Virtud cristiana y progreso liberal en La Navidad en las Montañas de Ignacio M. Altamirano

Abstract

The article explores the tension between the separation of State and church, and the collaboration between religious ministers and civil figures in the novel Christmas in the mountains (1871) by Ignacio Manuel Altamirano. Based on this element and revisionist historiography, it reviews the prevailing interpretation of official historiography regarding both freedom of worship and independence between the Catholic Church and political authority during the restored republic. Likewise, it identifies the type of ethics, secular or religious, present in the novel within a context that is very favorable to a secular vision of virtue. As a whole, the text addresses the moral theme, very present in nineteenth-century discourses and stories, but relatively absent from Mexican research, from a contextual perspective.