Early modern societies in Latin America and Spain saw a convergence of traditional medical knowledge and the professionalization of medicine. The resulting differences in access to care endure today.
A ceremony to punish people for heresy, called an ‘auto da fe,’ in the town of San Bartolome Otzolotepec, in present-day Mexico.
Museo Nacional de Arte/Wikimedia Commons
Conversion was often a violent affair, but that doesn’t mean it was 100% successful. Colonial Latin America was home to many different spiritual traditions from Indigenous, African and Asian cultures.
Catarina was revered in Puebla, Mexico – but devotion to her attracted Catholic authorities’ disapproval after her death.
Image from the collections of the Biblioteca Nacional de España
Accounts of Asian American history often stop at the US border, but Asians were living in Latin America for centuries before the Declaration of Independence.
Three women executed as witches in Derneburg Germany in October 1555.
Everett Collection
The idea of organized satanic witchcraft was invented in 15th-century Europe by church and state authorities, who at first had a hard time convincing regular folks it was real.
Pope Francis recently removed a secrecy rule to increase transparency for sexual abuse cases.
AP Photo/Andrew Medichini
Pope Francis recently removed a rule known as Pontifical Secrecy, which allowed clergy and church officials to withhold information regarding sexual abuse. Will it make the church truly transparent?
Galileo Galilei was imprisoned for his ‘heretical’ views.
Wellcome Images