Although there is great variability regarding candidacy for Brotherhood membership, usually novices come from Penitente families and ideally, only those of known background and conviction are chosen to undergo the initiation.

It is also thought that the eldest son of a Penitente father "automatically" joined the Brotherhood at the age of eighteen to honor and obey his parents.

Following Mexican independence from Spain in 1821, Church authorities in Mexico withdrew the Franciscan, Dominican and Jesuit missionaries from its provinces, replacing them with secular priests.

Los Penitentes were perhaps best known for their songs of worship, called alabados, and for their ascetic practices, which included self-flagellation in private ceremonies during Lent, and processions during Holy Week which ended with the reenactment of Christ’s crucifixion on Good Friday.

By this time, membership had declined markedly since the turn of the century, but the Brotherhood continued to perform a modified form of religious rituals and to pursue its commitment to acts of community charity.

Percival Everett’s novel The Body of Martin Aguilera (1997) features Penitente characters and rituals as part of a murder mystery set in northern New Mexico.

In the 1968 Richard Bradford novel Red Sky at Morning, set during World War II, he describes a morada: "...little wooden building with a cross on the roof.