they consider antisocial and inhuman, such as obedience to superiors, which deprives

individuals of freedom and of their own initiative. In other words, the orders are not —with

some exceptions— “useful” for the society that

sustain economically.

We find a third reformist element in the negative vision of baroque religiosity, rich in

theatricality, in lavish exteriorizations, endowed with plural emotionality and devotion and, in

a certain way, "sensual", given its passion for the image, for aesthetics. , as long as, through

the senses, it serves to ignite the religious fervor of the faithful. Attempts will now be made to

replace it with a more demure, more rational, more cerebral, stripped back, and sober

spirituality. In its place a new piety will be proposed that various authors, but in particular

Ludovico Antonio Muratori, have spread among the European and American Catholic elites.

This new sensitivity will lead to condemn and combat what in the last decades of the

viceroyalty come to be considered "excesses" and "superstitions". Thus, previously better

tolerated religious manifestations are directly regulated or prohibited, such as dances and

meals on All Souls' Day, wakes for angels, dances at brotherhood festivities, and some forms of

veneration of images. . And its aesthetic will be what is known today as

Neoclassical
that is, a theology based on biblical and patristic sources and the councils. That he knows the

history of the Church to return to the sources of primitive Christianity and locate the adhesions

acquired over time. And that literary studies return to the humanistic models proposed by

Greek and Roman culture, as well as that the elements for the elaboration of more modest,

rational and useful speeches and writings be provided for the faithful people.

From another aspect, since the end of the 18th century, a current that we could call with its

asegunes “ultramontane”, heir in part to the Jesuit tradition, also arose. A fairly active network

of priests and laity linked to the world of the Jesuits in exile, acting in anticipation of better

times. Those who recognize themselves in these positions abhor the Council of Pistoia of 1786,

in which Italian Jansenism managed to make many of its wishes come true under the

protection of Bishop Scipione de Ricci and the inspiration of the theologian Pietro Tamburini,

and they see with pessimistic eyes the outbreak French revolutionary, whom they interpret as

the result of the influence of the philosophes in society, in alliance with the Jansenistagalican

side, a characterization, it is worth saying, that many examples deny: Tamburini himself, like

many other Jansenists, he lived with horror the political process in France, Pablo Vázquez who

decidedly opposed it, even publishing diatribes, had his library well stocked with Jansenist
authors. This "ultramontana" aspect will have to see in the conjuncture of the consummation

of Independence, the occasion to separate the Mexican Church from the

In addition to the above, it will be intended to form society with foundations that support this

more rational spirituality, emerging positive trends, that is,