Standing at the bustling intersection of the pedestrian thoroughfare Avenida Francisco I. Madero and Calle Isabel la Católica, just three blocks west of the Zócalo and the Mexico City Metropolitan Cathedral, the Temple of San Felipe Neri, universally known across four centuries as La Profesa (and historically titled Templo de San José el Real), commands the streetscape with its deep crimson walls of porous volcanic tezontle stone and its richly sculpted gray stone portals. Within the Catholic and political history of Mexico, few churches unite three such monumental legacies beneath a single roof: La Profesa is simultaneously an early eighteenth-century Baroque masterpiece by chief royal architect Pedro de Arrieta enhanced by the Neoclassical genius of Manuel Tolsá, the custodian of the largest collection of Viceregal religious paintings preserved inside a Mexican church, and the historical chamber where the 1820 political meetings paved the way for the consummation of Mexican Independence in 1821.
Why has a temple dedicated to Saint Joseph and Saint Philip Neri been called La Profesa by every generation of Mexico City residents since the sixteenth century? The name dates back to 1592, when the priests of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) established on this site the Professed House (La Casa Profesa), the sole community in all of New Spain reserved for senior Jesuit fathers who had professed the solemn fourth vow of special obedience to the Pope regarding missions. After King Charles III expelled the Jesuits from the Spanish Empire in 1767, the magnificent stone church completed by Pedro de Arrieta between 1714 and 1720 was transferred in 1771 to the priests of the Congregation of the Oratory of Saint Philip Neri, preserving its spiritual and artistic splendor among the sacred sites of the Americas.
IRoyal Saint Joseph, Saint Philip Neri the Apostle of Rome, and the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises
The spiritual identity of La Profesa weaves together two of the most influential currents of the sixteenth-century Catholic Counter-Reformation: the missionary spirituality of Saint Ignatius of Loyola and the Society of Jesus (who served here from 1592 to 1767) and the joyful urban apostolate of Saint Philip Neri and the Congregation of the Oratory (who have ministered here continuously since 1771), both united under the primary patronage of Royal Saint Joseph (San José el Real).
When the Jesuits consecrated the present stone sanctuary on April 20, 1720, its canonical title was the Church of Royal Saint Joseph. Saint Joseph, foster father of Jesus and spouse of the Virgin Mary, had been proclaimed Universal Patron of the Church in the New World by the First Mexican Provincial Council of 1555. Directly above the main southern entrance on Avenida Madero, a magnificent high-relief stone panel depicts Saint Joseph wearing a royal crown, holding a flowering lily staff in one hand while leading the Christ Child by the other, flanked below by carved stone lions symbolizing his royal lineage of the House of David.
Since March 25, 1771, the sanctuary has also honored its second titular patron, Saint Philip Neri (1515 to 1595, feast day May 26), the beloved Florentine priest venerated as the Second Apostle of Rome and the Saint of Christian Joy. Renowned for the mystical expansion of his heart by the Holy Spirit in the Catacombs of Saint Sebastian in 1544, Philip Neri founded the Congregation of the Oratory as a community of secular priests bound not by religious vows but by fraternal charity, drawing laypeople to God through warm sacramental confession, spiritual conversation, works of mercy, and sacred musical dramas (which gave birth to the musical genre of the Oratorio).
In sixteenth-century Rome, Saint Ignatius of Loyola and Saint Philip Neri shared a deep personal friendship, with Ignatius comparing Philip Neri to a church bell that called people inside the temple of God. In eighteenth-century Mexico City, when the Oratorian fathers of Saint Philip Neri received La Profesa in 1771, they faithfully preserved and expanded the Jesuits' hallmark ministry: the House of Spiritual Exercises (Casa de Ejercicios Espirituales) attached to the church, where thousands of laymen from all walks of life withdrew for eight days of silent Ignatian meditation, prayer, and moral renewal.
Under the Constitutions of the Society of Jesus drafted by Saint Ignatius of Loyola, a strict canonical distinction existed between Jesuit Colleges (which could hold agricultural estates to fund free education for students) and a Professed House (Casa Profesa). A Professed House was the residence of senior fathers who had taken all four solemn vows and was strictly forbidden from owning any revenue-producing property or fixed endowments, requiring the priests to live entirely on daily alms offered by the faithful while devoting themselves to preaching, hearing confessions, and assisting the dying.
Following the arrival of the first Jesuits in Mexico in 1572, Royal Mint treasurer Juan Luis de Rivera and his wife Juana Gutiérrez, later joined by royal magistrate Fernando Núñez de Obregón, donated urban lots in 1592 over the former palace precinct of Aztec Emperor Moctezuma II to establish the only Jesuit Casa Profesa in the Viceroyalty of New Spain, giving the church and neighborhood its enduring name, La Profesa.
Visitors unfamiliar with ecclesiastical Spanish sometimes mistranslate the feminine noun La Profesa as The Professed Nun, assuming the church belonged to a convent of cloistered nuns. In Spanish grammar, the adjective Profesa is feminine solely because it modifies the feminine noun Casa (La Casa Profesa de la Compañía de Jesús, the Professed House of the Society of Jesus); from its founding in 1592 to the present day, the sanctuary has always been served by communities of male priests.
IIFrom the 1592 Jesuit Foundation and Pedro de Arrieta's 1720 Church to the 1820 Conspiracy of La Profesa and Mexican Independence
Standing for more than four centuries at the heart of Mexico City, La Profesa has witnessed pivotal chapters of national history. After founding the Casa Profesa in 1592, the Jesuits completed their first permanent church in 1610. However, because the island capital rested on the waterlogged clay of Lake Texcoco and suffered the catastrophic five-year flood of 1629 to 1634, the early seventeenth-century church sank and cracked severely. In the early eighteenth century, funded by the generous patronage of the Marchioness of las Torres de Rada (Doña Gertrudis de la Peña), the Jesuits commissioned New Spain's premier master architect Don Pedro de Arrieta (designer of the 1709 Old Basilica of Guadalupe and the Palace of the Inquisition) to build the present monumental three-nave stone temple between 1714 and its solemn consecration on April 20, 1720.
Before dawn on June 25, 1767, Viceroy Marquis de Croix executed King Charles III's pragmatic sanction expelling the Society of Jesus from the Spanish Empire: royal soldiers surrounded La Profesa in the night, read the decree of banishment, and marched the Jesuit fathers to Veracruz for exile in Italy. Four years later, on March 25, 1771, the Crown transferred the church and residence of La Profesa to the Congregation of the Oratory of Saint Philip Neri (whose own nearby church had been ruined by an earthquake in 1768), led by Father Doctor Juan Antonio Pérez de Espinosa.
- 1592 to 1610The Society of Jesus establishes the Casa Profesa and builds the first churchEndowed by Juan Luis de Rivera and Fernando Núñez de Obregón in 1592, the Jesuits establish the sole Professed House in New Spain and dedicate its first church in 1610.
- 1714 to April 20, 1720Master architect Pedro de Arrieta constructs the present three-nave Baroque sanctuaryFinanced by the Marchioness of las Torres de Rada, chief architect Pedro de Arrieta builds the present tezontle and cantera stone church, consecrated on April 20, 1720.
- June 25, 1767 and March 25, 1771Expulsion of the Jesuits (1767) and transfer of La Profesa to the Oratory of Saint Philip Neri (1771)Following King Charles III's expulsion of the Jesuits in 1767, the complex is entrusted in 1771 to the Oratorian Fathers of Saint Philip Neri, who expand the House of Spiritual Exercises.
- 1804 to 1806 and Spring 1820Manuel Tolsá erects the Neoclassical High Altar (1806) and the Conspiracy of La Profesa meets (1820)Valencian master Manuel Tolsá designs the Neoclassical High Altar in 1806; in 1820 Canon Matías de Monteagudo and Colonel Agustín de Iturbide hold the meetings at La Profesa that lead to the 1821 consummation of Mexican Independence.
- 1861, January 26, 1914, and 1978Demolition of the residential wing (1861), rescue of the paintings, and opening of the Pinacotheca (1978)When the Reform Laws demolish the adjacent House of Exercises in 1861 to open Isabel la Católica street, Oratorian priests save hundreds of canvases; in 1978 Father Luis Ávila Blancas inaugurates the Pinacoteca de La Profesa.
The 1820 Conspiracy of La Profesa and the birth of Mexican Independence in 1821. In Mexican historiography, La Profesa is immortalized as the cradle of the political movement that consummated national independence after ten years of insurgent warfare. In the spring of 1820, when Colonel Rafael del Riego's liberal revolt in Spain forced King Ferdinand VII to restore the anticlerical Cádiz Constitution of 1812, the Superior of the Oratory of La Profesa, Father Doctor Matías de Monteagudo (former Rector of the Royal and Pontifical University of Mexico), convened a series of confidential meetings inside the rooms of the Oratory at La Profesa, known to history as the Conspiracy of La Profesa (La Conspiración de La Profesa).
Attended by prominent churchmen, magistrates, and Creole military officers, the gatherings at La Profesa concluded that New Spain should sever its political dependence on Madrid's liberal parliament and recommended that Viceroy Juan Ruiz de Apodaca appoint the brilliant Creole commander Colonel Agustín de Iturbide as head of the Southern Army. Once in the field in Guerrero, Iturbide forged a historic alliance with insurgent leader General Vicente Guerrero (the Embrace of Acatempan on February 10, 1821) and proclaimed the Plan of Iguala on February 24, 1821 based on the Three Guarantees (Independence, the Catholic Religion, and Union of all citizens, symbolized by the green, white, and red tricolor flag). On September 27, 1821, Iturbide and Guerrero's Army of the Three Guarantees marched triumphantly down Avenida San Francisco (now Avenida Madero) directly past the doors of La Profesa into the Zócalo, consummating the Independence of Mexico.
IIIPedro de Arrieta's Tezontle Baroque Architecture, Manuel Tolsá's Neoclassical Altar, and the 450-Painting Pinacotheca
Architecturally, the Temple of La Profesa is one of the finest surviving creations of master architect Don Pedro de Arrieta (died 1738), whose works defined the stately classical Baroque style of early eighteenth-century Mexico City. The building showcases the signature material palette of the Viceregal capital: thick structural walls laid in blocks of porous crimson-and-black volcanic scoria stone (tezontle), chosen for its light weight over the compressible lakebed clay, framed by pilasters, cornices, portals, and a corner bell tower carved from pale gray and pinkish quarry stone (cantera).
The main facade faces south onto pedestrian Avenida Francisco I. Madero, while a secondary lateral facade opens westward onto Calle Isabel la Católica. Rising at the southwestern street corner is a two-tiered bell tower featuring twisted Solomonic columns on its lower belfry stage and Doric columns above, bearing an inscribed stone plaque at its base recording Pedro de Arrieta's completion of the temple in 1720. The south main portal is composed as a two-story stone retablo flanked by paired Corinthian columns with spiral-fluted lower thirds enclosing statues of Saint Ignatius of Loyola and Saint Francis Xavier, crowned on the second story by a deeply carved stone relief of Royal Saint Joseph leading the Christ Child beneath God the Father and the Dove of the Holy Spirit.
Unlike most religious-order churches in Mexico City that have only a single nave, Pedro de Arrieta designed La Profesa on a basilican Latin-cross plan with three longitudinal naves (a tall central nave and two lower side aisles) divided by massive gray cantera piers supporting sail vaults and an octagonal crossing cupola. Dominating the presbytery is the monumental Neoclassical High Altar designed between 1804 and 1806 by the Valencian master Manuel Tolsá (carefully reconstructed after an electrical fire in 1914), housing the expressive polychrome sculpture of Saint Joseph and the Christ Child attributed to Tolsá and his Indigenous-born disciple Pedro Patiño Ixtolinque.
Housed in four grand upper galleries above the sacristy and surviving Oratorian quarters (the Jesuit Hall, the Independence Hall, the Oratory Hall, and the Nineteenth-Century Hall) is the Pinacotheca of La Profesa (Pinacoteca de La Profesa), organized and opened to the public in 1978 by Father Luis Ávila Blancas. Comprising more than 450 oil paintings rescued by the Oratorian fathers when the adjacent House of Spiritual Exercises was demolished during the nineteenth-century Reform Laws, it constitutes the richest church collection of colonial painting in Mexico.
The Pinacotheca of La Profesa reads as a comprehensive encyclopedia of New Spanish painting across three centuries: highlights include dramatic Baroque canvases by Cristóbal de Villalpando (1649 to 1714) and Juan Correa (1646 to 1716), a complete fourteen-station Via Crucis and devotional portraits by the great Oaxacan master Miguel Cabrera (1695 to 1768), and works by José de Ibarra, Nicolás Rodríguez Juárez, José de Páez, and Juan Patricio Morlete Ruiz.
Around 1865, the Catalan painter Pelegrín Clavé (Director of Painting at the National Academy of San Carlos) and his foremost Mexican disciples (including Felipe Santiago Gutiérrez, José Salomé Pina, and Petronilo Monroy) adorned the pendentives, cupola, and chapels of La Profesa with monumental murals of the Seven Sacraments and Marian themes in the European Romantic-Nazarene style.
Lining the side aisles and transept arms are eight stately nineteenth-century Neoclassical altarpieces in faux-marble and gilded wood dedicated to Saint Philip Neri in ecstasy, Our Lady of Guadalupe, Saint Ignatius of Loyola, and revered seventeenth-century crucifixes including the Lord of Consolation (El Señor del Consuelo).
Stepping off Avenida Madero down the stone steps into the nave of La Profesa, visitors immediately experience the famous geological subsidence of historic Mexico City: built over the soft lacustrine clay of Lake Texcoco and the foundations of Emperor Moctezuma II's palace complex, the heavy eighteenth-century masonry has settled more than a meter below street level with a gentle tilt stabilized by modern INAH underpinning.
| Historical or architectural feature | Technical dimensions and materials | Creators and heritage significance |
|---|---|---|
| Present church construction | Begun 1714, consecrated April 20, 1720 | Designed by chief royal architect Pedro de Arrieta over the 1592 Jesuit Casa Profesa site |
| Structural layout & materials | Three-nave Latin-cross plan; red tezontle volcanic stone walls and carved gray cantera facades | One of the few three-nave religious-order churches in the Historic Center of Mexico City |
| Neoclassical High Altar | Designed 1804 to 1806; central statue of Saint Joseph and the Christ Child | Created by Neoclassical master Manuel Tolsá and sculptor Pedro Patiño Ixtolinque |
| Pinacoteca de La Profesa | Over 450 oil paintings from the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries across 4 galleries | Features masterpieces by Cristóbal de Villalpando, Juan Correa, Miguel Cabrera, and Pelegrín Clavé |
| Heritage & historical rank | National Monument (Feb 9, 1931); UNESCO World Heritage Site (1987, Ref. 412) | Site of the 1820 Conspiracy of La Profesa that led to the consummation of Mexican Independence in 1821 |
IVThe Lie of the Land
Situated in the colonial core of Mexico City, the Temple of La Profesa was not sited using East Asian geomancy (feng shui). Its placement followed the Renaissance checkerboard street grid (traza reticular) laid out in 1522 by Alonso García Bravo directly over the island capital of Mexico-Tenochtitlan, aligning the church's main portal southward onto the principal royal avenue connecting the Zócalo with the Alameda Central. Below is a comparative reading of this urban setting through the library's traditional landform lens.
Examined within the macro-topography of the Valley of Mexico (Valle de México) at coordinates 19.4336 degrees north, 99.1364 degrees west and an elevation of 2,240 meters above sea level, the precinct of La Profesa occupies the historic heart of the ancient island of Tenochtitlan, ringed by the volcanic mountain chains of the Anáhuac Basin (with Popocatépetl and Iztaccíhuatl rising to the southeast and the Sierra de Guadalupe to the north). Urban archaeological excavations by INAH confirm that the corner of Madero and Isabel la Católica rested immediately adjacent to the New Palace of Aztec Emperor Moctezuma II (Casas Nuevas de Moctezuma) just west of the sacred precinct of the Templo Mayor.
In terms of urban orientation and energetic flow, La Profesa sits on a north-backed, south-facing axis at a prime crossroads of the Historic Center: its southern facade opens onto pedestrian Avenida Francisco I. Madero (historically the Calle de Plateros, the street of the silversmiths running west-to-east straight into the Zócalo and the Mexico City Metropolitan Cathedral), while its western flank borders Avenida Isabel la Católica. In traditional urban landform analysis, pedestrian avenues carrying hundreds of thousands of people daily act as Living Water Dragon Veins; Pedro de Arrieta's placement of the two-tiered bell tower right at the southwestern corner intersection acts as a classic Water-Greeting Stone Pillar that anchors the corner and draws the bustling energy of the avenue into the serene three-nave sanctuary.
VThe May 26 Feast of Saint Philip Neri, the March 19 Solemnity of Saint Joseph, Sacred Oratorio Concerts, and Saturday Gallery Tours
Amid the vibrant pedestrian flow of Avenida Madero, the heavy wooden doors of La Profesa open daily as a sanctuary of quiet prayer, sacramental confession, and sacred art under the pastoral care of the Fathers of the Oratory of Saint Philip Neri (within the Primatial Archdiocese of Mexico). Liturgical celebrations follow the Roman Catholic calendar (Gregorian), enriched by the Oratorian tradition of sacred music and historical art stewardship.
| Date | Calendar system | Liturgical feast or cultural observance | Liturgies and artistic traditions at the Temple of La Profesa |
|---|---|---|---|
| May 26 annually | Roman Catholic Liturgical Calendar (Gregorian) | Solemnity of Saint Philip Neri, Founder of the Congregation of the Oratory | The principal patronal feast of the Oratorian community that has served La Profesa since 1771: features a solemn Novena, Pontifical Mass accompanied by choir and organ, veneration of the relics of Saint Philip Neri, and sacred Oratorio concerts. |
| March 19 annually | Roman Catholic Liturgical Calendar (Gregorian) | Solemnity of Saint Joseph (San José el Real), Original Titular Patron of the Sanctuary | Honors the original Jesuit dedication of the temple and Manuel Tolsá's central sculpture of Saint Joseph and the Christ Child: faithful fill the sanctuary bearing white lilies to pray for families and workers. |
| March or April (Holy Thursday and Good Friday) | Roman Catholic Liturgical Calendar (Holy Week) | Holy Thursday Seven Churches Pilgrimage along Avenida Madero and Good Friday Seven Last Words | On Holy Thursday evening, tens of thousands of families walking the Seven Churches route through the Historic Center visit the Altar of Repose at La Profesa; on Good Friday afternoon, the sanctuary hosts the traditional preaching and musical meditation on the Seven Last Words of Christ on the Cross. |
| Saturdays at midday and September 27 | Cultural & National Civic Calendar | Guided Visits to the Pinacoteca de La Profesa and Anniversary of the Consummation of Independence (Sept 27, 1821) | Art historians lead guided tours through the four upper galleries housing over 450 Viceregal paintings; each September, lectures commemorate the 1820 meetings at La Profesa and the September 27, 1821 triumphal entry of the Army of the Three Guarantees down Avenida Madero. |
Walking the historic corridor of Avenida Madero. Stepping out of the southern portal of La Profesa onto pedestrian Avenida Francisco I. Madero places the visitor at the heart of one of the richest architectural corridors in the Americas: one block west stand the eighteenth-century Palace of Iturbide (where Agustín de Iturbide resided after the meetings at La Profesa), the sixteenth-century Church of San Francisco, and the blue-tiled Casa de los Azulejos, while three blocks east opens the vast Zócalo and the Mexico City Metropolitan Cathedral.
VILocation And How To Get There
- Address
- Avenida Francisco I. Madero 27 (corner of Isabel la Católica), Historic Center, Cuauhtémoc, 06000 Mexico City, Mexico
- Getting there
- The Temple of La Profesa stands at Avenida Francisco I. Madero 27 (at the corner of Calle Isabel la Católica) in the Historic Center (Centro Histórico), Cuauhtémoc borough, Mexico City. By Mexico City Metro, take Line 2 (the blue line) to Allende station, Zócalo/Tenochtitlan station, or Bellas Artes station (transfer point for Line 2 and Line 8); from any of these three stations, walk along pedestrian Avenida Francisco I. Madero for 4 to 5 minutes (350 meters) directly to the corner bell tower and carved stone portals of La Profesa.
- Coordinates
- 19.4336, -99.1364
The Temple of San Felipe Neri (La Profesa) is open daily free of charge from 8:00 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. for prayer and architectural visits. Visitors wishing to ascend to the upper galleries to view the Pinacotheca of La Profesa (Pinacoteca de La Profesa) and its 450 oil paintings by Cristóbal de Villalpando, Juan Correa, and Miguel Cabrera should note that the gallery is open only via guided tours (traditionally offered on Saturdays at 12:00 p.m. noon or by prior appointment with the Oratory office for a small conservation donation; photography is strictly prohibited inside the painting galleries). Notice as you enter the church how the stone floor slopes gently due to three centuries of settling into the ancient lakebed of Tenochtitlan.
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?Quick Questions
Why is the church called La Profesa even though it belongs to the Oratory of Saint Philip Neri?
The name dates back to 1592, when the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) founded on this site the only Professed House in New Spain (La Casa Profesa), a community reserved for senior Jesuit fathers who had taken all four solemn vows and lived solely on daily alms. After King Charles III expelled the Jesuits in 1767, the church was entrusted in 1771 to the Congregation of the Oratory of Saint Philip Neri, but residents have continued to call the temple La Profesa for over four hundred years.
Who designed the eighteenth-century Baroque church and the Neoclassical High Altar inside?
The present three-nave church of red tezontle volcanic stone and gray cantera was designed and built between 1714 and 1720 by chief royal architect Don Pedro de Arrieta (who also designed the 1709 Old Basilica of Guadalupe). The stately Neoclassical High Altar and its central sculpture of Saint Joseph and the Christ Child were designed between 1804 and 1806 by the renowned Valencian architect and sculptor Manuel Tolsá.
What was the 1820 Conspiracy of La Profesa, and how did it lead to Mexican Independence?
In the spring of 1820, after a liberal revolt in Spain restored the anticlerical Cádiz Constitution of 1812, the Superior of La Profesa, Father Doctor Matías de Monteagudo, hosted confidential meetings in the Oratory rooms with conservative Creole officials and officers. They resolved to seek New Spain's autonomy and secured the appointment of Colonel Agustín de Iturbide to command the Southern Army; Iturbide subsequently allied with insurgent general Vicente Guerrero to proclaim the Plan of Iguala and marched into Mexico City past the doors of La Profesa on September 27, 1821, consummating Mexican Independence.
What artworks are preserved inside the Pinacotheca of La Profesa (Pinacoteca de La Profesa)?
Located in four upper halls above the sacristy and officially inaugurated in 1978, the Pinacotheca of La Profesa houses more than 450 seventeenth-, eighteenth-, and nineteenth-century religious oil paintings saved by the Oratorian priests during the nineteenth-century Reform Laws. It is the largest church gallery of Viceregal art in Mexico, featuring masterpieces by Cristóbal de Villalpando, Juan Correa, Miguel Cabrera, José de Ibarra, José de Páez, and Pelegrín Clavé.
Why is the floor of La Profesa lower than the sidewalk and slightly tilted?
Because the heavy stone temple was erected between 1714 and 1720 over the soft, waterlogged lacustrine clay of ancient Lake Texcoco (on the site of Aztec Emperor Moctezuma II's palace precinct), three centuries of groundwater extraction beneath Mexico City have caused the building to sink more than a meter below the modern pavement of Avenida Madero and develop a characteristic geological tilt.