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Hispanic Theology and Popular Piety: From Interreligious Encounter to a New Ecumenism
| Content Provider | Semantic Scholar |
|---|---|
| Author | Elizondo, Virgilio P. |
| Copyright Year | 2013 |
| Abstract | Welcome to San Antonio, welcome to the Southwest, welcome to the great frontier and crossroads of the two great religious-cultural traditions of the Americas, welcome to one of the most unique borderlands of the planet! You have providentially come to one of the most interesting regions of the world for the subject which this conference addresses: ecumenism, interreligious relations and cultural diversity. For those of us who are Mexican American, interreligious relations have not been an intellectual option nor an ecclesial choice, but a necessity which arose from the deepest level of the life process: the new being which was born out of our corporal relations. From the very beginning, the Catholic Iberians (who themselves were the products of the eight hundred years of Islamic, Jewish, and Christian coexistence in Spain) conquered and mated with the Amerindians of the Nahuatl culture and religion. In so doing, these Nahuatl and European peoples gave birth to a new race, a new culture and a new religion: the Mestizo Latin American Catholic. Later on, U.S. Anglo Protestants along with French, Irish and German Catholics came into our lives and started a new intermingling. As Mexican Americans of the Southwest, we have been twice conquered and three times evangelized, yet never fully welcomed into the fullness of ecclesial life. Perhaps this has providentially prepared us to be the avant garde of the future Church!* The people who evangelized us were concerned about our souls, but seemed to despise our bodies. Generally speaking, the evangelizers have not taken the time to really know us, to ask us our name, or to enter into our collective soul: our religious expressions. Why do I theologize? I suppose out of my love/disgust relationship with my Catholic Church. I grew up in a Mexican American neighborhood here in San Antonio in which the Catholic parish was the center of life. The parish was the only institution in the city where we felt fully at home, fully free to express ourselves in our own language, our singing, our festivities, our worship. Popular devotions were an integral part of life in our home, neighborhood and parish. Our Catholic religion gave me life and a deep sense of belonging and I love it. |
| File Format | PDF HTM / HTML |
| Volume Number | 48 |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | https://ejournals.bc.edu/ojs/index.php/ctsa/article/download/3833/3400 |
| Language | English |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
