The Community of Santo Domingo: A Church for Spanish Immigrants in Puebla, Mexico (1904-1993)

Spaniards from Asturias, with lesser contingents of immigrants from Cantabria, Galicia, and the Basque Country arrived in the city of Puebla, Mexico, from 1880 to the 1930s. The Puebla Archdiocese promoted that the Order of Preacher's from Andaluc?a tend to the spiritual needs of the Iberian immigrants and Mexicans throughout the twentieth century (1904?1993). The Church of Santo Domingo helped the Spanish community transition to the realities of Puebla through the administration of the Catholic sacraments, the participation of feasts and devotion to the Saints that reaffirmed an Iberian Catholicism. The Dominicans offered the laity a possibility to join their ranks through the tertiaries (later known as Lay Dominicans) and the Confraternity of the Rosary who participated with the Order in the celebration of the mass reinforcing, at the same time, a Spanish identity and spirituality.