Objective:

Reconstructing and analyzing the devotions and cults promoted in the city of Puebla between 1884 and 1914, to understand the reasons that allowed the renewal and rise of Catholicism in that episcopal city between the porfiriato and the revolution. The hypothesis is that the transformations brought about by the liberal consolidation in Mexico prompted Catholics to initiate a religious renewal that came to create a new model of Catholicism, motivated at the same time by clerics, religious, and seculars, who promoted a new sacralization of public space, a new devotional practice, and even a new model of public presence around worship.

Methodology:

The study is based on a review of primary sources in parish archives and ancient libraries. The local perspective was privileged without losing sight of the fact that several processes occurred as part of social Catholicism.

Originality:

The work offers a twofold originality. First, it uses the concepts of new Catholicism and cultural war to understand the renewal of Mexican Catholicism in the second half of the nineteenth century, a perspective that may be useful for other research and perspectives. Second, it offers a look at a diocese little studied for this period.

Conclusion:

The work demonstrates that after the Liberal Reform, Catholicism in Mexico was expressed through the (re)construction of temples, the promotion of new cults or the renovation of the already traditional ones, and in the rise of pious, religious, devotional, and commemorative practices in the different sacred precincts of the city. These elements allowed the Catholic Church to have a constant symbolic presence in Puebla between the decades of 1880 and 1900.