Acknowledgments

This book has its origins in a course on the history of the Catholic Church in Latin America, which I had the pleasure and honor to teach first at the Regional Seminary of Saint Vincent de Paul in Boynton Beach, Flor- ida. After that I taught the course in the Franciscan School of Theology of the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California. Subsequently, I would teach significant sections of the course as part of classes on Latin Ameri- can history at the University of Montana and the University of Minnesota– Morris. I would like to thank the administrations of those fine institutions for providing me with the opportunity to develop the ideas of this book as I taught in those schools. It is the students, however, who played an even more important role as they struggled, along beside me, to better understand the broad sweep of the history of the Church in Latin America. I began my research in the history of the Church in my doctoral research, which focused on the secular, or diocesan, clergy in sixteenth-century Mex- ico. The essential text and basis for most modern research on the Church in the early colonial period is Robert Ricard’s The Spiritual Conquest of Mexico. Ricard focused primarily on the mendicant orders and made only passing references to the secular clergy. My study of the secular clergy also led me to look at the financial underpinnings of the colonial church, especially the importance of the tithe and of the creation and management of endowments to support individual clerics. Early in my career, friendships with Asunción Lavrin and Arnold Bauer were forged by our mutual interests in the invest- ments of the Church. The Reverend Stafford Poole, C.M., has been a constant friend, mentor, and consultant on ecclesiastical topics. None of this could have happened without his aid. My interests soon expanded to look at both the religious orders and the diocesan clergy during the period. In particular because of my training in Nahuatl, the Aztec language, I was soon interested in the dynamics of conversion. I collected information about Nahuatl lan- guage manuscripts in the United States and studied their role and function in the larger effort at evangelization.

| vii The landmark book by James Lockhart, The Nahuas After the Conquest, provided my research with a solid theoretical basis on understanding the dynamics of culture change during the contact period. In looking at the Church in the later colonial period, William B. Taylor has recently written a monumental book, The Magistrates of the Sacred, which is essential reading if one is to understand the Church in the eighteenth century and into the beginning of the independence era. One cannot understand the intricacies of Church and state relations in the nineteenth and early twentieth century without a close reading of Lloyd Mecham’s Church and State in Latin Amer- ica. The Reverend Jeffery Klaiber, SJ, became a friend during my residency in Peru and has remained so thereafter. His insightful studies on the history of the Church in Peru have inspired me and assisted me greatly as I have attempted to look at the whole of Latin America. For the most recent period, I was very fortunate to have been on the faculty at the Saint Vincent de Paul Regional Seminary when the seminary hosted a large conference on libera- tion theology. There are many individuals who have assisted me in this adventure, but I can mention only a few here. I especially want to express my deep thanks to Jennifer Hammer, my editor at New York University Press. This project has taken far longer than either of us anticipated at the outset. She has been a tremendous help to me in the several revisions through which the book has passed. I would also like to thank the anonymous readers both of the original prospectus and of the finished manuscript. Their comments have helped to make this a better work. I also want to thank my many colleagues at the Uni- versity of Minnesota–Morris, and at SUNY Potsdam for having indulged me as an administrator to remain moderately active in research. I have tremen- dous admiration for my colleagues who are not only heavily involved with teaching and the formation of our students but who also pursue very active programs of creative activity. Needless to say, the contributions of all these wonderful people and works have assisted me in improving the book. Any errors are completely due to my own shortcomings. Through all of this my family has provided me with great support. My parents, Henry and Juliette Schwaller, brought me up in a loving home and encouraged me to pursue a life of the mind. As a child I remember the seem- ingly countless churches in Mexico that we visited every year during our annual trip south of the border. Little did I know then that I would dedicate a large part of my life to studying those very churches and the people who worshipped in them. My sons, Robert and William, indulge their father as he tries to balance family life, a career as an academic administrator, and a viii | Acknowledgments role as a scholar. For this, I thank them. My wife, Anne, has been the best friend a person could ever hope to have. She has accompanied me through three continents as we have pursued elusive documentation. She is the best sounding board for ideas and a solid proofreader once those ideas get put in print. Her ministry has shown me how small groups and an atmosphere of love and support can transform lives. Words simply cannot begin to express my thanks to her.

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