Challenges the consensus of a simplistic Church-State reconciliation in post-revolutionary Mexico and reveals instead a cultural power struggle between entrenched elite factions Reconciling Modernity challenges the academic consensus of a simplistic Church-State reconciliation in post-revolutionary Mexico and reveals instead a cultural power struggle between entrenched elite factions, each intending to define Mexico's national identity. Using documents found in regional archives, Daniel Newcomer provides a new interpretation of how radically opposed conservative and revolutionary elites came to a political detente in the traditional Catholic stronghold of Leon, Guanajuato, during the 1940s. Leon's conservatives sought to limit the influence of the revolutionary government because state-sponsored modernization projects threatened local character and institutions. Tensions regarding the extent of state power culminated in the 1946 Leon massacre, during which government troops gunned down more than two dozen citizens. As the defining moment in local history, the violent confrontation helped solidify a new elite consensus, or an "official story,".