The Symbolic Realism of U.S. Latino/a Popular Catholicism

[The author argues that Latino/a popular Catholicism in the United States embodies important aspects of a non-modern Catholic worldview that have been obscured, or even lost in modern, rationalist forms of Catholicism. Specifically, U.S. Latino/a popular religious practices reflect an understanding of symbol that is heir to the intrinsically symbolic cosmology of medieval and baroque Christianity. Its pre-Tridentine roots distinguish the Catholicism of Latin American and U.S. Latino/a communities from the post-Reformation Catholicism that initially came to North America. An appreciation of these differences could contribute to a retrieval of “lost” aspects of our common Catholic heritage as well as the development of a more fully “American” Catholicism.]

Scroll to Top