Love and Despair reveals an entirely unexamined side of the Mexican Global Sixties, one that has been hiding in plain sight. In bringing to light Catholic responses to countercultural practices and youth politics, Jaime M. Pensado highlights the central role of religious thought and actors in the democratization of Mexican culture and society.--Eric Zolov, author of The Last Good Neighbor: Mexico in the Global Sixties A magnificent, much-needed analysis of Mexico's Catholic youth movements during the tumultuous Sixties and their relationship to Catholic transnational mobilizations and to the wider Mexican Left.--Mary Kay Vaughan, Professor Emerita of History, University of Maryland, College Park Pensado's book is a brilliant historical palimpsest. Where once well-engraved stories of secular youth rebellion had been deeply etched in conventional memory, Pensado has recast the era as one crafted also by progressive journalists, university students, intellectuals, and filmmakers--all Catholic--who left indelible marks on Mexico in the Global Sixties. With an expansive border-crossing vision and a creative eye, Pensado defies anyone to make the now outdated claim that Mexico's counterculture was not equal parts Catholic in its making.--Stephen J. C. Andes, author of The Mysterious Sofía: One Woman's Mission to Save Catholicism in Twentieth-Century Mexico Vivid, incisive, and innovative, Love and Despair reinterprets the Sixties in Mexico. Through an astute analysis of film, oral interviews, and textual material, Pensado opens a window into the lives, fears, views, and hopes of a wide cast of Mexican Catholics as they confronted and interpreted the startling cultural and moral changes of their times.--Julia G. Young, author of Mexican Exodus: Emigrants, Exiles, and Refugees of the Cristero War