The former monastery building and hospital now house the Franz Mayer Museum, but the church still maintains its original function.

Most of its interior decorations are gone, but it is still home to two important images, the Christ of the Seven Veils and the Virgin of the Remedies (also called La Gachupina).

Shortly after the Conquest, Hernán Cortés founded the Archicofradía de la Cruz as an act of gratitude for the successful arrival of the Spanish on the American mainland.

The Brotherhood was named after the Good Friday of 1519, or Day of the True Cross, when Cortés landed in Veracruz .

[2][1] Those who belonged to the organization wore a large red cross on their chest and a crucifix with an image of the Christ of the Seven Veils on two small tablets with the Ten Commandments.

[2] The passage of time, along with damage from sinking subsoil, earthquakes, and flooding in the 16th to 18th century, made the church's reconstruction necessary.

[3] During this construction period in 1768, there was a major earthquake in Mexico City, prompting the use of the church's atrium for a mass funeral for 488 people.

[1] Originally the interior of the church was rich and ostentatious, with Baroque altarpieces made of precious hardwoods and covered in gold leaf.

[3] These facades are covered in tezontle and gray sandstone (cantera) with two elaborately decorated Mexican Baroque or Churrigueresque portals.

[1] The portal on the main facade has two levels, with entrance through a rounded arch flanked by pilasters with inverted, elongated, truncated pyramid shapes called estipites.

This altarpiece is said to contain a splinter of the original cross of Jesus, donated in 1968 by Cardinal Miguel Darío Miranda y Gómez of Mexico and previously authenticated by the Vatican in 1967.

The chapel is adorned with hand-painted tiles with contains scenes from the life of missionary Francisco Xavier done by Miguel Cabrera.

[2] In the apse, in a simple niche, is the Christ of the Seven Veils, done in cornstalk paste in the 16th century, accompanied by images of the Virgin of the Sorrows and John the Baptist.

[2] The remains of Manuel Tolsá, the architect responsible for a number of the city center's iconic buildings, were buried here since he died in 1816.