Resumen: The principal aim of this article is to analyse the rise of a Latin American Catholic identity during the mid- to late nineteenth century. It examines the institutionalisation of this collective project via the foundation of the Latin American College in Rome in 1858 and the initiatives that led to the Latin American Plenary Council in 1899. This article also explores how this collective religious identity was imagined and how its limits were drawn. In doing so a new insight into how religions contributed to the imagining and defining of geographical spaces is offered. Idioma: Inglés DOI: 10.1017/S0022046919002276 Año: 2020 Publicado en: Journal of Ecclesiastical History 71, 2 (2020), 316-336 ISSN: 0022-0469 Factor impacto SCIMAGO: 0.112 - Religious Studies (Q3) - History (Q3)