From the Conquest to Independence

The Catholic Church arrived in Mexico at the same time as the Spanish conquistadors, and it is extremely difficult to distinguish between the spiritual and the secular in the acts and motivations of the former and the latter; this ambiguity was still further increased by the staunch determination of the Most Catholic monarchs to ‘protect’ the Church; this ‘protection’ was the underlying cause of all the conflicts between Church and state in the various regions which made up the Spanish Empire.

Iberian Catholicism, as reformed by Cisneros, was, of course, bound to exercise an overwhelming influence on the society of the New World, and this tendency was reinforced by the ancient chiliastic expectations aroused by the spectacle of a young and newly-discovered universe; the three centuries of the history of New Spain cannot be understood unless the historian bears in mind the ubiquitous presence of the Catholic religion and of the Church that enshrined it. It was, perhaps, the last time that Western medieval Christendom attempted to build the City of God here on earth, at the very moment when Europe was turning its back on this particular Utopia in order to pursue others.