In 1995, the Holy See decreed the fragmentation of the diocese of Lleida, and 111 parishes were assigned to the new diocese of Barbastro-Montsó. The decision was perceived as a gesture of Spanish nationalist assertion, aligned with political interests opposed to autonomous Catalonia. It represented a territorial, pastoral, and symbolic loss for the diocese of Lleida, which Catalan and Lleida institutions meekly accepted. This change prompted a demand for the return of the works of art preserved in Lleida, and the case took on a strong political and media charge, becoming a symbolic dispute between two ways of understanding cultural and religious identity. The evolution of the boundaries of the diocese of Lleida is a paradigmatic case of the historical mismatch between political and ecclesiastical borders that has generated controversies not only administrative but also identity-based, cultural, and heritage-related.