Metropolitan Cathedral of Mexico City. / Credit: Salvador alc, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Puebla, Mexico, Jul 18, 2025 / 09:30 am (CNA).

The Metropolitan Cathedral’s communications office in Mexico City expressed its dissatisfaction with the projection of pro-abortion messages on the façade of the church during a show organized by the capital city’s government.

The show, titled "Luminous Memory. Mexico-Tenochtitlan 700 Years," takes place every night July 11-27 in the capital's Zócalo (central square). It transforms the National Palace and the Cathedral into monumental screens to visually narrate the history of the capital, from its Aztec origins to the present day.

According to the Mexico City government, the narrative includes episodes such as independence, the Mexican Revolution, and "recent events such as the arrival of the first LGBTIQ+ Pride March to the Zócalo, the decriminalization of abortion, the election of two female heads of government, and the consolidation of a city of rights and freedoms."

Among the images projected onto the façade of the cathedral are women with green neckerchiefs, symbols of the feminist movement, and a sign reading "safe abortion."

Messages that ‘deeply wound and hurt the faith’

In a statement released July 15, the cathedral reported that it had not been previously consulted about the content of the show. It clarified that the Memoria Luminosa has no connection to the Archdiocese of Mexico, is produced by others and specified that no religious authority “has participated in the pre-production or the script of said show.”

The statement points out that while the cathedral property belongs to the federal government—as established by the Law of Religious Associations and Public Worship for churches built before 1992, the year in which relations between the state and the Catholic Church were reestablished — its use and administration belong exclusively to the Primatial Archdiocese of Mexico, including responsibility for the messages disseminated on its façade and atriums.

However, the religious authorities stated that they were informed only that both the cathedral façade and the adjacent Assumption parish church "would serve as canvases for said projection, taking into account the colonial and baroque periods that would supposedly be projected on these spaces."

Therefore, they deplored the inclusion of "various captions and images that deeply wound and injure the faith and fundamental principles that we Catholics profess."

"Regardless of the fact that, given the division between religious freedom and public policies, both protected by our constitution, the free expression of ideas is respected within their respective premises and spaces, it is objectionable that messages specifically contrary to Catholic principles should be projected on this holy cathedral," the statement pointed out.

Finally, the cathedral’s communications office called on Mexico City authorities, in the exercise of their powers, to provide the necessary instructions so that on the façade of the church "it is avoided at all times projecting messages contrary to the Catholic faith, which in the deepest way  are hurtful to the devotion of the Mexican people."

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.