In the mid nineteenth century, the relationship between the Vat-ican and Latin-American churches was redefined. The perception of a severe crisis of the Church among the faithful led to efforts to rechris-tianise Latin American societies. This process of renovation was driven by the centralization of the Church in the hands of an activist papacy. In Latin America, the revitalisation of the Church included a migratory inflow of religious orders, new and old, to the Americas. In Ecuador, rechristianisation was undertaken under the aegis of a Catholic republic that linked a confessional state to the Church, which was charged with the tasks of supervising morality, education and charity.