In writing a book on Mexican Christianity, one question has been unavoidable: why has Protestantism grown and Catholicism declined – especially in the most indigenous areas of the country? Part of the answer, I think, has to do with the history of translation.
In the early decades after the conquest of Mexico in 1521, Franciscan, Dominican and Jesuit missionaries did a great deal of translation into indigenous languages such as Nahuatl (the language of the Aztecs), Mixtec, and Yucatec Maya. However, after the Council of Trent (1545-63) the Church in Mexico produced fewer and fewer catechisms, sermons, and Bible translations in indigenous languages. By the 18th century few priests knew these native languages and virtually no indigenous men had become priests.
