Una conciliazione ufficiosa? Le relazioni tra la Santa Sede e il Messico negli anni di Pio XII

The essay analyses the relations between the Holy See and Mexico during the pontificate of Pius XII, starting from the unpublished documentation preserved in the Historical Archive of the Section for Relations with States of the Secretariat of State of the Holy See, and concentrating on the years from the election of Eugenio Pacelli to the papal throne to the beginning of the six-year presidential term of Adolfo Ruiz Cortines (1952-1958). Two main trends emerge from the examination of the Vatican papers: on the one hand, there is the undoubted consolidation of the fragile modus vivendi inaugurated by President Lázaro Cárdenas del Río at the end of the 1930’s – based on the non-application of the anticlerical provisions of the Constitution of Querétaro (1917) – which under the successive presidencies of Manuel Ávila Camacho (1940-1946) and Miguel Alemán Valdés (1946-1952) would see the Apostolic Delegation in Mexico entertain a constant and profitable dialogue with the supreme authority of the State. On the other hand, starting from the passage from the Ávila Camacho presidency to the Alemán Valdés presidency, the Vatican Secretariat of State will repeatedly express its growing dissatisfaction with a legislative framework that is effectively unchanged compared to the years of open religious persecution, together with its concern for the acquiescence of relevant sectors of Mexican Catholicism towards a distancing of the Church from the political and legislative dimension that was now taken for granted. A key role in these processes was played by the Archbishop of Mexico Luis María Martínez y Rodríguez (from 1937 to 1948 in charge of affairs of the Apostolic Delegation) and by Mgr. Guglielmo Piani (appointed Apostolic Visitor in 1948 and Apostolic Delegate to Mexico in 1951), whose work received contrasting evaluations in the Vatican.