Latino Catholicism

A religion that has adopted values and morals from a much larger movement known as Public Protestantism, Catholicism has evolved since the English immigrants first settled into the Americas. Leaning away from the mainstream Catholic ideals, my mother has strayed from traditional aspects of Catholicism because of the culture and ethnicity that has played into the religiosity that my mother follows, which can be said about the American population in general. As a nation that prides itself on its religious diversity, Latino Catholicism was created through the combination of these religious beliefs and because of this both illustrates the common themes of American religion, and shapes my mother's Latino Catholicism.

Protestantism has become a civil religion and much like the rest of the organized religions that exist in the United States, Catholicism has molded itself in ways to fit societal views of religion. One way that can be seen is how much like the Protestants, “Catholics have adopted a leaner and simpler version of the Mass.” [1] As a Catholic, my mother does no different. Every Sunday morning she goes to church to attend her weekly Mass. In regards to revivalism, a common American theme, referred to as the Protestant cultus, “salvation hung on the sense of emotional liberation and peace that believers attributed to the grace of God.”[2] As Catholicism challenges these idea of salvation achieved through faith, my mother's beliefs seem to align to those of the Protestants rather than her own Catholic view. This proves itself to be one of the complexities, where even though the Prostestant views and the Catholic views misaligned with each other, my mother's beliefs match those of the Protestants. Another common theme of American religion is voluntaryism, which Albanese defines as the “basic importance of the Bible, the use of Sunday schools to spread Christian teachings, the advantages of pamphlet literature about shared Christian ideas and plans for missionary effort.”[3] Catholicism and Protestant share the ideas when it comes to this theme.

It is denominationalism and combination that has led for the creation of Latino Catholicism. In “The Symbolic Realism of US Latino/a Popular Catholicism,” Roberto S. Goizueta constructs the idea that “the religious practices of Latino/a Catholics represent the enduring 'subversive' presence of a religious worldview quite different from that of most modern (postmodern) Western Catholics.”[4] This explains why some of my mother's beliefs are not the same as the rest of the Catholic beliefs. My mother's religiosity leans toward curanderismo, which is the combination of “the combination of Catholicism, spiritism, and herbalism in the healing work.”[5] She denies the existence of mental illnesses and uses herbs to cure the physical illnesses. The curanderismo has flourished within the Mexican culture which also has an emphasis on the Virgin of Guadalupe. My mother prays to God as much as she prays to the Virgin of Guadalupe. “The symbolic power of the Guadalupana has been well-documented from the time of her miraculous appearance to the present.”[6] Denominationalism has led for the Latino Catholics to have emphasizes that do not parallel to the rest of the Catholic community and challenges the Catholic ideas because they have formed their own denomination. The different worldview that my mother has, in regards to the curanderismo and the Virgin of Guadalupe, is due to the combination that has occurred among Roman Catholics.

Common themes that have occurred in the United States have allowed for the shaping of different religions. Roman Catholicism has been revolutionized, yet there is a pattern that can be seen in other religions as well and has also led to the creation of my mother's Latino Catholic practices and beliefs.

1Catherine Albanese, ed., America: Religions and Religion (Wadsworth: Cengage Learning, 2013), 276.

2Albanese, 280.

3Albanese, 278.

4Roberto S. Goizueta. 2004. “The symbolic realism of U.S. Latino/a popular Catholicism.” Theological Studies 65, no. 2: 255-274. ATLA Religion Database, EBSCOhost (accessed September 8, 2013).

5Albanese, 75.

6Mary O'Connor. “The Virgin of Guadalupe and the economics of symbolic behavior.” Journal For The Scientific Study of Religion 28, no 2 (June 1, 1989): 105-119. ATLA Religion Database, EBSCOhost (accessed September 8, 2013).