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The present article approaches the transformation in the studies on Brazilian shrines based on the Catholic invocation of Our Lady of Conception Aparecida by means of a cultural reflection on Latin America's symbolic space. Considering expressive historical, semiotic and institutional aspects to the analysis of the continent's cultural patrimony, this article acknowledges the emergence of an identification network of religious spaces. Culturally-projected Geography favours the articulate interpretation of symbolic vectors, such as festivities, media, and tourism, facilitating both the comparison between other localities, such as municipalities and shrines, in Brazil and Latin America, as well as the theatrical characterization of devotions in the construction of the continent's patrimony. Summarizing the qualitative verifications made along three years of investigation on the strategies of irradiating Marian devotion, this study has assessed the aesthetic strength of religious patrimony as a challenge to the appreciation of Latinity. This study arrives at the conclusion that the greatest risk to cultural religious patrimony lies in the growth of fundamentalist ideologies, which seek to discredit the legitimacy of the Marian tradition along with its cultural and religious syncretism and continental identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]