Attacks against the church could bring spiritual benefits. “Pain and bloody trials are the shapers of peoples and nations,” wrote League pamphleteer Horacio. “Now that the captivity of pain has penetrated the depths of our national being, we await Mexico’s shining and glorious future.”1 Pain was righteous, cleansing, and redemptive. The weight of persecution connected the spiritual pain of individual Catholics to Mexico’s collective crisis. If suffered appropriately, this pain could elevate the nation toward heaven. Pleasure, though, posed different problems. While pain fortified the spirit, pleasure debilitated and distracted Mexicans from the nation’s trials. It enabled anticlericalists to persist in the destruction of the church. When Catholics felt most besieged, scores of young urban Mexicans were undulating their bodies in a curious new dance known as the Shimmy. They also danced the Foxtrot, the Charleston, and other African American–inspired dances that made their way to Mexico City. The end of the revolution coincided with Hollywood’s boom, and cosmopolitan youth culture burgeoned in the 1920s. Movies, vaudeville acts, and traveling cabaret shows spread dances. They also popularized new music, fashion, and even certain poses and ways of laughing. These expressions robbed the youth of their faith and made them into católicos de azúcar – “sugar Catholics.” Public events known as dancings showcased sexuality in ways that threatened to undermine authority, respectability, and strength. Women lost their virtue; men became frivolous bailarines (dancers). Personal, individual sinfulness was perilous, of course. But these foreign trends were also a national threat. According to Catholic activists, they were part of a deliberate assault on the integrity of Mexico.