Love and Despair : How Catholic Activism Shaped Politics and the Counterculture in Modern Mexico

__Love and Despair__ explores the multiple and mostly unknown ways progressive and conservative catholic actors, such as priests, lay activists, journalists, intellectuals, and filmmakers, responded to the significant social and cultural shifts that formed competing notions of modernity in Cold War Mexico. Jaime Pensado demonstrates how the Catholic Church as a heterogenous institution, with key transnational networks in Latin America and Western Europe, was invested in youth activism, state repression, and the counterculture from the Postwar period to the more radical sixties. Similar to their secular counterparts, progressive Catholics often saw themselves as revolutionary actors and nearly always framed their activism as an act of love. When their movements were repressed and their ideas were co-opted, marginalized, and commercialized at the end of the sixties, the liberating hope of love often turned into a sense of despair. Contents List of Illustrations List of Abbreviations Acknowledgments Introduction Part One. Modernity and Youth 1. Beauty, Cinema, and Female Youth Rebellion 2. Student Activism during the Cold War Part Two. State Violence, Progressive Catholicism, and Radicalization 3. Combative Journalism and Divisions within the Church 4. Responses to the Tlatelolco and Corpus Christi Massacres 5. The Thorny Questions of Armed Struggle and Socialism Part Three. The Counterculture, Liberation, and the Arts 6. La Onda as Liberation and the Making of La contracultura como protesta 7. Dialogue as Love and Countercultural Cinema at UNAM 8. Sexual Liberation and the Redemption of Homosexuality 9. Competing Interpretations of Los Cristeros and Violent Reactions to the Counterculture Conclusion Appendix 1. Cinematic Representations of Youth Rebellion (1941–ca. 1964) Appendix 2. Cinematic Representations of Youth, Liberation, the Counterculture, and Progressive Catholicism (ca. 1961–ca. 1978) Notes Bibliography Index "Love and Despair explores the multiple and mostly unknown ways progressive and conservative Catholic actors, such as priests, lay activists, journalists, intellectuals, and filmmakers, responded to the significant social and cultural shifts that formed competing notions of modernity in Cold War Mexico. Jaime Pensado demonstrates how the Catholic Church as a heterogenous institution, with key transnational networks in Latin America and Western Europe, was invested in youth activism, state repression, and the counterculture from the Postwar period to the more radical sixties. Similar to their secular counterparts, progressive Catholics often saw themselves as revolutionary actors and nearly always framed their activism as an act of love. When their movements were repressed and their ideas were co-opted, marginalized, and commercialized at the end of the sixties, the liberating hope of love often turned into a sense of despair"-- Provided by publisher Love and Despair explores the multiple and mostly unknown ways progressive and conservative Catholic actors, such as priests, lay activists, journalists, intellectuals, and filmmakers, responded to the significant social and cultural shifts that formed competing notions of modernity in Cold War Mexico. Jaime M. Pensado demonstrates how the Catholic Church as a heterogeneous institution—with key transnational networks in Latin America and Western Europe—was invested in youth activism, state repression, and the counterculture from the postwar period to the more radical Sixties. Similar to their secular counterparts, progressive Catholics often saw themselves as revolutionary actors and nearly always framed their activism as an act of love. When their movements were repressed and their ideas were co-opted, marginalized, and commercialized at the end of the Sixties, the liberating hope of love often turned into a sense of despair.