Publisher Description.

Publisher Description.

Three leading scholars of Latino religious studies team up in this edited collection to present original meditations and reflections on Our Lady of Guadalupe, one of the most prominent religious images of the western hemisphere. Newest in the Celebrating Faith series, this book considers the meaning behind the symbol of Guadalupe. Because of the wide array of contributors, the figure of Guadalupe is examined from a variety of viewpoints: Catholic and Protestant, male and female, scholarly and liturgical. Written in a scholarly, yet spiritual manner, this analysis of Guadalupe recognizes her dual roles of maternal figure and inspiring evangelizer. Contributors discuss the history of Guadalupe and analyze how to carry out her message and teachings in contemporary society. The Treasure of Guadalupe is ideally suited to courses in Latino religious and cultural studies, and adds important contributions to the ongoing dialogue of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Shaken by the ongoing clergy sexual abuse scandal, and challenged from within by social and theological division, Catholics in America are at a crossroads. But is today’s situation unique? And where will Catholicism go from here? With the belief that we understand our present by studying our past, James O’Toole offers a bold and panoramic history of the American Catholic laity. O’Toole tells the story of this ancient church from the perspective of ordinary Americans, the lay believers who have kept their faith despite persecution from without and clergy abuse from within. It is an epic tale, from the first settlements of Catholics in the colonies to the turmoil of the scandal-ridden present, and through the church’s many American incarnations in between. We see Catholics’ complex relationship to Rome and to their own American nation. O’Toole brings to life both the grand sweep of institutional change and the daily practice that sustained believers. The Faithful pays particular attention to the intricacies of prayer and ritual—the ways men and women have found to express their faith as Catholics over the centuries. With an intimate knowledge of the dilemmas and hopes of today’s church, O’Toole presents a new vision and offers a glimpse into the possible future of the church and its parishioners. Moving past the pulpit and into the pews, The Faithful is an unmatched look at the American Catholic laity. Today’s Catholics will find much to educate and inspire them in these pages, and non-Catholics will gain a newfound understanding of their religious brethren.

For Mexican Catholic women in the United States, devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe-La Virgen-is a necessary aspect of their cultural identity. In this masterful ethnography, Mar a Del Socorro Casta eda-Liles considers three generations of Mexican-origin women between the ages of 18 and 82. She examines the Catholic beliefs the women inherited from their mothers and how these beliefs become the template from which they first learn to see themselves as people of faith. She also offers a comprehensive analysis of how Catholicism creates a culture in which Mexican-origin women learn how to be "good girls" in a manner that reduces their agency to rubble. Through the nexus of faith and lived experience, these women develop a type of Mexican Catholic imagination that helps them challenge the sanctification of shame, guilt, and aguante (endurance at all cost). This imagination allows these women to transgress strict notions of what a good Catholic woman should be while retaining life-giving aspects of Catholicism. This transgression is most visible in their relationship to La Virgen, which is a fluid and deeply engaged process of self-awareness in everyday life.

This book samples the rich variety of worship practices in American history to show how worship can be a fruitful subject for historians to study and how past cases can enrich our understanding of worship today. By the Vision of Another World gathers highly regarded historians who usually are not read together because of the widely different subjects on which they typically work. Yet their essays all fit together here as they address how worship, work, and worldview converge and reinforce each other no matter what particular place, era, denomination, or ethnic/racial group is under consideration. The variety of methodologies and voices will appeal to a breadth of critical interests, while the consistently high quality of historical narrative will keep readers engaged.

Every Spanish-speaking country in Latin America and the Caribbean has its own national representation of the Virgin Mary who is credited with helping to spread Christianity. None of these is more prominent than the Virgin of Guadalupe, patroness of Mexico. According to tradition, the Virgin appeared to a man named Juan Diego on the Hill of Tepeyac, just outside Mexico City, four times in 1531. The local bishop doubted his claim until an image of the Virgin appeared on Juan Diego's cloak. That cloak is now among the most popular religious icons in the Americas, and the Virgin of Guadalupe is among the most widely known of Marian apparitions. Our Lady of Guadalupe is also the only Marian apparition tradition in the Americas- and indeed in all of Roman Catholicism- that has since inspired a sustained series of published theological analyses. In Theologies of Guadalupe, Timothy Matovina explores the way theologians have understood Our Lady of Guadalupe and sought to assess and foster her impact on the lives of her devotees since the seventeenth century. He examines core theological topics in the Guadalupe tradition, developed in response to major events in Mexican history: conquest, attempts to Christianize native peoples, society-building, independence, and the demands for justice of marginalized groups. This book tells how, amidst the plentiful miraculous images of Christ, Mary, and the saints that dotted the sacred landscape of colonial New Spain, the Guadalupe cult rose above all others and was transformed from a local devotion into a regional, national, and then international phenomenon. Matovina traces the development of the theologies of Guadalupe from the colonial era to our own time, revealing how Christian ideas imported from Europe developed in dynamic interaction with the new contexts in which they took root.