gave Congress the power to enforce the articles of the
Constitution by appropriate legislation; and what was probably the most offensive, Article 123, which
gave the federal government authority in matters of worship.17
A law passed on 23 July 1859 required that couples wishing to be married must be married
by a civil magistrate in order for their marriage to be legal, but did not prohibit married couples from
subsequent church blessing of their civil marriage.18 This is still the law in Mexico as it is in most
countries in the world except for English-speaking countries. Another law prohibited the Church
16
17
Simpson, op. cit., p. 275-276.
18
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from charging poor people fees for baptisms, banns, weddings, or burials.19 Another law authorized
confiscation of church cemeteries by local governments.20 It did not, however, touch the vast personal
wealth of the clergy. Roman Catholicism was still regarded as the state religion, but other
denominations were also permitted. Because of this, the Vatican suspended diplomatic relations in
1860.
Jurez hoped that Protestants in Mexico would compete with Roman Catholics and restrain
the abuses of the clergy. He also hoped that Protestants would educate the Indians to make them read
rather than light candles.21 Jurez and a number of other government officials were Freemasons, who
by this time were fiercely anti-clerical. Jurez had been received into Freemasonry at the Respectable
Independent Lodge of the Mexican National Rite number 2 on 15 January 1847. His name in
Freemasonry was Guillermo Tell (William Tell).22
The need for religious reform was felt even as early as the time of Santa Anna. In 1831 Vicente
Rocafuerte (Vicente Rocafuerte y Rodrguez de Bejarano, 1783-1847) published a book titled Ensayo
sobre tolerencia religiosa, advocating freedom of choice in religion. Rocafuerte was arrested and tried,
but eventually acquitted. Nevertheless, he was bitterly opposed by the Roman Catholic Church.23
Rocafuerte was a native of Ecuador and after his acquittal, returned to his home country, where he
served as president from 1835 to 1839.
Once the Roman Catholic Church was stripped of its power and privilege, a new freedom of
religious expression appeared. There was open preaching of the Gospel and open distribution of the
Bible in Spanish. A popular Spanish edition of the Bible had previously been made available in
Mexico for the first time in 1824 with the arrival of James Thomson, a representative of the nondenominational British and Foreign Bible Society.24 This was a Roman Catholic translation made by
Felipe Sco de San Miguel (1738-1796), but without the Apocryphal books and without the doctrinal
notes approved by Rome. In other words a Catholic translation but with the Protestant canon.
Thomsons work was supported by the liberal philosopher and historian Jos Mara Luis Mora
Lamadrid (1794-1850), and Lorenzo de Zavala (1788-1836). The sudden widespread availability of the
Bible led to the development of small groups of clergy and laity who met regularly for Bible study.
19
ibid, p. 146.
20
ibid, p. 151.
21
Estos necesitan una religin que los obligue a leer y no a gastar sus ahorros en cirios para los santos. Quoted
in Bastian, J.P. op. cit., p. 38.
22
23
Baldwin, Deborah J. Protestants and the Mexican Revolution: Missionaries, Ministers, and Social Change, 1990.
24
Bastian, op. cit., p. 27.
p. 13.
Page 9 of 56
Moras group met on the first Monday of every month in Mexico City.25 This led to the desire
for church reform and a national Mexican church that would be catholic, apostolic, and scriptural,
but not papal. Bibles were distributed all over Mexico until 1830, when most cities issued edicts
against the Bible Society editions.26
Mexican Protestants generally identify their origins with Mora.27 Mora was sensitive to some
of his conservative critics, and wanted to find a way to modernize Mexicos traditional Hispanic
culture without turning it North American and without sacrificing its national identity.28
De Zavala, in a published account of a visit to the United States, attributed our economic and
social progress in part to our religious pluralism.29 De Zavala helped to form the Mexican government
after its break with Spain and helped to write the Constitution of 1824, but when Santa Anna defied
that Constitution, De Zavala emigrated to the United States. In 1827 he settled in Texas, signed the
Texas Declaration of Independence, and served as first Vice President of the Republic of Texas.
In 1856 Juan Amador, a radical pamphleteer from Fresnillo, Zacatecas, published a violently
anticlerical pamphlet titled El apocalipsis, o, La revelacin de un sans culotte (The apocalypse, or,
The revelation of a sans culotte, using a term for radicals left over from the French Revolution.) This
pamphlet applied the principles of the French Revolution to the Mexican Reform, denounced abuses
by the clergy, and called for abolition of ecclesiastical courts, abolition of religious orders, and
separation of Church and State. The pamphlet was sold out in a few days, in spite of a price increase
caused when the Bishop of San Luis Potos bought as many copies as he could find in order to burn
them.30
25
Gringoire, Pedro, El protestantismo del doctor Mora, Historia mexicana, III (January-March 1964), p. 328-
26
Baldwin, op. cit., p. 14.
27
ibid., p. 14.
28
Morales, J.B. Disertacin contra la toleracin religiosa, 1833, quoted in Bastian, J.P. op. cit., p. 27.
29
30
ibid., p. 30.
366.
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V. THE CONSTITUTIONALIST FATHERS

Groups of Roman Catholic clergy around the country, principally from among humbler
parish priests, professed loyalty to the new Constitution in spite of opposition from the hierarchy.
Only one group survived from that time. It was formed on 15 August 1859 in Mexico City,31 and
eventually became known as the Constitutionalist Fathers. They included Manuel Aguilar Bermdez,
Rafael Daz Martnez, Francisco Domnguez, Jos Gracia, and Enrique Orestes, all Roman Catholic
priests.32 This group denounced the Roman Catholic hierarchy for pharisaical conduct in promoting
hatred among the clergy toward liberal reforms, and for failure to respect the Holy Scriptures, the
canons of the church, and the Councils, due to their sordid interest in temporal possessions, which
they believed were the cause of disorder and social unrest. These clergy were all removed from their
positions because of their liberal sympathies. They wrote an appeal to the Pope, which was signed by
seventy-four clergymen. It did not reach Rome, but came to the attention of the Liberal government,
then in Veracruz.33
One of the Constitutionalist Fathers, Manuel Aguilar Bermdez, wrote a pamphlet on the
duty of every Christian to study the Scriptures. Henry Chauncey Riley (1835-1904), an American priest
who spoke Spanish, found the pamphlet among Aguilars possessions and translated it into English.
Riley came to Mexico in 1869, two years after Aguilars death in 1867, so it is not clear where these
possessions were kept in the interval. Aguilar died in the hope of a national Episcopal Church with
episcopacy from the United States, which he never lived to see. His health failed from overwork,
malnutrition, and poverty, and he died clutching a Bible, encouraged by the promise of a layman,
Hernndez, that the work would not fail.34
The Constitutionalist Fathers replaced the Roman Catholic De Sco Bible with a Protestant
edition, the Reina-Valera translation, first published in Switzerland in 1569 and revised in 1602. This
is to this day the most widely used Spanish Bible, though just as in English there are now many other
translations available. It has been revised several times. The 1909 revision is considered the equivalent
of the King James Bible, while the 1960 revision is compared to the Revised Standard Version. Both
revisions are still in print.35
31
Crane, Daniel Kirk, La formacin de una iglesia mexicana, 1859-1872, masters thesis in Latin American studies,
UNAM, 1999, p. 48, quoted in La Estrella de Beln : peridico de la Iglesia Mexicana de Jess (ProtestanteDigital.com)
32
Bastian, op. cit., p. 30. Baldwin, op. cit., p. 14., includes Manuel Aguas in this list, but this is doubtful because
of information that will be revealed later.
33
Wilmer, J.P.B. Memorial of the Missionaries of the Mexican Protestant Church, 1886, p. 3-4.
34
Brand, W.F. Life of William Rollinson Whittingham, Fourth Bishop of Maryland, 1886, vol. 2, p. 251. This
source indicates that the layman Hernndez was subsequently elected bishop, but I find no other reference to that
suggestion.
35
Wikipedia, Reina-Valera.
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In 1861, another priest of this movement, Ramn Lozano of Santa Brbara, Tamaulipas,
published some provisional statutes of the new church based on the Scriptures and the writings of the
Apostolic Fathers.36 It had more than eighty signatories, including twelve priests. The movement
needed a name, and one name considered was La Sociedad Catlica Apostlica Mexicana, the Mexican
Catholic Apostolic Society. By 1864 the movement had unified several rebellious groups into one
body and chose the name Iglesia de Jess, Church of Jesus.37
In a letter to Rafael Daz Martnez dated 22 February 1861, Melchor Ocampo, Interior
Minister under Jurez, named the Iglesia de Jess and the Constitutionalist Fathers as agents of the
government to begin the reform of the Roman Catholic Church. This letter is in the Archives of the
Episcopal Church in Austin. It uses the term Constitutionalist Fathers, but the first use of this term
may have been by Jurez himself on 11 January 1861 on his triumphal entry into Mexico City after
the overthrow of Comonfort.38 Ocampo also promised monetary support from the government. In
the end, no such support materialized. Shortly after he made this promise, Ocampo was no longer
in the government. Subsequently he was assassinated in June of 1861 at his home in Michoacn by
a rebel general, Leonardo Mrquez.39
36
37
ibid., p. 15.
38
39
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VI. FRENCH INTERVENTION IN MEXICO

Jurez made a tactical error by suspending payment of foreign debt for two years, which so
angered the French Emperor Napoleon III (Louis-Napolon Bonaparte, 1808-1873) that he sent his
army to Mexico City to install Archduke Maximilian (1832-1867, brother of the Austrian Emperor
Franz Josef) as Emperor of Mexico in 1863. On the way to Mexico, Maximilian conferred with Pope
Pius IX (Giovanni Maria Mastai-Ferretti, 1792-1878), who urged him to allow only Roman
Catholicism in Mexico, to restore the power of the bishops, monastic orders, church property, and
a Roman Catholic monopoly of educational institutions.40 Maximilian led the Pope to believe that
he would comply with all these requests, and as a result, Maximilian arrived with the support of the
Roman Catholic clergy in Mexico, who had never supported the War of Reform. But this support was
withdrawn when Maximilian began to show liberal tendencies.
Whatever he may have said to Pius IX before coming to Mexico, Maximilian was no admirer
of the Pope. Nominally a Roman Catholic, he was also a Freemason and allowed freedom of worship.
At the end of 1864 he allowed Manuel Aguilar Bermdez to resume services of the Iglesia de Jess in
a private house on the Calle San Jos del Real.41 He also permitted John William Butler, an agent of
the British Bible Society, to sell Spanish Bibles in Mexico. Aguilar wrote to the Society in 1866 that
many of the Liberal Party received the Holy Scriptures with enthusiasm and many of the working class
took them to their homes.42
The religious reform movement suffered initially under the French Intervention because the
Jurez government was out of power and could not provide the financial assistance it promised. The
Roman Catholic Archbishop denounced the Constitutionalist Fathers as a synagogue of Satan and
an invention of Jansenism. The reference to Jansenism is not inappropriate. The Jansenists were a
similar type of reform movement in France that eventually broke from Rome over the issue of papal
infallibility and formed what came to be known as the Old Catholic Church.43 And with a French
puppet government in power in Mexico, the Pope attempted to put down the Constitutionalist
Fathers and their movement.
U.S. President Andrew Johnson urged the French ambassador in Washington to call for his
government to withdraw the Army from Mexico. Meanwhile Prussia had invaded Denmark and
Austria and France seemed to be their most likely next target, so Napoleon III did indeed withdraw
the Army and financial assistance, and Maximilian was left without support in a hostile country. He
was captured and shot in 1867. The liberal government was restored and continued until the death
40
41
42
ibid., p. 37.
43
Moss, C.B. The Old Catholic Movement : its Origins and History, 1948.
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of Jurez in 1872.44
The French Intervention intensified the Liberals attitude toward the Roman Catholic Church.
They viewed both Frances puppet emperor and the Roman Catholic hierarchy as agents of a foreign
power. After the defeat of Maximilian, anti-papal pamphlets began to appear in such scattered places
as Zacatecas and Guerrero.
44
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VII. THE IGLESIA DE JESS

The Iglesia de Jess started with eighty members, including twelve priests, but it had no
bishops. The Roman Catholic bishops opposed this movement, and it could not be truly apostolic
without bishops and a means of securing their succession. Roman Catholic bishops at one point
forbade its members even to sell food or provide shelter to members of the Iglesia de Jesus.45
Francisco Domnguez and Rafael Daz Martnez, two priests of the Iglesia de Jess, spent two
years in exile in the United States during the French Intervention, but after the fall of Maximilian
they returned to Matamoros, opposite Brownsville, Texas, and tried to re-gather their scattered
congregations.
The Iglesia de Jess formed a Standing Committee, presided by Mariano Zavala, Magistrate
of the Supreme Court of Justice, with Jos Mara Iglesias as treasurer, Manuel Rivera y Ro as
secretary, and Dr. Marcellino Guerrero as voting member.46 In 1866 Rafael Daz Martnez was elected
bishop, and the Standing Committee asked the Episcopal Church for his consecration as a bishop
for Mexico. The request was presented to the Presiding Bishop, the Right Reverend John Henry
Hopkins (1792-1868), who pointed out certain canonical difficulties that would prevent the granting
of this request.47 What these canonical difficulties were thought to be in 1866 is not certain, but
subsequent debates in the House of Bishops hinged on the question of whether the Episcopal Church
has the right to consecrate a bishop for a country in which there is already a branch of the Catholic
Church. Catholic custom and law would indicate that it does not. The bishops used as an example
Bishop Horatio Southgate (1812-1894), who had been consecrated as a missionary bishop for the
Ottoman Empire in 1844. The mission failed, and some of the bishops saw this as Gods punishment
for violating this basic rule. Other bishops took a different view. Consecrating a bishop for an already
existing church such as the Iglesia de Jess was a different matter from sending a bishop into
unestablished territory. Furthermore, adherence to this custom would have prevented the Episcopal
Church from sending missions into Louisiana, Texas, and California as these territories became part
of the United States. The Episcopal Church had already sent missions into those places, so it was too
late in the day to raise objections on these grounds.48
Rafael Daz Martnez wrote to Bishop Joseph Pere Bell Wilmer (1812-1878) of Louisiana,
asking for financial support to build churches, to publish liturgical material, and to pay salaries. This
letter was referred to Bishop Henry Codman Potter (1835-1908) of New York. A delegation from the
United States, led by the Reverend E.G. Nicholson, visited in the same year and formed a favorable
impression of the new movement. Nicholson spent most of his time in Mexico City working
alongside Father Manuel Aguilar Bermdez, and reported that the work of the liberal Catholic priests
45
46
ibid., p. 15.
47
McConnell, S.D. History of the American Episcopal Church, 1897, p. 414.
48
ibid., p. 416-417.
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was very much in accord with the objectives of the Episcopal Church, and though there might be
small differences in doctrine, the form of worship was nearly identical. Nicholson also commented
that the Episcopal Church had a special obligation to introduce its ministry and worship in Mexico
because its services are especially adapted to the needs of the Spanish race, more so than those of
other denominations.49
Because of the unstable political situation in Mexico in 1865 (and in the United States as well
the Civil War was just ending), no action was taken and no financial aid was sent.
In 1868 Rafael Daz Martnez and other representatives of the Iglesia de Jess visited Episcopal
Church Headquarters in New York, still seeking financial assistance from the Episcopal Church. By
chance they met an American priest whose native tongue was Spanish, Henry C. Riley.50 Dr. Riley had
lived for a number of years in Chile, and because he had a private fortune and was practically a
South American Spaniard in temperament,51 he immediately took an interest in the cause of this
Mexican church. McConnell says he returned with them to Mexico. Other sources say he went to
Mexico a year later.
49
Tllez Aguilar, Abraham. Proceso de introduccin del protestantismo en Mxico desde la Independencia hasta
1884. Thesis, UNAM, 1989.
50
McConnell, op. cit., p. 414. McConnell mistakenly calls him Theodore Theodore was Henry Rileys father.
51
ibid., p. 414
Page 16 of 56
VIII. BISHOP HENRY C. RILEY AND FATHER MANUEL AGUAS

Henry Chauncey Riley was born in Chile in 1835, of British (some sources say American)
parents, who were missionaries. He was educated first in England and later in the United States,
ordained deacon in the Episcopal Church in 1866, priest in 1867, and served as rector of the Iglesia
de Santiago in New York City, a Spanish-speaking congregation. Riley spoke fluent Spanish and was
thoroughly familiar with the culture of Latin America. Riley came to Mexico City in 1869, one source
says as a representative of the American and Foreign Christian Union, for the purpose of organizing
an interdenominational mission.52 Another source says that he had no organizational support at all
other than permission of his bishop.53 He immediately purchased out of his own resources two
churches: San Francisco and San Jos de Gracia, former Roman Catholic churches which the
government had confiscated with the intention of selling them to non-Roman Catholic religious
bodies.
San Francisco had been part of the central convent of the Franciscan Order. It is centrally
located on the Calle Francisco I. Madero across from the famous House of Tiles, and a block west of
the Alameda. San Jos de Gracia was built in 1659-1661 for a religious order of women under the
patronage of St. Monica. It was later used along with an adjoining convent by another womens
community, the Order of the Holy Conception. It was confiscated by the government in 1867 and
used as a barracks and later as a storeroom for rags and papers.54
The American and Foreign Christian Union proved to be unable to function as an
interdenominational body. Riley insisted on following the uses of the Episcopal Church and
associated himself with representatives of the Iglesia de Jess, who wanted a reformed Catholic Church
in Mexico, not a Protestant one. One by one the other denominations fell away in order to start their
own missions in Mexico, and in 1872 the American and Foreign Christian Union disbanded.
The account by Bishop Alfred Lee (1807-1887) of Delaware, who visited Mexico in 1874, says
that when Manuel Aguilar Bermdez died in 1867, his little congregation of 50 people fell apart until
Riley arrived from the United States in 1869, rescued it, and brought it back together.55 Then Riley
took over its leadership, and was examined by a group of prominent Roman Catholic clergy, among
them the Dominican friar Manuel Aguas. As a result of this examination, Aguas was converted to the
reform movement and became one of its greatest preachers. In one account, Aguas was converted after
reading a tract titled True Liberty, written by Riley himself.56 Bishop Lees source for this spectacular
conversion has to be Riley himself, who has obviously exaggerated his role in the Mexican church.
52
Bechtel, A.G. The Mexican Episcopal Church : a Century of Reform and Revolution, 1966, p. 18.
53
Brand, op. cit., v. 2, p. 251-252.
54
Bechtel, op. cit., p. 19.
55
Lee, Alfred. The reformation in Mexico, 187-?, p. 8.
56
Brand, op. cit, v. 2, p. 252.
Page 17 of 56
The Iglesia de Jess had 46 congregations and 6,000 faithful by 1870. Twenty-three congregations were
in the Valley of Mexico (a highlands plateau in central Mexico roughly coterminous with the
present-day Distrito Federal and the eastern half of the State of Mexico) and the remaining twentythree were scattered throughout the rest of the country. It is unlikely that Riley could have put that
together in one year from a dispersed congregation that had only 50 people to begin with. A
Presbyterian missionary in Monterrey, Melinda Rankin (1811-1888) reports that in 1871, two years
after Rileys arrival in Mexico, he was ministering to a church in Mexico City with 400 members, and
this church had become the most important in the whole country, and continued to be so in 1875
when she published her report.57 This seems to suggest that the Iglesia de Jess had other churches in
Mexico but Riley was leading only the one church in Mexico City. One source indicates that the
congregation left behind by Father Aguilar was made up of manual laborers without the guidance of
any clergyman. They had been taught well by Father Aguilar and resisted attempts to draw them away
from the hopes that Aguilar taught them to cherish.58
In 1870 the Iglesia de Jess began publication of a magazine titled La estrella de Beln (the Star
of Bethlehem) under the direction of two lawyers, Jess Buen Romero and Nicols Islas y Bustamante,
though the magazine was of very short duration, possibly no more than a few months. A researcher
in Mexico, Carlos Martnez Garca, is currently publishing a facsimile of the issues from March to
September 1870, probably the only issues ever published.
Manuel Aguas was a former Dominican friar and a brilliant preacher. He was a professor of
theology and philosophy and a practicing physician. When the government abolished the monasteries
under the Constitution of 1857, Aguas held pastorates in Cuautla in the State of Morelos and in
Atzcapotzalco in the Distrito Federal. He also served briefly in the Church of San Jos de Gracia
before its confiscation by the government. He served as confessor to the canons of the Metropolitan
Cathedral and Preacher to the Archbishop and Chapter. It must have been a great shock to the
Roman Catholic hierarchy when such a gifted and prominent cleric converted to the Iglesia de Jess,
which Aguas did, on 2 April 1871. His close friend, Father Agustn Palacios, also converted a few days
later.59
Father Aguas returned to his former church, San Jos de Gracia, which was now a
congregation of the Iglesia de Jess, where he preached again, and filled the church to overflowing.
In June of 1871 Aguas was excommunicated by the Archbishop of Mexico, Pelagio Antonio de
Labastida y Dvalos (1816-1891), for his views, and later published a spirited defense.60 Archbishop
Labastida had supported Maximilian and after Maximilians execution, the Archbishop went into exile
in Europe, but without resigning as Archbishop of Mexico. In this capacity he attended the First
57
Rankin, M. Twenty Years Among the Mexicans : a Narrative of Missionary Labor, 1875, p. 154.
58
Brand, op. cit., v. 2, p. 251.
59
60
Aguas, Manuel. Contestacin que el presbtero Don Manuel Aguas da a la excomunin que en su contra ha
fulminado el Seor Obispo Don Antonio Pelagio de Labastida, 1871.
Page 18 of 56
Vatican Council (1868-1870). Afterwards President Jurez allowed him to return to Mexico.
Aguas plunged into the new movement with abandon, and agreed to debate a prominent
Roman Catholic cleric, Father Javier Aguilar y Bustamante, on the question: Is the Church of Rome
Idolatrous?. The debate was scheduled for Sunday 2 July 1871 in the Church of San Jos de Gracia,
but Father Aguilar y Bustamante, fearing a disturbance, did not appear. Aguas decided that he had
won the debate by default and launched into a vigorous attack on Roman Catholic doctrine and
practice, with considerable wit and originality.61
Aguas, with all the zeal of the new convert, headed up the Iglesia de Jess and organized a
Synod to safeguard the faith, order, and discipline of the new church. The Synod elected Aguas as
their bishop toward the end of 1871. (Rafael Daz Martnez had been elected bishop in 1866 but the
Episcopal Church refused to consecrate him.) Aguas organized an advisory council and began a
seminary to train candidates for the priesthood.62 After all his work, Aguas was soon worn out, and
he died on 18 October 1872 without ever being consecrated bishop. He left behind no successor of
his caliber whom the tiny church wished to elect bishop in his place. The Mexican Episcopal Church
still regards Manuel Aguas as its founder.
In 1876 an American priest, Albert Zabriskie Gray (1840-1889) toured Mexico and wrote an
account of his travels. His work starts out as a simple travel guide, since at the time there was no
reliable guidebook of Mexico available. His work also contains a good deal of anti-Roman Catholic
vituperation. For example, he says that the traveler in Mexico observes so much of ignorance and
degradation in the dominant Church of Rome, the sad inheritance of a semi-barbarous conquest,
which indeed was only just gilded by a pretense to the creed of a Spanish Philip and a Roman Leo.63
Gray says that Conversion consisted in persuasion or compulsion to Holy Baptism, often
administered to a multitude of ignorant savages at a time. With the exception of a few great and godly
men like Las Casas,64 there have been very few of the Spanish Church either capable or willing to
instruct and elevate the long servile and degraded masses of the people; and yet, we believe there is no
aboriginal race more susceptible and prepared to receive a pure and undefiled Christianity. 65 Thats
a long passage, but I quoted it to give an impression of how Gray thought of the Mexican people that
he was visiting, and their history. He was unaware, as I was when I started this paper, of the
painstaking work of the Franciscan friars in learning indigenous languages and providing the Indians
with Christian instruction. Gray then goes on to extol the Iglesia de Jess, which he does not actually
61
62
ibid, p. 22, based on an interview of Lorenzo J. Saucedo.
63
Gray, A.Z. Mexico as it is, 1878, p. 127.
64
Bartolom de las Casas, 14841566, was a 16th-century Spanish historian, social reformer and Dominican friar.
His writings chronicle the first decades of colonization of the West Indies and focus particularly on the atrocities
committed by the colonizers against the indigenous peoples.
65
ibid., p. 128
Page 19 of 56
name, and its founder, Manuel Aguilar Bermdez, whom he calls Francisco.66 Even his admiration
is condescending. Referring to Aguilar, he says His ideas were necessarily somewhat crude and vague,
but still strongly shaped in the direction of truly Catholic and Apostolic faith and service. 67 Gray
reports that when Aguilar died in 1867, no one had appeared to work by his side and his battle had
been fought single-handed. 68 Other accounts contradict this statement, but according to Gray, Riley
heard the distant call of Aguilars reform movement while he was ministering to his Spanish-speaking
congregation in New York City, and went to Mexico to work at his side. He did not, of course, work
at his side, because Aguilar was already dead two years before Riley arrived in Mexico. Rileys great
triumphs, according to Gray, were the securing of one of the principal churches in Mexico City, San
Jos de Gracia, for the reform movement, and converting Manuel Aguas to true Catholicism. Gray
says: The story of Manuel Aguas conversion from Romanism to true Catholicism forms one of the
romantic and immortal episodes which illumine the pages of Church History. 69 Indeed it does and
I could not have put it better. Gray was misled by Rileys exaggerated claims. Aguilar did not labor
single-handed, and I have some difficulty believing that Riley alone converted Aguas to the Mexican
Reformation.
Grays account was published before Riley became Bishop of Mexico, so he does not report
the circumstances of Rileys episcopate and its unfortunate end. Gray had clearly fallen in love with
Mexico and was hopeful that it would soon have a resident bishop and an independent national
church. He wanted to continue his ministry there. The Mexican Church had already established
schools and orphanages, and Gray wanted to build a theological school. Such a school was built in
1894, which was after his death in 1889, which was named the Dean Gray School, not for Albert Gray
but for his brother George. It is now called St. Andrews Seminary.
Another picture of Rileys dawning interest in Mexico is provided by Melinda Rankin. She
met Riley in New York in 1868 at Bible House (headquarters of the British Bible Society), and Riley
asked her why she didnt work in Mexico City, where there were two hundred thousand souls, instead
of in Monterrey, where there were only forty thousand. She replied that she had to work where God
placed her. But then she asked Riley why he didnt work in Mexico City, and he said he couldnt leave
his Hispanic congregation in New York. How large a church and congregation have you? she asked,
and he replied, About two or three hundred. But, Mr. Riley, can you feel justified in remaining
here and preaching to a few hundred people who are surrounded with Gospel privileges, when you
might go to the City of Mexico where there are two hundred thousand souls without one Gospel
preacher? According to Rankin, Riley cast his eyes at the floor for several minutes in silence, then
looked her in the face and said Miss Rankin, I will go. Next August you will hear from me in the
66
ibid., p. 130
67
ibid., p. 130
68
ibid., p. 130
69
ibid., p. 131
Page 20 of 56
City of Mexico. 70 Creightons account of Rileys ministry says that Riley was invited to Mexico.71
This may be true. Riley may have arranged an invitation from the American and Foreign Christian
Union, which, considering his qualifications, would not have been difficult.
Riley attempted to use the Iglesia de Jess, now more or less headed by Manuel Aguas, to
create a branch of the Episcopal Church. In this effort he was initially supported by Aguas, but other
clergy, among them Aguass friend Agustn Palacios, Sstenes Jurez, and Arcadio Morales opposed
the relationship with the Episcopal Church. They attempted to continue as an independent church
until Palacios became so violently anti-Catholic that Morales ended the association in 1874 and
became a Presbyterian. He earned the reputation as the Moody of Mexico72 for his ability as a
preacher.73 Palacios and Sstenes Jurez became Methodists. The Church of San Francisco was
returned to the Roman Catholics, though it rents a small chapel to a Methodist congregation.
When union with the Episcopal Church failed to take place, Riley temporarily accepted a role
in the Iglesia de Jess. He began to arrange places for worship in chapels turned over to the church
by the government, and to purchase others. But when funds ran out, the group began to consider
whether they should align themselves with the various Protestant churches now sending missions to
Mexico.74
The government favored the establishment of Protestant missions in Mexico when it became
clear that this was the only way to sustain any opposition to the Roman Catholic Church. Matas
Romero, Secretary of the Treasury under Benito Jurez wrote that he favored a ... community
presided over by Mr. Riley, who wished to establish a National Mexican Church in competition with
the Roman Catholic ... with the cordial cooperation of President Jurez who shared my sentiments
and was perhaps more radical than I in these matters ... I sold them the Church of San Francisco, one
of the most beautiful in Mexico.75
Manuel Aguas died in 1872, and from this point Riley was in control. Those who disagreed
with either Episcopal doctrine or Rileys leadership left the church. Persuaded by Riley, in 1875 the
Episcopal Church entered into an agreement with the Mexican church which stated, in part:
The bishops of the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States ... recognize the Mexican Branch
of the Catholic Church [as] a foreign church ... yet during the early growth and development it shall
continue to enjoy the nursing care of the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States, until [it]
70
Rankin, op. cit., p. 153.
71
Creighton, F.W. Mexico : a handbook on the missions of the Episcopal church, p. 4.
72
A reference to Dwight Lyman Moody, 18371899, an American evangelist and publisher.
73
74
ibid., p. 16.
75
Quoted from the private documents of Matas Romero in Baldwin, op. cit., p. 17.
Page 21 of 56
shall attain to a sufficiency in its episcopate for the administration of its own affairs.76
In 1874 the Iglesia de Jess petitioned the General Convention of the Episcopal Church for
Rileys consecration as Bishop of Mexico. The House of Bishops was uneasy at the thought of
supporting the movement without further investigation, so to quiet their consciences, they appointed
a commission,77 consisting of Bishops William Rollinson Whittingham (18051879) of Maryland, Lee
of Delaware, Gregory Thurston Bedell (18171892) of Ohio, Arthur Cleveland Coxe (18181896) of
New York, John Barrett Kerfoot (1816-1881) of Pittsburgh, and Abram Newkirk Littlejohn (1824-1901)
of Long Island. Bishop Whittingham was the senior bishop on the commission, and Bishop Lee for
the most part deferred to him, but in the records, Bishop Lee is described as the chair of the
Commission, and he is the only one who went to Mexico.78 This is the same visit referred to earlier.
Bishop Lee visited one congregation of four or five hundred people in Mexico City, San Francisco,
composed mostly of the poorer classes, and was given a list of thirty other congregations.79 Lee became
so convinced of the value of the movement that he confirmed 29 candidates on 20 February 1875 and
95 more on 23 February 1875, all in the Church of San Jos de Gracia,80 and ordained five deacons
and two priests. His ordinands were: Prudencio G. Hernndez, Toms Valdespino y Figueroa, Ignacio
Maruri, Jess Medina, Joaqun Villegas, Gernimo Neyra, and Jess L. Prez.81 The Episcopal Church
was now committed to the support of the Iglesia de Jess. Lee was impressed with Manuel Aguas and
his skills as a preacher and pamphleteer, and quotes liberally from his sermons and tracts. However,
since Aguas was dead before Lees visit to Mexico, he must have been relying on the impressions of
others, probably of Riley.
Bishop Lee returned to the United States with a proposed concordat between the House of
Bishops and the Standing Committee of the Mexican Church. By the terms of this concordat, the
House of Bishops was to consecrate one or more persons as bishops. Two candidates for bishop were
elected. One was Dr. Riley, to be Bishop of the Valley of Mexico. The other was Toms Valdespino
y Figueroa, to be Bishop of Cuernavaca. Bishop Lee had just ordained Valdespino to the priesthood,
and he was younger than the required age to be consecrated bishop. The reference to the election of
Valdespino appears only in a letter from Albert E. Mackintosh, who was at that time the treasurer of
the Mexican Church, to Bishop Kerfoot dated 9 April 1879.82 It appears that the election of
Valdespino, if it occurred, was not taken seriously.
76
Document reprinted in The Guardian in 1884 and quoted in Baldwin, D.J. op. cit., p. 16.
77
Hereafter referred to as the Mexican Commission.
78
79
McConnell, op cit., p. 417.
80
Cathedral Register, 1875.
81
Bechtel, op cit., p. 26, based on an interview of Lorenzo J. Saucedo. The source does not say which were the
deacons and which were the priests.
82
Mackintosh, Albert E. To the Right Reverend J. B. Kerfoot, Bishop of Pittsburgh, Mexico, April 9th, 1879.
Page 22 of 56
In spite of Lees favorable impressions, the Episcopal Church was not convinced of the
viability of the Mexican Church. Bishop Whittingham especially was disturbed, and he made his
disturbance known. He felt that the Mexican Church was loose in its doctrine and indifferent to
truth. He was concerned that Bishop Lee could name no clergyman in the Mexican Church other
than those he had just ordained, and no layman of character or influence.83 He had a copy of its
liturgy, and he called it monstrous.84 Bishop Kerfoot said that he was disappointed in the evidence
for the existence of this Mexican Church. This presented difficulties for Bishop Lee because he had
already ordained clergy for the Mexican Church. He felt that if the House of Bishops did not provide
them with a bishop, they would drift away into the Presbyterian or the Methodist Church, both of
which were active in Mexico. Other comments at the time make mention of the difficulty in
obtaining reliable attendance and membership statistics. One day the Mexican Church would seem
to be sweeping the country and the next day it was reported to be dying out. North Americans did
not believe any Latin people could successfully revolt against Rome. There was a general lack of
understanding and trust of Mexican people on the part of their neighbors to the north.85
By this time a split had already developed in the church which was manifesting itself in
separate congregations. One group, led by Sstenes Jurez, was composed of former Roman Catholic
priests who exercised patriarchal leadership over congregations and preserved Catholic customs.
Another group had strong lay leadership and democratic government. The first group met in church
buildings purchased or regulated by the government, the second group met in private homes. This
second group, led by Gabriel Ponce de Len, which included many Freemasons, had begun to adapt
Masonic ritual to their form of worship.86
The Mexican church struggled with the liturgy. They had developed a provisional Prayer Book,
called Libro de Oracin. Some members of the Mexican Commission thought it Zwinglian,87 but
Bishop Lee reported that while it had some defects, one of which was that it had no lectionary, it
nevertheless contained all necessary elements and was theologically correct. Hall Harrison, Bishop
Kerfoots biographer, asserts that none of the critics ever saw the liturgy which they found so
objectionable, and none of the allegedly Zwinglian passages was ever quoted.88
Lee suggested that a new service book might be created, possibly to be drawn from the
Mozarabic Rite, a Roman Catholic rite developed in the Iberian Peninsula in the 7th century. Lee
thought that the Mozarabic Rite would be more suited to the Hispanic character than a liturgy
83
84
McConnell, op cit., p. 418.
85
ibid., p. 415-419.
86
87
Harrison, H. Life of the Right Reverend John Barrett Kerfoot, 1886, v. 2, p. 627.
88
Harrison, H. op. cit., p. 643-644.
Page 23 of 56
designed for the Anglo-Saxon race89. A priest and liturgical scholar named Charles Reuben Hale
(1837-1900), rector of the Church of Saint Mary the Virgin in Baltimore County, Maryland no, not
the one in New York City published such a liturgy in the April 1876 issue of the American Church
Review, and later issued it privately as an offprint. It consists of passages lifted from an English
translation of the Mozarabic Rite which approximate passages in the American Book of Common
Prayer, and rearranged in more or less the same order. This was presented as a proposed liturgy for
the Mexican church but was not immediately adopted.
For five more years General Convention wrestled with the question of a bishop for the
Mexican church. Some bishops felt it would violate universal church law and custom to send an
Anglican bishop into a country already under the jurisdiction of Roman Catholic bishops. However,
the Bishop of Connecticut felt that the Church of Rome had departed so far from the faith that it
could no longer be considered Catholic.90 Finally in the spring of 1879 Dr. Riley gave explanations
to the Mexican Commission which satisfied them and restored their confidence in him.91 Bishop
Kerfoot made the argument that the Mexican Commissions insistence on seeing the Mexican liturgy
before Rileys consecration was impracticable. When Samuel Schereschewsky was consecrated, the
Bishops did not insist on seeing the liturgy in Chinese.92 Riley was consecrated the first Bishop of
Mexico on the Feast of Saint John the Baptist. The consecration took place in Trinity Cathedral in
Pittsburgh. His consecrators were Bishop Lee, Gregory Thurston Bedell (1817-1892), Bishop of Ohio,
and William Bacon Stevens (1815-1887), Bishop of Pennsylvania.93 Rileys consecration was not
without dissent even at the time it took place. He did not have the consent of the majority of the
dioceses and the bishops of the Episcopal Church, which is required by canon law. The Mexican
Commission decided to act without this consent on the grounds that Riley was being consecrated for
a foreign country, and that the Church had already given the Commission full authority to act. The
Presiding Bishop, Benjamin Bosworth Smith (1784-1884), must have been of this opinion, since it was
he who set the time and place for the consecration. It was also alleged that Riley was not a fit person
to be a bishop, but as one source has pointed out, the same has been alleged concerning a number
of bishops in the Episcopal Church who have satisfied all canonical requirements.94 It was also alleged
that the consecration of a bishop for the Mexican Church was premature, and that greater care should
have been taken to insure compliance with the covenant. William F. Brand, Bishop Whittinghams
89
Lee, op. cit., p. 19.
90
McConnell, op cit., p. 414-417.
91
Harrison, H. op. cit., p. 623.
92
ibid., p. 655. Samuel Isaac Joseph Schereschewsky (1831-1906) was consecrated Bishop of Shanghai in 1877.
93
The consecration of a bishop is performed by three other bishops: a chief consecrator, and two assistants, who
then become the consecrators of record. A table of the succession of American bishops is carried in every issue of The
Episcopal Church Annual. This is not to say that there are not other consecrators as well. I have seen episcopal
consecrations attended by seven or eight bishops, all of whom laid hands on the bishop-elect.
94
Page 24 of 56
biographer, writing in 1886, asserts that the state of the Mexican Church at that time bears out this
complaint.95 But with Rileys consecration, the future of an independent national church in Mexico
was assured. Or was it?
At first glance Riley would seem to be an excellent choice to lead the struggling church. He
had great personal charm, enthusiasm, and energy. He understood the Mexican culture and spoke
Spanish fluently. But he had no talent for organization and was uncomfortable with the daily routine
of running his diocese. The members of the Mexican Commission complained that Riley sent no
reports and never answered letters from one year to the next.96
The Mexican Commission made much of the fact that Bishop Riley was absent from his see
for a long period of time.97 While this is true, it was not entirely his fault. He had to travel to the
United States to raise money for his mission. It was common practice at the time, and is still a
common practice in developing countries. Riley presented his plans for the building of a new national
church in Mexico which would be in communion with the Church of England and the Episcopal
Church in the United States. In addition, the House of Bishops appointed Riley to go immediately
to Europe to help organize the Spanish Reformed Episcopal Church in Spain and the Lusitanian
Church in Portugal. Riley also managed to collect a good deal of money for his Mexican diocese while
in England and Ireland. Riley published a paper appealing for funds, which was distributed by the
League in Aid of the Mexican Branch of the Church in 1882.98 Riley spent the first year and a half
of his episcopate in Europe. The Lambeth Conference requested a bishop who could speak Spanish
and it appears that he was the only one. The Mexican Commission opposed Rileys sojourn in Europe
but could not find a way to prevent the Presiding Bishop from keeping him there. By the time they
managed to persuade the Presiding Bishop to bring Riley back to Mexico, the Iglesia de Jess had
become thoroughly disorganized. Riley had spent so little time in Mexico after his consecration that
he was unaware that things were not as they should be. In 1881 he returned to Mexico and found the
Iglesia de Jess in deplorable condition. Lacking any administrative oversight, it almost passed out
of existence. the great Church of San Francisco in Mexico City was lost to the Roman Catholics (one
account says that Riley told the Mexican government that he had no need of it)99 and the Church of
San Jos de Gracia was narrowly saved by the efforts of an American woman, Mary Josephine Hooker,
about whom more later. (A different account says that Riley held the title to both of these churches,
and sold them.) In 1883 a delegation was sent to Mexico which included Bishop Robert Woodward
Barnwell Elliott (1840-1887) of West Texas and the Reverend George Flichtner. They found that the
Mexican Church under Rileys leadership had not adhered to its mission. He was accused of
mismanagement, misuse of funds, and favoritism, among other charges, none of which were ever
95
ibid., p. 272.
96
Harrison, op. cit., p. 650.
97
ibid, p. 632.
98
Riley, H.C. The Mexican Branch of the Church and its Work of Faith, 1882 (Project Canterbury document)
99
Johnson, Howard A. Global Odyssey. p. 358.
Page 25 of 56
proved. The cathedral register showed little growth in membership. There were sixty confirmations
at three services in 1881, none at all in 1882, and eleven at two services in 1883. Riley was asked to
resign his jurisdiction, which he did in 1884. The New York Times of January 16, 1886, reported that
Riley was asked to resign for offending the bishops of the United States,100 and the oversight of the
Iglesia de Jess passed into the hands of the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church.
Records in the archives of the Diocese of New York indicate that Riley returned to the United
States in 1885 and was licensed to minister to his former congregation in New York City after
promising not to perform the functions of a bishop in that diocese unless requested to do so by the
Bishop of New York.101 He had, after all, been consecrated bishop by bishops of the Episcopal
Church, so no one could claim he was not a bishop.
Riley held the title to two churches in Mexico City, San Francisco and San Jos de Gracia, and
attempted to organize a rival church. This continued to be a problem for the Mexican mission. It is
not certain how long he remained in New York, because by 1888 he had returned to Mexico City. He
had a small following but little money. In 1888 he sold the Church of San Jos de Gracia, and it was
purchased by Mary Josephine Hooker out of her personal resources and given to the Episcopal
Church. Mrs. Hookers name will come up again and again. In 1891 Riley also sold the Church of
San Francisco, and this time Mrs. Hooker was not able to save it. In 1891 Rileys small following
sought reunion with the Iglesia de Jess, and was accepted, but in 1893 they quarreled with the church
and went their separate ways. He ordained six men to the diaconate and the priesthood, despite his
assurances to the Episcopal Church that he would not function as a bishop. On 28 August 1893 the
Iglesia de Jess filed a complaint against Riley with the Presiding Bishop, and in the next month the
Presiding Bishop issued a circular letter to all the churches of the Anglican Communion requesting
that they not recognize any of the priests of Rileys church.
The 1895 Synod of the Mexican Church protested the scandalous sale of the Church of San
Francisco by Riley. Some suggested that the deed had been stolen from the archives of the Church.
Forrester and Carrin, during their visit to the United States in 1894, attempted to have Riley
deposed. The House of Bishops suspended him from all ministerial functions as a result of their
complaints. Rileys following dwindled and soon disappeared. Riley died in 1904 in obscure poverty
in the Tacubaya district of Mexico City, and was buried in the British Cemetery of Tlaxpana on the
west side of the city.
100
101
Report of the Standing Committee of the Diocese of New York on the Matter of the Relation of the Right
Rev. Henry (Enrique) Chauncey Riley, late Bishop of the Church of Jesus in Mexico, to the Diocese of New York, May
2, 1885, transcribed by Wayne Kempton (in Project Canterbury documents)
Page 26 of 56
IX. PORFIRIO DAZ

Jurez died in 1872 and was succeeded by a man of his own choosing, Sebastin Lerdo de
Tejada y Corral (1823-1889). Lerdo continued Juarzs campaign of reform by expelling ten Jesuits,
six Passionists, two diocesan clergy, and a Pauline, all of whom were foreign. He also expelled some
Sisters of Charity. But in 1873 he brought from the United States a Methodist preacher to establish
a congregation in Mexico. Lerdo was reelected in 1876, but amid charges of fraud, he was forced out
of office and exiled.102
Troubled times were ahead. Mexicos next leader was also a Oaxacan Indian, Porfirio Daz
(1830-1915). He supported Jurez and served as a general in the war against Maximilian. As President
he reformed finances, improved national credit, built schools, reorganized the army, eliminated the
bandits, built drainage canals and railroads. The budget was balanced for the first time in 1894, and
a sales tax, in place since colonial times, was abolished in 1896. Mexico experienced its industrial
revolution with the input of foreign capital. Mineral resources were developed (or one might say,
exploited) and vast holdings of land became the property of the wealthy few, foreign capitalists, and
the Roman Catholic Church. The plight of the Mexican people grew worse while foreigners got rich,
and Don Porfirio grew more firmly entrenched in his high office and became more and more
conservative.
102
Churraca Pelez, op. cit., p. 166-167.
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X. THE IGLESIA DE JESS AFTER RILEY

The entire support of the Iglesia de Jess came from the United States during Rileys
episcopate. After his resignation, support fell off, the church was racked by schism, members fell away,
and many priests returned to secular work. Those who remained formed a Cuerpo Eclesistico, a
governing body, which in June of 1885 approached the Episcopal Church again. They thanked the
Episcopal Church for sixteen years of noble and unselfish protection and financial assistance so
generously provided. They went on to apologize for errors and failings of the past, referring to the
actions of Riley, and asked that these be overlooked. They recognized the need for support from
Americans and asked to be received as a mission of the Episcopal Church. Bishop Lee recommended
that the Mexican church be received as a mission as soon as possible, but the Missionary Commission
wanted more information. In particular, evidence of the seriousness of the organization and their
capacity to represent all the congregations of the Iglesia de Jess. A convention was held in Mexico
City on 28 December 1885. Thirty-seven congregations were represented. Five congregations from the
Valley of Mexico did not attend and protested against the convention, even though the Diocese of
the Valley of Mexico was represented by a priest and lay delegates from six congregations. The
Reverend Jos Antonio Carrin (1856-1949) was elected president of the convention, and a petition
was sent to the Episcopal Church asking again to be received as a mission. The Episcopal Church
rejected the petition, and the Iglesia de Jess continued as a separate denomination for a while longer.
However, the Presiding Bishop appointed a series of administrators, the last two of whom were the
Reverend William B. Gordon of Delaware, who arrived in 1887, and the Reverend Henry Forrester,
who replaced him in 1892 and served until 1904. They were able to restore order,103 but it was the end
of independence from foreign control for the little Mexican church. Its leadership now came from
the United States, as did its financial resources, such as they were. Under Forrester the Mexican
church developed a unique blend of Hispanic and British folkways, steering a narrow path between
Roman Catholicism and Protestantism.104 Henry Forrester had skills as an organizer and pamphletwriter, as well as a strong personality, like his predecessor Manuel Aguas.
Forrester established a school for boys, which he named the Dean Gray School in honor of
the Very Reverend George Zabriskie Gray (1837-1889), Dean of the Episcopal Theological Seminary
in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I had previously thought this school was named for the Reverend Albert
Zabriskie Gray, who visited and wrote about the Mexican Church in 1876. The two priests were
brothers. The school provided a primary education for boys, but also had a theological college to train
candidates for the priesthood. Classes were taught in English and Spanish, and Forrester himself
taught Greek and theology.
In October 1892 the Mexican Church began publication of a monthly newspaper, La Buena
Lid (The Good Fight), which continues to this day. The first editors were Jess L. Prez, Jos A.
Carrin, and Jacinto V. Hernndez, all priests. The paper proclaimed the doctrines of the Church,
making a clear distinction between Roman Catholicism at one end of the spectrum and the various
103
Creighton, op. cit., p. 5.
104
Bechtel, op. cit., p. 33
Page 28 of 56
Protestant denominations at the other.

The Cuerpo Eclesistico met in September 1893 at the Josephine Hooker School to consider
a new Prayer Book. It was titled El Libro de Oficios and was completed in 1897. It was chiefly the
work of the Right Reverend Charles R. Hale, Bishop of Cairo, Illinois (now the Diocese of
Springfield), and based on an earlier project he had published in 1876 when he was Rector of the
Church of Saint Mary the Virgin in Baltimore County, Maryland. Apparently he had sufficiently
revised this work by 1879 and had presented it to Bishop Whittingham, who approved it. It was based
on the ancient Mozarabic Rite of Spain. It was approved by the Lambeth Conference in 1897. The
final form was issued in 1901 and approved by the Presiding Bishop. It served as the liturgy of the
Iglesia de Jess for the rest of its independent life, but in 1904 when that body was incorporated into
the Episcopal Church and a Spanish translation of the Book of Common Prayer (1892) was
substituted, the Mexican congregations felt it as a distinct loss. Not only was the Libro de Oficios
more suited to Hispanic culture, it was also grammatically superior to the translation of the American
book.105 My personal view is that the translation of the 1928 Prayer Book into Spanish was no
improvement, but the translation of the 1979 Prayer Book at long last seems to have got it right.
In 1894 the Iglesia de Jess claimed between 1000 and 1200 communicants, 22 congregations,
5 priests, 2 deacons, 12 lay readers, 10 parochial schools with about 400 pupils. This was actually a
decline from previous years, or was it just a more accurate count? It has been alleged that the Churchs
figures were often just guesswork, and varied according to who was guessing. It is true, however, that
members in rural areas had a tendency to drift away into various Protestant missions. These did not
have the Catholic concept of priesthood and could function more easily with lay ministers. They
often had better financial support as well. The Bishop of Arizona and New Mexico, the Right
Reverend John Mills Kendrick (1836-1911), visited several times on behalf of the Presiding Bishop of
the Episcopal Church. In January 1894 he confirmed 362 candidates and ordained 2 deacons. From
this time on, the Mexican church began to grow steadily, and its growth did not decline, even during
the Revolution of 1910 and its aftermath.
Father Forrester and Father Carrin traveled to the United States in October of 1894 to report
to the Presiding Bishop and the Provisional Committee on Mexico, and also went on a speaking tour
of the United States in an attempt to raise money for the work of the Mexican Church.
On 6 March 1895 the Cuerpo Eclesistico held a synod to develop an organizational plan for
the future, which set the pattern for the next nine years. The Reverend Jess L. Prez was elected
President and the Reverend J. V. Hernndez was elected Secretary. The meeting included the Reverend
B. N. Branch, Rector of the English-speaking Christ Church, Mexico City, which was established in
1884 more or less as part of the Diocese of West Texas. Each minister in charge of a congregation
made a report of the activities of the previous year. The establishment of the school and seminary was
mentioned, as well as the giving of voice and vote to women in the elections of all the parish councils
or vestries. There were eleven primary schools and nine Sunday schools. Graduates were teaching in
the schools at Joquicingo and Encinillas in the State of Mexico and another assisting in a school at
105
Page 29 of 56
Xochitenco, and the congregation in Xochitenco raised 300 pesos, or about $150 U.S. for school
expenses. The synod made a special point of asking all members of the Church to contribute regularly
for the support of its work. Voluntary contributions were a new concept for Mexican people. Until
the Constitution of 1857, the Roman Catholic Church was supported by enforced payment of tithes,
and after this ended, the Roman Church subsisted by charging fees for the sacraments and other
services. The Episcopal Church tried to avoid this route by developing programs of regular pledging.
It should be pointed out however that in the United States at this time, it was still customary to
finance churches by charging pew rents. Forrester wanted to impress on the Mexican congregations
the importance of sacrificial giving, so as to end Mexicos dependency on the Board of Missions in
the United States. But Mexico was always a poor country, and the Mexican Church preferred to put
off autonomy until there could be a larger membership to pay the expenses of the Church.106
On 17 September 1901 Henry Forrester was elected Bishop of the Valley of Mexico, Jos
Antonio Carrin was elected Bishop of Hidalgo, and Fausto Orihuela was elected Bishop of
Cuernavaca. The Synods purpose in electing three bishops was so that the Mexican Church would
be independent and self-sustaining and would not be dependent on foreign bishops for its continued
succession. (This doesnt exactly work out, if you think about it. If there are three bishops, and one
dies, the Mexican Church has to borrow one foreign bishop to consecrate the successor.) Carrin was
born in San Andrs Tuxtla, Veracruz, and was a member of the Iglesia de Jess from the beginning.
Orihuela was the son of one of the first priests in the Iglesia de Jess, and was ordained to the
priesthood by Bishop Kendrick of New Mexico. He was prefect of the Dean Gray School and editor
of La Buena Lid. The House of Bishops considered the request for the consecration of the three
bishops-elect during 1902 and in the end decided to consecrate only two, and only after receiving
assurances of their stability. The final decision was set for General Convention of 1904, but Henry
Forrester died on 20 September. The two Mexican bishops-elect offered their resignations, and
requested that the Presiding Bishop continue to provide the Mexican Church with the services of
bishops until Mexican bishops could be elected. Bishop Creighton, writing in the 1930s, says only that
the death of Forrester made it seem unwise to continue with the consecration of the Mexicans
nominated.107 Alpha Gillett Bechtel interprets this to mean that the House of Bishops compelled the
Mexican clergy to withdraw. This is very likely true. It has been pointed out elsewhere that the
Americans never trusted the Mexicans.108
During a period of 18 months the Bishop of Washington, Henry Yates Satterlee (18431908),
was acting as a provisional bishop of the Iglesia de Jess. He confirmed over 200 candidates, mostly
adults.
106
ibid., p. 42.
107
Creighton, op. cit., p. 30
108
Page 30 of 56
XI. THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH AND ENGLISH LANGUAGE MISSIONS IN MEXICO

Under the Daz regime, oil was discovered in Mexico and oil wells, as well as the mining of
various minerals, were being developed by British and American companies. Suddenly Mexico was
experiencing her industrial revolution and the country was being descended upon by hordes of
English-speaking foreigners. In 1904 Henry Damorel Aves (1853-1936), Rector of Christ Church,
Houston, was consecrated first Missionary Bishop of Mexico of the Episcopal Church, for the
purpose of ministering to the spiritual needs of his own countrymen and the British in Mexico. His
consecration took place in his own parish in Houston, with Alexander Charles Garrett (1832-1924),
Bishop of Dallas, James Steptoe Johnston (18431924), Bishop of West Texas, and Davis Sessums
(1858-1929), Bishop of Louisiana as consecrators. Here at long last was a challenge the Episcopal
Church was willing to rise to. Aves went at once to Mexico to begin his duties.
In the days before Bishop Riley, little attention was given to the religious needs of foreigners
in Mexico. In 1846 the Prussian Embassy asked for a place to build a chapel in Mexico City to hold
services for Protestant Anglo-Saxons. The request was denied. The first German-language services were
permitted in the chapel of Hospital del Salvador in February 1861. During the American occupation
of Mexico City, General Winfield Scotts chaplain, the Reverend McCarty, held services for the troops
of the invading army in the Hall of the Ambassadors of the National Palace, beginning on 14
September 1847. Foreigners were invited to these services, the first in the English language in Mexico
City. They continued for six months until the Army withdrew.109 English services were continued in
private residences after the army withdrew, until the French Intervention in 1863. In 1859 the German
Embassy requested the use of the Iglesia del Espritu Santo for about 90 Germans, in reality
foreigners of all nationalities, to hold Protestant services, and they were offered instead the Church
of El Divino Salvador, at the corner of present-day San Juan de Letrn and Artculo 123, which was
so small that services were instead conducted at a private house located at Calle Madero 39.110 During
French occupation, from 1863 to 1867, a Protestant (Moravian) chaplain attached to the French
Army, the Reverend E. Guion,111 held services for all non-Roman Catholics in a hall which had been
secured by foreign residents of the city. After the execution of Maximillian, these services were
discontinued.112 When Bishop Riley first came to Mexico, he held the first English-language Episcopal
service on Christmas Day 1869 in the Church of San Francisco. It was his intention, however, that
all services would be conducted in Spanish. This continued to be the case until the Reverend William
H. Cooper arrived from Chicago in 1871 to assist Bishop Riley, and at this point church records
indicate that regular services began in English. Coopers failing health caused him to leave Mexico
in 1873 and the leadership of the church fell to a Dr. Parkes, a representative of the British and
109
Christ Church Parish, Mexico City, 1871-1971 : In Celebration of the 100th Anniversary of the EnglishSpeaking Anglican Church in Mexico, 1971 (p. 5).
110
ibid.
111
Creighton, op. cit., p. 31, gives his name as Pasteur E. Guion. Not certain if this is his name or a typo for
112
Christ Church Parish, Mexico City, 1871-1971 (p. 5).
Pastor.
Page 31 of 56
Foreign Bible Society. The congregation became a non-denominational Protestant church.113 It was
initially called the Anglo-Saxon Church, but later organized under the name Union Meeting of
Protestant Christians for Religious Worship in the English Language, or, Union Evangelical
Church.114 It is still in existence.
In 1880 Mary Josephine Hooker permitted English services on property she leased for an
orphanage and school. The services were conducted by lay readers, with occasional visits by
clergymen.115
In 1884 Bishop Robert Woodward Barnwell Elliott (1840-1887) of the Diocese of West Texas
visited Mexico City and authorized the building of Christ Episcopal Church, mainly to provide
services for members of his own diocese temporarily in residence in Mexico. While he was there he
confirmed a number of candidates,116 and he advised the congregation to secure a priest. They called
the Reverend Thomas Dod Sherlock, who came from England, and remained until 1892.117 The Christ
Church building was completed in 1898 and dedicated by Bishop Kendrick of New Mexico.
In spite of Bishop Elliotts intention, Christ Church was always primarily British. Its clergy
were called mainly from England and the British West Indies. Its members hoped that it would be
placed under the jurisdiction of the Bishop of London. However, when Bishop Aves was consecrated
in 1904, the Archbishop of Canterbury advised the congregation that they were now in a missionary
district of the American church, and their ecclesiastical authority was Bishop Aves. The American
Prayer book was substituted for the English one, and since then all the rectors have been priests in
the American church.118 It remains the principal English-speaking Anglican church in Mexico City
to this day. Bishop Aves designated it as his cathedral and it remained so until 1931.
When Aves became the Episcopal Churchs Bishop of Mexico in 1904, the Iglesia de Jess was
still struggling. The Episcopal Church did not consider itself officially responsible for the Mexican
church, only for English-speaking foreigners in Mexico. However, most of the support for the Iglesia
de Jess had come from wealthy American Episcopalians, and the Episcopal Church had consecrated
their one and only bishop. Moreover, occasional visiting American bishops, Elliott, Kendrick, and
Satterlee, had confirmed many of their laity and ordained several of their clergy. It was not hard to
understand how this neglected and persecuted little church would look to Bishop Aves for guidance.
However, many Mexican Episcopalians in the ensuing years felt that they were robbed of their
113
Christ Church Parish, Mexico City, 1871-1971 (p. 5).
114
115
ibid., p. 33.
116
ibid., p. 33.
117
Christ Church Parish, Mexico City, 1871-1971, p. 8.
118
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freedom in some way by the Episcopal Church in the United States.119
119
Page 33 of 56
XII. THE IGLESIA DE JESS BECOMES PART OF THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH

The Mexican church endured great hardship. In spite of poor leadership, poverty, and
constant persecution by the dominant Roman Catholics, even to the shedding of blood, the Iglesia
de Jess lasted for many years. It had a couple of steadying factors. There was the theological school,
the Dean Gray School, in Mexico City, and Mary Josephine Hookers orphanage, which developed
into a religious school for girls.
When Bishop Aves arrived in Mexico in 1904, the Iglesia de Jess asked to be received under
his jurisdiction. A concordat was signed and this body of faithful became an integral part of the
Episcopal Church, thus ending its existence as a separate denomination. As a result of the concordat
there were 34 Spanish-speaking and 27 English-speaking congregations, 16 Mexican and 12 American
clergy. Total baptized membership was 4,000, of whom 2,000 were communicants.
Bishop Aves established English-language churches in Pachuca, where Americans owned the
mines, and in Tampico, where they owned the oil wells. Many English-speaking missions were
established across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, where the British were building a railroad.120
The Isthmus of Tehuantepec is the shortest distance in Mexico between the Gulf of Mexico
and the Pacific Ocean, and the Tehuantepec Railway, built by the Englishman Sir Weetman Pearson
(1856-1927), who later became the First Viscount Cowdray, made it possible to unload cargo at the
Gulf port of Coatzacoalcos and transfer it by rail to the Pacific port of Salina Cruz. Lord Cowdray
and his investors made quite a bundle until the opening of the Panama Canal put them at a
commercial disadvantage and the British pulled out and the churches closed.121 The railroad is still
there, however.
Bishop Aves traveled widely throughout Mexico and made many friends. He organized
supplies of food to be brought from the United States in times of scarcity, and even accompanied
trains of burros into remote mountain areas to deliver the food. Wherever he went, he held services,
in spite of opposition. In Puebla, for example, the Roman Catholic opposition was so overpowering
that he would have been unable to celebrate the Eucharist, except for the intervention of the railway
station master, an Episcopalian, who allowed him the use of the ticket office for that purpose. There
were eighteen communicants.122
The Episcopal Churchs Missionary District of Mexico held its first convocation in April 1906
in Christ Church, Mexico City, and at this convocation all the congregations of the Iglesia de Jess
and their clergy were formally admitted to the Episcopal Church. The Constitution and Canons of
120
121
ibid., p. 34.
122
ibid., p. 37-39.
Page 34 of 56
the Diocese of West Texas, in a slightly modified form, were adopted.123 A Womens Auxiliary was
organized, the Dean Gray School of Theology, which had been closed for lack of funds, was reopened
as the Dean Gray Memorial School of St. Andrew, later called St. Andrews Seminary. A boys school
was established in Guadalajara with Efran Salinas as headmaster, assisted by another priest, Lorenzo
Saucedo.124
Under the episcopate of Bishop Aves, Mrs. Hookers Orphanage, was transformed into a girls
school, called the Hooker School. One supposes that the unfortunate connotation of the name was
not readily apparent to most Mexican families at the time. I sent my daughter to Hooker School
is an admission I would not care to make. An infirmary was added to the school in 1909. Also in 1909
a mission was built in Nopala, Hidalgo, called the House of Hope, which ministered to the blind, the
infirm, and the destitute. In time it became a hospital. Another mission, called the House of the Holy
Name, an urban mission, was built to help residents of the slums of Mexico City.
Mexico suffered a severe famine in the latter part of 1909 which continued into 1910. Bishop
Aves supervised the distribution of 1200 bushels of corn at the rate of about a pint per person per
day. The bishop hoped to reduce some of the chronic poverty of the people and to this end he
established a House of Industry at Nopala. He rented a large house for $5.00 U.S. a month and
furnished it with sewing machines. Then he bought a supply of cloth from an English mill and hired
teachers to train women to sew. These women, most of whom were widows with children, made
clothing that was then sold in the cities and earned a small wage.125
In spite of poverty and famine, new churches were built in some areas and some established
churches were enlarged. Some villages accepted the Episcopalians so cordially that the bells of the
Roman Catholic church were rung to signal the arrival of the Anglican bishop. In other areas
Episcopalians encountered hostility. In Guadalajara sisters had their house stoned, the produce from
their garden was boycotted, and they found it impossible to hire servants, because of Roman Catholic
opposition. When one of the sisters tried to complain to the Roman Catholic bishop, one of his
clergy delivered the ultimate insult: He called her a Protestant.126
Bishop Aves discovered that the Spanish translation of the American Book of Common Prayer
was a stumbling block to many Mexican Episcopalians and potential converts because of the name
Iglesia Protestante Episcopal on the title page. The bishop tried to have the word Protestante
removed from the book, but without success. Mexican Episcopalians favored a motto which read
Catlico pero no romano; evanglico pero no protestante.127
123
ibid., p. 40.
124
ibid., p. 40.
125
126
ibid., p. 58.
127
ibid., p. 58-59.
Page 35 of 56
Most of the English-speaking missions were closed after the beginning of the Revolution, since
the labor provisions of the Constitution of 1917 made it very difficult for foreigners to find work in
Mexico except in the large cities. Those that remained suffered at the hands of bandits and
revolutionaries. However, the Episcopal Church fared better than its Roman Catholic sister
communion, since it owned no land, and many Episcopal priests spoke in favor of the Revolution.
There are only a handful of English-speaking residents in Mexico today, compared with the vast
numbers during the Daz regime.
Page 36 of 56
XIII. THE MEXICAN REVOLUTION

The Mexican Revolution began in 1910, led by Francisco I. Madero (1873-1913). Daz was
overthrown and fled into exile in 1911. The nation was torn by seven years of violence in which ruler
after ruler succeeded to the presidency. The American ambassador Henry Lane Wilson (1857-1932)
developed a violent antipathy to Madero and advised President Taft to station troops along the border
between Mexico and the United States, but the President was unwilling to do so.128 American citizens
were advised to leave Mexico and thousands fled. Madero himself was assassinated in 1913. Others
were:
Jos Victoriano Huerta Mrquez (1845-1916). A close friend of the Ambassador Henry Lane
Wilson, he came to power by ordering the assassination of President Madero and his vice-president
Jos Mara Pino Surez. The United States never recognized the presidency of Huerta. He eventually
resigned and fled to the United States, where he died of cirrhosis of the liver while in custody on
conspiracy charges.
During the presidency of Huerta, the Reverend William W. Watson and Deaconess Frances
B. Affleck were unable to get home one Sunday from the Church of San Jos de Gracia because
Mexico City was under fire from opposing forces. They made their way to the home of a parishioner
who lived near the church and stayed there until the following Friday. They were eventually driven
home in an embassy car draped with the American flag. Deaconess Affleck stayed in Mexico one more
year and then was replaced by Deaconess Claudine Whittaker, who worked in a social service center
near the church. It was used by the American Red Cross during 1915 and 1916 as a food distribution
center.129
The Mexican Revolution did not prevent Episcopalians from indulging in their favorite
controversy: churchmanship. Father Watson was fond of ornaments and ceremonial. He wore
eucharistic vestments, put up images and crucifixes, and used holy water and incense. This created a
disturbance in some churches in Mexico City. One parishioner was healed of an illness after praying
before a picture in the Church of San Pedro, and afterward was allowed to attach a silver votive
offering to the picture in gratitude. Bishop Aves had to forbid the practice to avoid scandalizing the
more Protestant Mexican Episcopalians.130
The next leader was Emiliano Zapata (1880-1919). An Indian leader and revolutionary, he
controlled southern Mexico, and with Pancho Villa, captured Mexico City in 1913 and later shared
the presidency with him. He was assassinated by agents of Venustiano Carranza, a later President.
Zapata was succeeded by Pancho, or Francisco Villa (real name Doroteo Arango, 1877-1923).
128
129
130
Page 37 of 56
He was a bandit and revolutionary and controlled northwestern Mexico. He shared the presidency
with Zapata for five months in 1914, but was driven out in 1915 by Venustiano Carranza. He raided
Columbus, New Mexico, in 1916, and was pursued back into Mexico by American troops led by
General Pershing. He retired to private life in 1920, and was murdered in 1923. Today there is a
Pancho Villa State Park in Columbus and local citizens re-enact the raids a couple of times a year.
In 1914 President Woodrow Wilson placed an embargo on shipments of arms to Mexico and
on 21 April 1914 the U.S. Navy occupied the port of Veracruz to prevent delivery of arms by a
German vessel, the Ypiranga. Almost 200 Mexicans were killed defending their country in a battle with
American forces. The Mexican press published atrocity stories and inflamed the people against
Americans, and most Americans fled the country, never to return. Bishop and Mrs. Aves took a train
to the Pacific port of Manzanillo in order to board a ship for San Diego. The train was stoned by
local citizens when the train stopped in Zacuelo. Somehow they knew there were Americans on board.
Perhaps every train to Manzanillo carried some Americans. Once the ship was boarded, it was not
allowed to leave. The port authority refused to allow provisions of food and water, or to permit the
departure of the ship with its 260 refugees for the six-day voyage to San Diego. Bishop Aves and his
family returned to Guadalajara, and stayed there during a large part of the civil war. The bishop
watched a number of battles from the upper floor of the house, two miles west of the city, where
armies of Villa and Carranza moved in and out several times.131
On the night of 17 December 1914, Bishop Avess home was invaded by bandits, who wore
breechclouts and blankets and appeared to be Yaqui Indians. They threatened to take the bishop and
his son for a ransom of $10,000 (pesos), but the bishop assured them that neither he nor his church
could raise such a sum of money. The Indians, if that is what they were, then ransacked the house.
Mary Aves, the bishops daughter, led the bandit captain from room to room, stalling for time, and
drawing attention away from a little room where a safe was located.
Come in here, Capitn. This is my room. Do you not think it is a pretty room, Capitn? Here is where
I keep my little jewelry. Yes, that watch is gold. Take it for your little girl. You have a little girl, Capitn?
No, that bracelet is not pure gold, but take it. Your wife might like it.
Mary Aves stalled for most of an hour in this manner, until the bandits lookout signaled the
approach of the authorities and they fled. The only casualty of the evening was one of the bandits,
who shot himself in the leg by accident.132
Venustiano Carranza (1859-1920) was next. He had been Governor of Coahuila, the state
which borders Texas across from Eagle Pass, which explains why there is a statue of him in the town
square of Piedras Negras. He supported Zapata in the Revolution, but later had him assassinated in
order to claim the presidency. He was driven out by Obregn and Calles, and in May of 1920 he was
ambushed and murdered.
131
ibid., p. 63.
132
ibid., p. 64.
Page 38 of 56
The story is told that one day in 1917 an Episcopal parochial school in Maravillas, Hidalgo,
received an important visitor. He was accompanied by a troop of cavalry. The visitor greeted the
teacher, then addressed the children on the importance of education. Then he picked up a book from
the teachers desk which bore the title Oracin Comn. What is this? he asked. The teacher
explained that the school was a mission of the Episcopal Church and the book contains the churchs
services and catechism. The visitor said This is good. He gave to each child a small coin, but to one
orphan child, adopted by the teacher, he gave a ten-peso gold piece. Then he went on his way. It was
General Carranza on his way to Mexico City to preside at the National Congress for the framing of
the 1917 Constitution.133
The next president was lvaro Obregn Salido (1880-1928). He lost an arm in the Battle of
Celaya in 1915 fighting for Carranza and against Villa. He became President in 1920 and was harsh
in his dealings with the Cristeros. More about the Cristeros later. He signed the unpopular Treaties
of Bucareli, which guaranteed the interests of United States citizens living in Mexico even when they
were in conflict with the aims of the Revolution. Unlike Calvin Coolidge, he chose to run again in
1928, but was assassinated by a religious fanatic, Jos de Len Toral (1900-1929).
133
Creighton, op. cit., p. 53-54.
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XIV. THE CONSTITUTION OF 1917

The Constitution that is still in effect today was ratified in 1917 under Carranza, and in 1920
under Obregn order was restored. The new constitution provided for land reform by breaking up
large estates owned by foreigners and the Roman Catholic Church and restoring the communal farms,
called ejidos, which had existed since the time of the Aztecs. It provided for education by establishing
rural schools, and it also deprived foreigners of the right to own land or mineral resources in Mexico.
It also established social reform by embodying in the constitution itself a system of social security and
labor standards.
The Constitution of 1917 has much to say about religion in Mexico. It could be argued that
it treated religion as an antirevolutionary reactionary force. Article 24 states:
Every man is free to profess the religious belief he finds most agreeable and to practice the ceremonies,
devotions, or acts of his respective sect, as long as they do not constitute a crime or offense punishable
by law. Congress may not decree laws which establish or prohibit any religion. Religious acts of public
worship are normally held in houses of worship. Those which are held outside of these will be subject
to regulatory law.134
Article 130 goes on to establish even more severe restrictions:

The historic principle of the separation of the State and churches directs the standards contained in the
current article. Churches and other religious bodies (agrupaciones) are subject to law.
It pertains exclusively to the Congress of the Union to legislate in the matter of public worship or of
churches and religious bodies. The respective regulatory law, which is to be for the purpose of public
order, will develop and finalize the following provisions:
a.) Churches and religious bodies will have legal standing as religious associations once they obtain their
appropriate registration. The law will regulate said associations and determine the conditions and
requirements for the constitutional registration of the same.
b.) The authorities will not intervene in the internal life of religious associations.
c.) Mexicans may exercise ministry in any sect. Mexicans as well as foreigners must, in order to do so,
satisfy the requirements that the law sets forth.
d.) In terms of the regulatory law, ministers of sects may not hold public office. As citizens they shall
have the right to vote, but not to be voted for. Those who have ceased to be ministers of sects in the
expectation and in the form established by law may be voted for.
e.) Ministers may not form associations nor carry out campaigns in favor of or in opposition to a
candidate, a party, or any political organization whatever. Neither may they do so in a public meeting,
in acts of worship or of religious instruction, nor in publications of religious teaching, nor in
publications of a religious nature, oppose the laws of the nation or its institutions, nor disrespect in any
way patriotic symbols.
134
Mexico. Constitucin poltica (1917). Constitucin poltica de los Estados Unidos Mexicanos, (2013 printing)
p. 53, my translation. It does indeed use the word hombre.
Page 40 of 56
It remains strictly prohibited the formation of any kind of political group whose title may have some
word or any indication that connects it with any religious confession. Political meetings may not take
place in houses of worship.
The simple promise to tell the truth and to fulfil the obligations of contracts, subjects the one who so
promises, in case of failure to do so, to the penalties which the law establishes for this purpose.
Ministers of sects, their ascendents, descendants, siblings, and spouses, as well as the religious
associations to which they belong, will be incapable of inheriting by will, from persons whom these
same ministers have directed or aided spiritually and do not have relatives within the fourth degree.
Acts of marriage of persons are the exclusive competence of the administrative authorities in terms
which the law shall establish, and they shall have the validity and strength which the same shall attribute
to them.
Authorities of the Federal Government, of the States, and of the Counties (municipios) shall have in
this matter the faculties and responsibilities that the law determines.
The enabling legislation following this article gave the state legislatures the right to determine
the maximum number of ministers of religious creeds according to their appraisal of the needs of
each locality.135
Article 27 says that churches may not own property or hold mortgages, and that temples of
public worship are to be the property of the nation. The way this works is that when a congregation
builds a church, assuming they can get permission to do so, they immediately deed it over to the state
government, which is then the legal owner. In other sections of the Constitution of 1917 include such
provisions as: monastic vows are illegal; the government may intervene in religious affairs; clergy and
monastics may not wear clerical habits or vestments on the street or in public places.
This provision made it impossible to follow the traditional method of planting new churches
by beginning with a small group in a private house. Since worship can only take place in a church,
a new congregation must first build a church before they can gather. The costly and uncertain
experiment of a new church made it almost impossible to start a new church anywhere except where
the church already owned property.
Bishop Aves expected problems for the Episcopal Church under the new Constitution and
wrote to New York for instructions on how to deal with property issues. There was also the issue of
foreign clergy. Bishop Aves expected that foreign clergy would be allowed to stay in Mexico to
minister to their own nationals, and this did eventually come to pass. Bishop Aves flew the U.S. flag
over his home at all times, apparently under the impression that it was covered by the principle of
extraterritoriality, and when threatened, would reply, I shall inform the State Department.136
Fortunately for him, no serious confrontation occurred, because extraterritoriality would not have
applied to the home of a private citizen, even a bishop.
135
Bechtel, op. cit, p. 216-218.
136
ibid., p. 67.
Page 41 of 56
Knowing that he could not continue to minister to Mexican citizens, Bishop Aves trained as
many Mexican clergymen as he could in the conducting of services and in preaching in English as
well as Spanish. He was notified in January 1918 that he could not minister in Mexico at all, not even
to the sick and dying. He reported this to the American Ambassador and the State Department.137
In 1919 Archdeacon Arthur H. Mellen, unable to continue his work under the new laws,
resigned to become the agent of the American Bible Society and was replaced by the Reverend Samuel
Salinas. Archdeacon Salinas, a native of Mexico, took over visitation of the churches, and by 1920 all
the missions had been visited for the first time since the Revolution began in 1910.138
English-speaking churches were reopened in areas where there were British and American
residents. Christ Church in Mexico City had never closed, but continued holding services all during
the Revolution. In 1922 its Vestry asked Bishop Aves to designate it the Cathedral for the Missionary
District of Mexico, and he did so.139
A church was built in Guadalajara which served both English- and Spanish-speaking residents
and were ministered to by a single Mexican priest. Services were resumed in Monterey, using a
Methodist church building. In 1919 a full-time priest began working in Tampico and a new mission
began in Pachuca.140
No immediate effort was made to enforce the provisions of the 1917 Constitution, but such
a state of uncertainty existed that religion was at a disadvantage. In 1926 a pastoral letter signed by
all the bishops and archbishops of the Roman Catholic Church in Mexico protested against
transgressions of religious liberty and the rights of the Church, and set forth twenty-four objections
to the Constitution.141
An organization of Roman Catholic laymen known as the National league of Defense of
Religious Liberty began a campaign to paralyze the life of the nation by boycotting all except
necessities. In response to the pastoral letter, or the boycott, or both, President Plutarco Elas Calles
(1877-1945, President 1924-1928) retaliated by calling for enforcement of the antireligious provisions
of the Constitution, in so far as he was able to do so, but the Congress had not yet enacted the
enabling legislation, and was not in session at the time. Nevertheless, he made it clear that he would
expect the Congress to do so upon their return. He also required the state governments to begin
registering priests.
137
ibid., p. 67-68.
138
ibid., p. 69. Creighton, op. cit., p. 54 says Mellen retired rather than resigned.
139
Christ Church Parish, Mexico City, 1871-1971, p. 13.
140
Bechtel, op. cit., p. 71-72.
141
Gruening, op. cit., p. 275 et seq.
Page 42 of 56
Certain of the action to be taken by the next Congress, the Roman Catholic Church placed
Mexico under an interdict, and forbade services of any kind to be held by its priests. In 1926 the
inevitable happened and Congress passed the necessary enabling legislation to enforce the antireligious
provisions of Article 130. However, foreign clergy were permitted to remain in Mexico to minister
to the needs of their own nationals.142
On 31 July 1926, Roman Catholic priests left their churches and began a strike which was to
last three years. The churches were left open and the Indians continued burning candles and
celebrating fiestas and dances in honor of their local saints. It was the Creoles who rallied to the
defense of the clergy. Many of the larger houses had secret rooms in which priests were hidden to
prevent their capture by the authorities. A rebel organization known as the Cristeros, whose slogan
was Cristo Rey (Christ the King), began to raid and burn government buildings and schools and
commit acts of banditry.143
American businessmen with Mexican holdings began to urge the United States government
to intervene, and this might have taken place except for the fact that two of the noisiest
interventionists, Albert B. Fall (1861-1944) and Edward L. Doheny (1856-1935), were involved in the
oil scandals of the Harding administration known as Teapot Dome, and were thus discredited.144 A
change of ambassadors in Mexico City brought about a renewed friendship between the two countries.
The new ambassador, Dwight Morrow (1873-1931), who took office in 1927, is credited with
negotiating the peace between the Cristeros and the government. (Dwight Morrows daughter Anne
married the aviator Charles Lindbergh, and in later years became a popular author. This has nothing
to do with Mexico, but I couldnt resist throwing it in.)
In June of 1929 Emilio Portes Gil (1891-1978) became President and peace was made between
Church and State, the Cristeros were pacified, and church services resumed. Portes Gil, unlike many
of his predecessors, was neither assassinated nor exiled. He later served as ambassador to India, and
died peacefully in Mexico City at an advanced age.
But all was not well between Church and State. During the 1930s, the state legislatures, using
the power given them in Article 130 of the Constitution, began to limit the number of priests. The
average came to one priest per 80,000 lay persons. The clergy could legitimately complain of
persecution.145
Over the ensuing years both the government and the Church retreated from extreme positions,
but it was not until 1958 that Christianity had become so open in Mexico that a bishop could offer
a public prayer for a newly elected President. That President was Adolfo Lpez Mateos (1910-1969,
142
143
Simpson, op. cit., p. 311-312.
144
Brenner, Anita. The Wind that Swept Mexico, 1971, p. 83.
145
Page 43 of 56
President 1958-1964), who steered a middle course through the shock waves of the Cuban revolution,
distributed free textbooks to millions of Mexican school children, and regained the Chamizal, a
disputed territory which had become part of the city of El Paso, Texas.
Page 44 of 56
XV. BISHOP FRANK WHITTINGTON CREIGHTON

In 1923, following an attack of typhoid fever, Bishop Aves announced his resignation. He was
seventy years old. At the time there were 26 Spanish-speaking congregations with 1,202 communicants,
under the care of 12 priests and 2 deacons, there were 2 boarding schools and 8 day schools, and there
were 5 English-speaking congregations with 570 communicants and 3 priests.146
It was not until 1925 that Bishop Aves was replaced by Frank Whittington Creighton (18791948), rector of St. Anns Church, Brooklyn, New York. It took the Episcopal Church two years to
decide if they even wanted another bishop in Mexico. During the interim, some episcopal oversight
was provided by Bishop Frederick Bingham Howden (1914-1940) of New Mexico, Bishop William
Theodotus Capers (1867-1943) of West Texas, and Bishop Hiram Richard Hulse (1868-1938) of Cuba,
with the Reverend William Watson in Mexico City as liaison officer. Watson had been in Mexico
since 1907, had served churches in Puebla and Oaxaca, was headmaster of St. Andrews School and
priest-in-charge of Christ Church, Guadalajara. From 1914 to 1921 he was missionary and chaplain
at Guantnamo, Cuba. In 1921 he returned to Mexico and was appointed general missionary by
Bishop Aves. Creighton eventually appointed Watson archdeacon.147
In the interim between Bishop Aves and Bishop Creighton, a schismatic sect appeared in
Mexico, called the Mexican Orthodox Catholic Apostolic Church. Watson and some other Episcopal
leaders feared that this sect would lead people away from the Episcopal Church, as indeed it was doing
from the Roman Catholic Church, and for a brief time it appeared to be succeeding. The Reverend
Arthur R. Gray wrote to the House of Bishops lamenting the Episcopal Churchs failure to provide
competent leadership in Mexico for many years and thereby losing opportunities to build a strong
church in Mexico and Latin America.148
Like his predecessor Bishop Aves, Creighton was consecrated in the United States and came
to Mexico already a bishop. The consecration took place at Creightons parish of St. Ann in Brooklyn,
and the consecrators were the Presiding Bishop, John Gardner Murray (1857-1929), Richard Henry
Nelson (1859-1931), Bishop of Albany, and Thomas J. Garland (1866-1931), Bishop Suffragan of
Pennsylvania. Creighton arrived in Mexico City in February of 1926 to begin his work and found the
atmosphere charged with tension, due to Roman Catholic opposition to the governments program.
The Mexican government could not officially recognize Creightons presence in Mexico, but
unofficially word was sent to him that he should refrain from aggressive action and remain
inconspicuous. The British and American communities gave him a hearty welcome and pleaded for
immediate visitations,149
146
ibid., p. 72-73.
147
ibid., p. 73.
148
ibid., p. 78 et seq.
149
ibid., p. 95-96.
Page 45 of 56
Creighton met with many government officials to plan how to go about his work. In April
1926 a convocation was held in which Creighton announced his intention not to interfere with the
program of the Mexican government, but to conduct the church within the provisions of the law.
One day before the convocation, an event took place which might have claimed the lives of
all the clergy from the state of Jalisco, had they not started a day ahead of time. A Guadalajara-Mexico
City train was attacked by Cristeros, 400 men shouting Viva Cristo Rey! (Long live Christ the
King!). All passengers and crew were killed. The government charged that the attack was directed by
three Roman Catholic priests. Various witnesses testified that the priests were actively directing the
assaults.150 The following day the government ordered the expulsion of all Roman Catholic bishops
and archbishops. Shortly afterwards the Dean of Christ Church Cathedral was ordered to desist from
conducting services until he registered with the police. At the same time the Papal Legate was deported
for illegal entry. The following month all Episcopal clergy were registered and arrangements were
made to allow foreign clergy to remain in the country to minister to their own nationals. Where clergy
were lacking, lay readers conducted services, and all Episcopal churches remained open.
The Cristeros, especially in Jalisco, resented the presence of Episcopalians. On 7 May 1926,
a group of assassins, allegedly hired by a local Roman Catholic priest, along with some other fanatics,
attacked and killed Jos Cruz Gmez, an Episcopalian, in the village of Tlajomulco, near Guadalajara.
They also made an attempt on the life of the Episcopal priest, the Reverend Josu Daz, and the
towns Episcopalians had to flee.151 On 2 August of the same year the civil authorities of Tlajomulco
attempted to enter the Roman Catholic church but found that it had been locked by the priest, who
refused to surrender the keys. A riot ensued, and local citizens attacked the towns Episcopalians
because the townspeople believed that Episcopalians were conspiring with the government to lead the
country into Protestantism. One Episcopalian, Cruz Gmez, was killed by the rioters as he was
returning home from religious instruction at the home of the Episcopal priest. A group of men
waited for him in the street and killed him as he was climbing over the wall of his house. The priest
and his family were besieged in their home for three days and were saved only by the arrival of federal
troops. The Episcopal congregation was scattered and many parishioners fled into the mountains. The
Episcopal Church tried in later years to reestablish a congregation in Tlajomulco, but it was years
before it met with any success.152 There is a congregation there today, however, called San Esteban
Mrtir.
Jalisco was the center of Cristero activity, and Roman Catholics often took out their
frustrations on Episcopalians. St. Andrews School at Zapopn had difficulty in hiring staff, and
parents took their children out of the school for fear of attacks. The priest in San Sebastin, the
Reverend Jos N. Robredo, barely escaped with his life when his church was attacked on 12 September
1926. There was another attack on Christmas Day of the same year. At San Martn de Flores, the
150
151
152
ibid., p. 283.
Page 46 of 56
Episcopalians attempted to use a long-abandoned Roman Catholic church for Misa de Gallo, the
Midnight Mass of Christmas, but were denied access. Later the church was turned over to the
Episcopalians by the government, and they kept it until 1941, when Roman Catholics persuaded the
government to return it to them.153
In December 1926 Congress gave foreign clergy the right to minister to their own nationals
in Mexico for a period of six years. Bishop Creighton was the first foreign cleric to register. This
registration gave him the right to minister to foreigners but not to Mexicans, and there were large
numbers of candidates for confirmation, With the connivance of a government official, the
confirmation service took place on Trinity Sunday in Spanish in Christ Church Cathedral, which the
government regarded officially as an English-language church, and did not keep watch on. Writing
in 1936, Creighton reported that he had held several confirmations and ordinations there at various
times.154
During Bishop Creightons first year in Mexico, the Church was severely handicapped by the
lack of Mexican priests. On 6 March 1927 he ordained to the diaconate five Mexican graduates of St.
Andrews Seminary who had waited since Bishop Avess time to be ordained. They were Samuel
Cspedes, Jos Martnez, Jos Nicols Robredo, Samuel Ramrez, and Jos Filigonio Gmez. The
Reverend Efran Salinas, headmaster of the school in Guadalajara, preached the sermon. They were
soon advanced to the priesthood. This ordination was the culmination of a years trial of a definite
policy laid down at the beginning. Bishop Creighton began meeting with Mexican congregations to
encourage them to take a more active role in the leadership of the Church. His policy was clearly to
turn the leadership of the Church from the Americans to the Mexican people themselves. This policy
reached the attention of the government, and soon Creighton was given official recognition.155
Bishop Creighton spent much time with the Mexican people and encouraged congregations
to witness to their neighbors and improve their properties. The church at Cuernavaca was entirely
rebuilt and th rectory renovated. New churches were consecrated at Chapantango, Santiago Loma, and
San Sebastin. Bells were blessed and hung before crowds at missions in Nopala, Encinillas, Humin,
and Santiago Loma. A new rectory was built in Guadalajara. New preaching stations were planted at
San Martn de las Flores, Zoquiopn, and San Sebastianito. In Tampico a belfry and a guild room
were added.156
In 1930 Creighton became Executive Secretary of the Department of Domestic Missions and
moved to New York City, while still retaining his position as Bishop of Mexico. Before leaving
Mexico, he reorganized the Missionary District for more effective supervision by a non-resident
153
Mees, Jane K. Our Overseas Missions : Mexico, 1963, p. 45. (Unpublished office memorandum, National
Council of the Episcopal Church), cited in Bechtel, op. cit., p. 101.
154
155
Bechtel, op. cit, p. 98.
156
Page 47 of 56
bishop. Creighton retained direct oversight of the English-language congregations, traveling to Mexico
as needed. The Reverend William Watson was appointed Archdeacon of the Distrito Federal and
adjacent areas, the Reverend Samuel Salinas, who had been Archdeacon under Bishop Aves, was
appointed for the states of Hidalgo and Mexico, and the Reverend Efran Salinas, headmaster at St.
Andrews School, was appointed Archdeacon of Jalisco.
After his return to New York, Bishop Creighton wrote an extensive account of the work of
the schools and social agencies, as well as the individual congregations of the Episcopal Church in
Mexico, which is worth the effort to find it on the Internet, since the book version is long out of
print.157
157
http://anglicanhistory.org/mx/creighton1936/02.html
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XVI. BISHOP EFRAN SALINAS Y VELASCO: FIRST ANGLICAN BISHOP OF MEXICAN

NATIONALITY
The goal of the Episcopal Church was to have a Mexican bishop in residence. From the point
of view of the government, however, it was more than an ideal, it was a legal requirement. Bishop
Creightons episcopate in Mexico was permitted only by a transitory law. In 1931, Efran Salinas
(1886-1968) was elected Suffragan Bishop. He was 45 years old, and the youngest Anglican priest in
Mexico at the time. He was consecrated at St. Johns Cathedral in Denver, Colorado. The consecrators
were the Presiding Bishop James De Wolf Perry (18711947), Thomas Frank Gailor (18561935),
Bishop of Tennessee, and Arthur Selden Lloyd (1857-1936), Bishop Suffragan of New York. When
Salinas became bishop he took the compound surname Salinas y Velasco to honor his mother. Bishop
Salinas y Velasco was installed on October 25, 1931, in the Church of San Jos de Gracia. The service
was all in Spanish. The congregation filled the church and overflowed into the street. Many
government officials attended. A procession of Spanish- and English-speaking clergy was led by a
crucifer and a banner of Mexico. The students of Hooker School supplied the music. Bishop
Creighton escorted Bishop Salinas y Velasco to the episcopal stall and all the clergy knelt to receive
his blessing.158
In 1934 Creighton resigned, and since a suffragan bishop does not succeed automatically, the
General Convention of 1934, meeting in Atlantic City, elected Efran Salinas y Velasco Bishop of
Mexico, the first Anglican bishop of Mexican nationality. He was also the first graduate of St.
Andrews Seminary to become bishop. In addition, he finished his education at Nashotah House, the
Anglo-Catholic seminary in Wisconsin. This seminary later conferred on him the degree of Doctor
of Divinity. The bishops father, Pantalen Salinas, a merchant of Cuernavaca, was an early convert
to the Iglesia de Jess, and served as a lay reader in the Cuernavaca congregation, and for that reason
suffered ostracism, the loss of his business, and imprisonment. The Bishops mother, Braulia Velasco,
had been a Roman Catholic nun until the suppression of monastic orders in Mexico, and was initially
opposed to her husbands faith, but later embraced it and became an enthusiastic supporter. Three
of their sons, Samuel, Rubn, and Efran, became priests in the Episcopal Church.159
Bishop Salinas y Velasco won friends in the government by his repeated urging of compliance
with the law and he was soon recognized as a bishop by the government. Winning friends in the
government was not easy to do. During this period there was much opposition to the Church in some
states and none at all in others. In 1932 the Distrito Federal limited the number of clergy for each
religious body at 25. Michoacn refused to recognize hierarchies and refused to allow bishops to
register at all. Morelos imposed a heavy tax on registrants. The State of Mexico limited the number
of clergy for each religious body to two per municipio.160 A municipio is the equivalent of a county
in the United States.
158
ibid., p. 77.
159
Mees, op. cit., p. 21.
160
Page 49 of 56
Bishop Salinas y Velasco was active in Christian education and began the first training
program for Sunday school teachers in Mexico and authorized the first Spanish-language Sunday
school curriculum. Another of his accomplishments was the transferring of cathedral status from
Christ Church, the English-language church in Mexico City, to San Jos de Gracia, the Spanishspeaking church and the original meeting place of the Iglesia de Jess.161
In 1935 a law was passed making it illegal for church-related schools to be supported by funds
from outside Mexico. Thereafter, money raised in the United States was used only to provide housing
for teachers. Americans moved more and more into the background and the Church continued to
grow and be directed more and more by Mexicans. More congregations were started, more churches
were built, and more priests were ordained. An ambitious building program was made necessary in
part by a provision of the Constitution which allows religious instruction in private homes, but
requires that religious services take place in temples under the watchful eye of the authorities.
The Mexican Episcopal Church was much influenced by the agrarian movement during its
early period. Residents of the ejidos, the collective farming communities, would often approach
Bishop Salinas and ask for a priest to be sent to minister to them, and when it was possible with his
small staff of clergy, he would comply. One village particularly wanted an Episcopal priest assigned
to them so that they could hang their Roman Catholic pastor.162
In 1937 a small hymnal was published for the Mexican Church, and was used until 1962,
when it was replaced by El Himnario 1961.163
Relations between Church and State changed substantially in the 1930s and 1940s, due to
relaxation of previously held positions on both sides. In Firmissimam constantiam, an Apostolic
Letter dated 28 March 1937, Pope Pius XI (Ambrogio Damiano Achille Ratti, 1857-1939, Pope 19221939) set forth a new policy for the Roman Catholic Church in Mexico. It contained three main
points: (1) That the laity, not the clergy, must work for change using the normal channels of the
political system; (2) that action must be flexible and that ends sought for must be relative, not
absolute; (3) the Church must take an active interest in alleviating social problems so that it could not
be accused of being a reactionary force.164
In 1940 the Roman Catholic Church expressed its complete support for a government
program of nationalizing the petroleum industry which expropriated foreign oil companies. This
program had begun in 1938.165
161
ibid., p. 109-110.
162
Interview with Bishop Salinas, cited in Bechtel, op. cit., p. 114.
163
164
Yinger, J. Milton. Religion in the Struggle for Power : A Study in the Sociology of Religion, 1948, p. 46.
165
Bechtel, op. cit., p. 122a.
Page 50 of 56
On the governments side, President Manuel vila Camacho (1897-1955, served as President
1940-1946) stated that while public education should be kept apart from all religious doctrines ... it
cannot be converted into an anti-religious system. In 1952, Adolfo Ruiz Cortines (1890-1973,
President 1952-1958), who was running for President and was subsequently elected, included in his
platform the statement that the religion of the people is sacred.166
In the 1930s, while hostility between Church and State softened, that between Roman Catholic
and non-Roman Catholic did not. Pamphlets were written and distributed in tract racks of Roman
Catholic churches, including the National Cathedral, which contained numerous factual errors about
the beliefs and practices of Protestant denominations. There was an underlying attitude that to be a
good Mexican, one must be a practicing Roman Catholic and a devotee of the Virgin of Guadalupe.167
Bishop Salinas was one of the founding members of a group called Committee for the Defense
of the Evangelical People. It was composed of members of all non-Roman Catholic denominations,
and at its opening service Bishop Salinas celebrated the Eucharist and gave Holy Communion to all
persons present.168
Meanwhile, at the General Convention of 1940 the Episcopal Church issued some missionary
policies which were applicable to areas such as Mexico. One policy stated: Roman Catholics whose
religious allegiance is fixed are not proper subjects for evangelization. Another principle stated:
Since it is our policy to assist in establishing autonomous national churches, we must give to these
churches, during their process of growth, increasing responsibility and freedom.169
After World War II conditions in the Mexican Church improved, the number of
congregations increased, and more candidates for the priesthood came forward. But it was harder to
get permission for American clergy to enter the country to minister to English-speaking congregations.
In 1948 the Episcopal Church was notified that the Cathedral of San Jos de Gracia would be
confiscated. Protests were held in which all of the Evangelical denominations participated. This was
the first time in which all denominations participated in a single event. The government order was
revoked, which also indicated that non-Roman Catholics were becoming a political force in Mexico.170
More congregations were established in the 1950s, and in 1955 Bishop Salinas reported that
the Missionary District had received more money than what was budgeted, due to the fact that 80%
166
Pfeiffer, Leo, Church, State, and Freedom, 1953, p. 40.
167
168
ibid., p. 124.
169
Journal of the Proceedings of the Bishops, Clergy, and Laity of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United
States of America, Assembled in a General Convention, 1940, appendix XXXVI, October 8-19, 1940, p. 643.
170
Page 51 of 56
of the congregations had paid their quotas in full or better.171
171
ibid., p. 132.
Page 52 of 56
XVII. BISHOP JOS GUADALUPE SAUCEDO: FIRST ANGLICAN BISHOP CONSECRATED

ON MEXICAN SOIL
Bishop Salinas reached the compulsory retirement age of 72 in 1956, and in 1957 he offered
his resignation to the House of Bishops. The House then elected Jos Guadalupe Saucedo (1924-1998)
to succeed him. Bishop Salinas left the Mexican Church with one self-supporting parish, Christ
Church, Mexico City. In addition there were 37 organized missions, 22 preaching stations, 3800
baptized members, including 2690 communicants among Mexican citizens, 22 Mexican priests, 2
deacons, and 3 lay readers. Among English-speaking foreigners there were 2 priests and 1500 lay
members.
On January 14, 1958, Jos Guadalupe Saucedo was consecrated fourth Bishop of Mexico in
the Cathedral of San Jos de Gracia, the first Anglican bishop to be consecrated on Mexican soil. The
consecrators were the Presiding Bishop Henry Knox Sherrill (18901980), Bishop Saucedos
predecessor Bishop Salinas y Velasco, and Everett Holland Jones (1902-1995), Bishop of West Texas.
Bishop Saucedos uncle, Lorenzo Saucedo,172 also a priest, taught at the boys school in Guadalajara
and assisted in the State of Jalisco. And his brother Melchor (1920- ) later became suffragan bishop
in 1964 and then Bishop of Western Mexico in 1973 when the diocese was divided. Melchor Saucedo
is not unknown here in San Antonio. At one time he served as vicar of Santa Fe Episcopal Church
in Columbia Heights.173
Jos Guadalupe Saucedos consecration marked a new beginning in the life of the Mexican
Church. At this point my story is ended, because what happens after that, going from Missionary
District to Diocese, to three dioceses, to five dioceses, to an independent province in the Anglican
Communion known as the Iglesia Anglicana de Mxico, is a proper subject for another paper, which
I leave to someone else to write.
172
Conversation with the Rev. Susan Saucedo Sica (daughter of Melchor Saucedo), 13 June 2013: Some printed
sources indicate that Lorenzo Saucedo was the father of Melchor and Jos Guadalupe Saucedo, but he was the uncle. Their
father was Evaristo.
173
Founding of the Churches of the Episcopal Diocese of West Texas, 2010, p. 73.
Page 53 of 56
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Aguas, Manuel.
Contestacin que el presbtero Don Manuel Aguas da a la excomunin que en su contra ha
fulminado el Seor Obispo Don Antonio Pelagio de Labastida, 1871.Aguas, Manuel.
Contestacin que el presbtero Don Manuel Aguas da a la excomunin que en su contra ha
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The Anglican Church in Mexico: From Its Origins To 1958

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THE ANGLICAN CHURCH IN MEXICO :

FROM ITS ORIGINS TO 1958

I. CHRISTIANITY COMES TO MEXICO

Gonzlez Blackaller, C. Sntesis de historia de Mxico, 1971. p. 219.

Simpson, Lesley Byrd. Many Mexicos, 1966, p. 43-44.

Gruening, Ernest. Mexico and its heritage, 1934, p. 229.

Churraca Pelez, Agustn. Historia de la Iglesia en Mxico : sntesis, 2005, p. 46.

Gonzlez Blackaller, op. cit., p. 219.

Simpson, op. cit., p. 187.

Gruening, op. cit., p. 179-180.

II. MEXICAN INDEPENDENCE

Churraca Pelez, op. cit., p. 126.

Gruening, op. cit., p. 190.

Tucker, op. cit., p. 27.

Nueces River. The New Handbook of Texas, 1996.

IV. JUREZ AND REFORM

Gruening, op. cit., p. 204.

Simpson, op. cit., p. 275-276.

Churraca Pelez, op. cit., p. 150.

Churraca Pelez, op. cit., p. 159.

Bastian, op. cit., p. 27.

Baldwin, op. cit., p. 14.

Bastian, op. cit., p. 27.

V. THE CONSTITUTIONALIST FATHERS

Baldwin, op. cit., p. 15.

Bastian, op. cit., p. 33.

Simpson, op. cit., p. 281.

VI. FRENCH INTERVENTION IN MEXICO

Churraca Pelez, op. cit., p. 163.

Bastian, op. cit., p. 36.

Simpson, op. cit., p. 284.

VII. THE IGLESIA DE JESS

Baldwin, op. cit., p. 15.

McConnell, S.D. History of the American Episcopal Church, 1897, p. 414.

VIII. BISHOP HENRY C. RILEY AND FATHER MANUEL AGUAS

Brand, op. cit., v. 2, p. 251-252.

Bechtel, op. cit., p. 19.

Lee, Alfred. The reformation in Mexico, 187-?, p. 8.

Brand, op. cit, v. 2, p. 252.

Brand, op. cit., v. 2, p. 251.

Bechtel, op. cit., p. 20.

Bechtel, op. cit., p. 21.

ibid, p. 22, based on an interview of Lorenzo J. Saucedo.

Gray, A.Z. Mexico as it is, 1878, p. 127.

Rankin, op. cit., p. 153.

Creighton, F.W. Mexico : a handbook on the missions of the Episcopal church, p. 4.

A reference to Dwight Lyman Moody, 18371899, an American evangelist and publisher.

Baldwin, op. cit., p. 17.

Hereafter referred to as the Mexican Commission.

Brand, op. cit., v. 2, p. 258.

McConnell, op cit., p. 417.

Cathedral Register, 1875.

Brand, op. cit., v. 2, p. 258.

McConnell, op cit., p. 418.

Bastian, op. cit., p. 39.

Harrison, H. op. cit., p. 643-644.

Lee, op. cit., p. 19.

McConnell, op cit., p. 414-417.

Harrison, H. op. cit., p. 623.

Brand, op. cit., v. 2, p. 269.

Harrison, op. cit., p. 650.

Johnson, Howard A. Global Odyssey. p. 358.

Baldwin, op. cit., p. 16.