Between censorship and public rebuttal. The establishment of “El Defensor de la Religión” in Guadalajara (1827)

Abstract

This article analyzes the causes of the establishment of El Defensor de la Religión (1827–1833, Guadalajara, Jalisco), one of the most important Mexican catholic newspapers of the first half of the 19th century. I demonstrate that this newspaper was founded by Pedro Espinosa y Dávalos (1793–1866) in order to counteract the influence of impious and regalist ideas that circulated in Mexico through pamphlets, newspapers, and banned books in the 1820s. I examine, on one hand, how the ecclesiastical sector was frustrated by the ineffectiveness of the religious censorship regime, and, on the other, the first attempts of Guadalajara’s clergy to contest the presumed impiety by financing political pamphlets. I ultimately argue that El Defensor de la Religión was founded in response to the need to have a newspaper that would allow the clergy to refute in a systematic and constant way all the publications that criticized or proposed to reform the Church.