Sofía del Valle (1891–1982) was a leading lay activist who played a crucial role in rebuilding and shaping the Catholic Church in Mexico after the Cristiada. Del Valle's institutional legacy was formidable: she founded both Mexican Catholic Action's branch for young women—the Juventud Católica Femenina Mexicana—and the first Catholic liberal arts college for women. As this fine biography shows, del Valle remained an important lay leader long enough to see the emerging laywomen so evident at Vatican II drift away from the JCFM and the idea of celibate service. Del Valle proved to be adaptable and surprisingly ecumenical, working with secular organizations like UNESCO toward the end of her career.
Interspersed throughout the biography's chronological narrative are several examples of reflexive history, in which Andes recounts the experience of researching and writing the book. This permits him to explore the limits and responsibilities of biography, the tension between history and memory, the challenges of understanding his subject as a North American man raised Protestant, and the paper chase in archives in Mexico, the United States, and Rome.
Because the self-effacing del Valle served the church as a key activist, educator, de facto diplomat, and spokesperson, archival finds reveal her important connections to Archbishops Pascual Diaz and Leopoldo Ruiz, heads of the Mexican episcopate during the height of the church-state crisis, as well as to Father (later Archbishop) Rubén Darío Miranda, the founder of Catholic Action in Mexico. Miranda's relationship with del Valle was more than professional: the two enjoyed an emotionally intimate but platonic bond that lasted decades in spite of long separations. Andes also pays close attention to del Valle's social milieu in Mexico City as well as her networking in the United States and Europe during extended stretches abroad, publicizing the plight of Mexican Catholics and seeking funding. At times they served to protect her from not only the Mexican state but also enemies within the church, principally some Jesuits and leading Damas Catolicas who were bitter about Catholic Action's pacifism and apoliticism. Andes's work in the Vatican Archives and engaging narrative allows him to explain, clearly and compellingly, the bitter rifts dividing the church and how Archbishops Díaz and Ruiz and Vatican Secretary of State Pietro Gasparri backed del Valle to oppose many pro-Cristero Catholics, including Jesuit Alfredo Méndez Medina.
Del Valle collaborated with the high clergy in Rome, Washington, and Mexico City even as she crossed paths with (or barely missed) a long list of famous and infamous coreligionists. These are encounters that make her a global Catholic figure and this book exceptionally readable. She had a disagreeable encounter with the Abbess Concepción “Madre Conchita” Acevedo and, unfortunately, appeared on Father Charles Coughlin's radio show. Sofía befriended members of the Von Trapp family and probably Dorothy Day. Her collaborators in education and social Catholic organizations impressed the tetchy Graham Greene. In the United States, del Valle served as a key informant for Father Wilfred Parsons and Bishop Francis Kelly. Although she devoted much of her time in North America to countering widespread patronizing and at times racist misconceptions about Mexico, I wonder if she found Parsons and Kelly's books helpful to her cause.
Del Valle's status as an exemplary leader of the church means her spiritual life merits close examination, and Andes delivers a convincing reconstruction of it. Rather than mysticism or service—the usual niches designated for laywomen—she defended the church through public speaking and advocacy. Although Mass, prayer, and visits to sacred places sustained her through adversity and poor health, I came away with the impression that her typewriter was more important for del Valle's faith than her rosary. To understand how del Valle balanced being Catholic with being a highly educated, (politely) outspoken, and independent woman, Andes productively analyzes how she performed femininity through “Catholic couture,” meaning her choice in hats, hemlines, and hairstyles.
Del Valle's fashion reflected her ideology. Although she rejected feminism and defended the Church's idea of complementarity, she also expected it to promote a more responsible masculinity. Oral histories reveal that del Valle wanted to be known not as a mother or wife but as a human being, and she was an early advocate of women wearing pants. At several points, del Valle's activism recalled the roughly contemporary Catholic women of Guadalajara studied so well by Kristina Boylan. Like Sofía, they were always doing something, and their energy and enterprise helps explain why the postrevolutionary state's anticlericalism faltered. This study also shows key advantages the church enjoyed compared to the postrevolutionary Mexican state: a clear mission, centralized authority, organizational flexibility, and the support of many more women.
For all these reasons, this book makes important contributions to debates over the role of women and gender in Catholic history. Although this is a biography, Andes argues that by the twentieth century, the Catholic Church depended on tens of thousands of Sofías to keep it going (scholars like Eddie Wright-Rios show this phenomenon had important nineteenth-century antecedents). For good reason, historians usually study unruly women because they often do make history. Yet del Valle quietly made history by following almost all the rules while, in her own way, testing boundaries that had long circumscribed women's sphere in the church.
Del Valle's remarkable leadership had its weaknesses, too. Andes never ignores the many ways relative wealth, white skin, and social class privileged her. He does not shy away from her contradictions either: while employed at a telephone company, she was committed to educating working women, yet she undermined their attempts to keep their jobs when they became pregnant. While very effective internationally, del Valle rarely could visit Mexico's provinces—although she electrified Zacatecas during a whirlwind tour. Catholic Action had a shaky start in the 1930s in part because it was a highly centralized organization lacking the means to guide and sustain diocesan chapters. I was curious if Sofía's focus on Mexico City explains her seeming unawareness of the Second Cristiada. While she steadfastly opposed both Cristero wars, at times she alarmed Catholics about the phantom menace of sexual education in the classroom.
To paraphrase Virginia Woolf, this biography does not choose between revealing the subject's personality or history. It is both a serious book and a joy to read, and it will reward students of biography as well scholars of the modern Mexican Church and the relationship between gender and religion.
