Timothy Matovina

Gary Riebe-Estrella

Horizons of the Sacred explores the distinctive worldview underlying the faith and lived religion of Catholics of Mexican descent living in the United States. Religious practices, including devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe, celebration of the Day of the Dead, the healing tradition of curanderismo, and Good Friday devotions such as the Way of the Cross (Via Crucis), reflect the increasing influence of Mexican traditions in U.S. Catholicism, especially since Mexicans and Mexican Americans are a growing group in most Roman Catholic congregations. In their introduction, Timothy Matovina and Gary Riebe-Estrella analyze the ways Mexican rituals and beliefs pose significant challenges and opportunities for Catholicism in the United States. Original essays by theologians, historians, and ethnographers provide a rich interdisciplinary dialogue on how religious traditions function for Mexican American Catholics, revealing the symbolic world at the heart of their spirituality. The authors speak to the diverse meanings behind these ceremonies, explaining that Mexican American (and other Latino) Catholics use them to express not only religious devotion, but also ethnic identity and patriotism, solidarity, and, in some cases, their condition as exiles. The result is a multilayered vision of Mexican American religion, which touches as well on issues of racism and discrimination, poverty, and the role of women.

Mexican Traditions in U.S. Catholicism

Horizons of the Sacred

Kathleen Sprows Cummings

Robert A. Orsi

Debates about the meaning of Vatican II and its role in modern Catholic and global history have largely focused on close theological study of its authoritative documents. This volume of newly commissioned essays contends that the historical significance of the council is best examined where these messages encountered the particular circumstances of the modern world: in local dioceses around the world. Each author examines the social, political, and domestic circumstances of a diocese, asking how they produced a distinctive lived experience of the Council and its aftermath. How did the Council change relationships and institutions? What was it like for laymen and women, for clergy, for nuns, for powerful first-world dioceses and for those in what we now know as the global south? A comparative reading of these chapters affords insights into these dimensions of Vatican II, and will spark a new generation of research into the history of 20th century Catholicism as both international and local.

Local Histories of a Global Event

Catholics in the Vatican II Era

Discusses the growing population of Hispanic-Americans worshipping in the Catholic Church in the United States.

Transformation in America's Largest Church

Latino Catholicism

Virgilio Elizondo

San Fernando Cathedral is the inspiring story of how a church built nearly two and a half centuries ago remains a wellspring of life an renewal today. Know for its public rituals that attract thousands to down town San Antonio - particularly during Holy Week and the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe - San Fernando Cathedral nurtures and nourishes a diverse and dynamic population; it is indeed the soul of the city.

Soul of the City

San Fernando Cathedral

"Theologies of Guadalupe examines theological writings about Mexico's most renowned religious tradition from the colonial era to the present. It also explores how the Guadalupe cult rose above all others in colonial Mexico and emerged from a local devotion to become a regional, national, and then international phenomenon"--

Timothy Matovina

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