ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses field research over more than the last 20 years in Mexico on popular religious practice and culture, social movements, progressive and conservative political currents within the Catholic Church. It also discusses more recent work on the Church's increasing recourse to media in its evangelizing strategies, as focused on the celebration of the Feast day of the Virgin of Guadalupe in Mexico City. In today's Mexico, the neo-baroque encompasses the chaotic mixedness, dynamism, discordances and cultural hybridity evident throughout postmodern Mexico City. The neo-baroque Catholic Church is the outcome of the evolution of Church theology and doctrine over the Second Vatican Council, which initiated a sea change in the Church's sense of itself in the contemporary world. Historical-critical methodologies were the fruit of the emergence of a historical consciousness and the retrieval of a wider Catholic tradition. The Church in Latin America has attempted to reinforce its evangelization strategies through coverage and promotion of its teachings.
