Catholicism absorbing Latino
culture
December 29, 2006
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TUCSON -- The New York Times magazine last
Sunday suggested that American Catholicism is being ''Hispanicized.'' As
usual, when the subject is the Catholic Church, the "good, gray" Times is
tone-deaf. The Irish Catholic model of Catholicism, which sometimes for weal and sometimes for woe has shaped the American church, is adjusting to a new and powerful model. Catholicism always tries to do that, because it is a pluralistic church that believes, in principle anyway, that Catholic means, as your man Jimmy Joyce put it, "here comes everyone." The outcome will be neither Mexican nor "Anglo" (which is what they call us Celts out here in the desert), but a combination of both. |
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The popular religion
of Mexico is a rich rain forest of devotions, saints, customs, celebrations
and theological insights, such as "God is part of our family and when we
celebrate as a family God comes and celebrates with us." At the center of it
is the figure of Our Lady of Guadalupe, once perhaps a pagan goddess, but
now unquestionably the patron of the Mexican peon. I tell students that if
they want to understand what Catholicism was like before the Reformation and
the Counter-Reformation, they should look at Mexican popular Catholicism and
read the plays of Shakespeare. The "religion of the border" (as my colleague
James "Big Jim" Griffith calls it) does not need, for example, the approval
of the Congregation for the Making of Saints to proclaim their saints --
just as Catholics did for a thousand years. The project as Latino Catholicism and North American Catholicism absorb one another is to retrieve some of the fervor and enthusiasm and energy and, yes, the freedom of Christians before the Council of Trent. From the fall of Rome to the beginning of the 16th century, Christianity was more of a religious culture than a formal church. It was a mix of stories, songs, art, deep faith, angels and saints, the Madonna, festivals, celebrations and local devotions and customs -- many of which might be thought today to be superstitious. |
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In the later Middle Ages a demand emerged for
''reform,'' which meant organizing, regularizing and purifying this
religious "blooming, buzzing" culture. There was a Catholic ''reform'' in
England, for example, well before Henry VIII. However, the Protestant
Reformation and the Catholic Counter-Reformation both strove to impose
discipline, order and orthodoxy on a recalcitrant peasant population. The
Council of Trent at the end of the 16th century made a vigorous and
systematic attempt, not always successful, to transform popular religious
culture into a church. Trent was an utterly necessary turning point in
Catholic history. However, the Conquistadors left Spain before the Council. Despite efforts of the Jesuit and Franciscan missionaries, Trent had little impact on Hispanic America. The church in the United States is mostly the post-Trent church; the church in Latino America is mostly a pre-Trent church. Despite what many church leaders try to persuade themselves, Vatican Council II was as dramatic a turning point in Catholic history as was Trent. Among its many achievements was the creation of a greater openness. Trent was not repealed but adjusted to be more tolerant of diversity. Hence, efforts of many parish priests to absorb the best of Mexican-American religion into American Catholicism are not attempts to return to the religious chaos of the Middle Ages. They are rather efforts to retrieve and integrate into American Catholicism all that is good and true and beautiful in Latino Catholicism, especially its joy, its love of celebration, its delight in festival. As I tell Latino students, rules are necessary, but celebration and joy are more important -- even for us Celts. Our ancestors in the Middle Ages had one thing right: Jesus preached good news, which demands celebration. .
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