Global Catholic Charities: Mexican Alms in North Africa and Palestine in the 17th to 19th Centuries

During the seventeenth through early nineteenth centuries, friars collected prodigious sums of alms in New Spain for two charitable projects in distant lands: freeing Christian captives from Muslims in North Africa and supporting a Catholic presence at holy sites in Jerusalem. This paper investigates connections in a globalizing early modern Catholic world by examining why these causes might have resonated with New Spain’s residents. The answer, I argue, has less to do with donors’ knowledge or interest in contemporary politics than their identification as part of a global Catholic community engaged in battles with dangerous foes.