In this talk, she will present some of the significant historiographical contributions of studying religion in colonial Mexico from the starting point of laywomen's participation and experience. Looking at laywomen's interactions with clergy, ecclesiastical courts, sacraments and other church rituals, and cloisters, the larger study from which this talk is taken argues that women were central in the gradual process of creating colonial religious culture in New Spain. This talk synthesizes some of the most important findings of this larger study, focusing on the ways that centering laywomen impacts a number of historical and theoretical debates in the field of colonial Latin American history the history of early modern Catholicism.