Catedral de Xalapa

The Catedral Metropolitana de la Inmaculada Concepción is the seat of the Archdiocese of Xalapa and one of the oldest buildings in the city. It stands on the corner of Enríquez and Revolución streets in the historic centre, across from the Palacio Municipal and a block from Parque Juárez, and is dedicated to the Immaculate Conception, the patroness of Xalapa.

A parish church was begun here in 1641 on the orders of Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, bishop of Puebla, whose diocese then included Xalapa. Alterations into the 18th century gave it a Baroque look, and some of it survives: the bell tower, finished in 1778 and 50.28 metres high, with a clock brought from London around that time; the octagonal dome; the door onto Plaza Lerdo; and the Sagrario chapel with Solomonic columns. Pope Pius IX raised the church to a cathedral by a bull of 19 March 1863, consecrated in 1864 when the diocese of Veracruz was created with its seat in Xalapa, and it became a metropolitan cathedral on 19 June 1951. From 1896 the building was remodelled in the Neo-Gothic style seen today, with a pointed trefoil portal, seven lancet choir windows and a rose window. A second tower planned for the west side was never built beyond its base, which is why Xalapeños call it "la catedral de la torre mocha".

Inside are three naves on a Latin-cross plan, gilded Baroque details, carved saints from the 18th and 19th centuries (many sent from a Barcelona workshop at the request of Santa Anna in the 1850s) and paintings attributed to Miguel Cabrera. A Neo-Gothic pipe organ of 1901 above the main door was played again on 1 December 2015 after forty years of silence. The largest of the tower's six bells is the biggest in Veracruz. One chapel holds the remains of Rafael Guízar y Valencia, bishop of Veracruz, beatified in 1995 and canonised in 2006, and a museum about him is in the old bishop's palace behind the cathedral.