On January 11, 1923, Archbishop José Mora y del Río laid the foundation stone of a national monument to Christ the King on the Cerro del Cubilete in Guanajuato — the peak taken by Mexican tradition as the geographic center of the country. The dedication was one of the acts that provoked the Calles Law (1926) and the outbreak of the Cristero War.
On January 30, 1928, federal aircraft of the Calles government under General Amaro dropped bombs on the small chapel and the modest bronze monument that had by then been erected. The chapel was flattened; the bronze statue was blown off its pedestal, its crown pierced by shrapnel. The crown of Christ the King, recovered and preserved by the local faithful, was carried at the head of Cristero processions during the war and is now displayed at the sanctuary museum.
After the modus vivendi of 1929 the site was again permitted to receive pilgrimages. On October 30, 1944, Archbishop Emeterio Valverde y Téllez laid the foundation of the present colossal statue — the twenty-meter bronze Christ the King by Nicolás Mariscal Barroso — completed on the same peak in 1950 and dedicated on October 11 of that year. It remains one of the principal Mexican pilgrim destinations.