Mexican Americans and the Catholic Church, 1900-1965 (Notre Dame History of Hispanic Catholics in the U.S.) (v. 1) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0268014280 ISBN 13: 9780268014285

Publisher: University of Notre Dame Press, 1994

Synopsis

With Mexican Americans composing one of the nation’s largest minority groups, this book examines the legacy and future of these communities and the Catholic Church.

Mexican Americans have a long legacy within the Catholic Church. While not always accepted by the Church, these communities developed rich spiritual traditions that are both deeply Catholic and unique to the people that practice them. In Mexican Americans and the Catholic Church, 1900–1965, three historians examine the religious history of the Church, focusing on Mexican American faith communities. Jay P. Dolan and Gilberto Hinojosa consider modern challenges in the context of the history of Mexican American Catholics across the country. Between Americanization and assimilation, alongside the failings and as well as success of the Catholic church in ministering to Mexican Americans, this book is a record of the resilience and devotion of these communities over sixty years.

About this title

About the Authors

Jay P. Dolan is a professor emeritus of history. He was a member of the faculty at the University of Notre Dame for thirty-three years, 1971–2004. He also taught at the University of San Francisco, the University of Chicago, University College, Cork, Ireland, and Boston College. While at Notre Dame, he founded the Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism in 1975 and was the director of the Center until 1993. His most recent work is The Irish Americans: A History (2008).

Gilberto Hinojosa was born and raised in the Rio Grande Valley, attended public schools, and was the first in his family to graduate from college. He received his J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center. Returning to Texas, he became the managing attorney for the Brownsville office of Texas Rural Legal Aid. Governor Ann Richards appointed Gilberto to the Texas Board of Criminal Justice, overseeing the Texas prison and parole system. He has served his fellow Texans as a county, district court, and court of appeals judge in both appointed and elected capacities. Gilberto is currently in private practice in Brownsville. Since 2012, Gilberto has served as the chair of the Texas Democratic Party.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

In the summer of 1992 a woman praying at the shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in San Antonio's Mexican-American West Side noticed that a statue of the Blessed Mother was "weeping." Word spread quickly through the barrio, and soon hundreds began filing past the statue to witness the miracle and to pray. A week or two later, across town in a North Side Anglo-American church, a priest giving a homily on the central role of Christ in the salvation of humanity, a very appropriate theme for that day's feast of Corpus Christi, decried the "weak faith" of those streaming by the statue. For Mexican Americans in the barrio, however, the phenomenon was no less than an incarnational event, a manifestation of God's presence on earth. La Virgen was crying for her people and their community, which was enduring a rash of senseless gang slayings and drive-by shootings. Just a few days before the statue had begun "weeping," a young man had been killed in a public housing project only a few blocks from the church. To most middle-class North Siders, those deaths were merely headlines in the newspapers and the tearful statue a curiosity of Mexicans* of little "true" faith. To Mexicanos, the Blessed Mother's "weeping" was a sign that she shared their pain. Moreover, some of the faithful would claim, her tears were not shed in vain, for in the following weeks the violence slacked off. La Virgen helped them through this crisis, as she had assisted them in the past.

While most Mexican Americans in San Antonio did not flock to venerate the weeping statue, the incident and the North Side priest's reaction to it are poignant reflections of the contradictions in the Mexicano faith experience. The Catholic Church has always played an important role in the Mexican-American faith community. Some of the sacraments and traditional Catholic devotions have contributed significantly to the spiritual lives of many Mexicanos. Bishops, priests, and women religious have served generously, some heroically. But like the priest in the North Side parish, the Church has not always understood the Mexican-American community. Because at times the Church has been overly concerned with doctrine, regulations, institutional goals, it has not responded adequately or equitably to the spiritual and temporal needs of Mexican Americans. Indeed, at times the goals of Church authorities have been in conflict with those of the Mexican-American community.

The incident of the weeping statue also reflects the strength of popular religiosity and the Church's ambivalent attitude. The pastor at the Guadalupe church did not promote the devotion; neither did he discourage it or close down the church. On other occasions, the official Church has nurtured popular beliefs and found a place for them within traditional doctrine and rituals. For their part, Mexican Americans have for ·centuries integrated the supernatural with the joys and tribulations of their worldly society through their belief system. Their faith has been closely linked to institutional religion and is nourished by it, but Mexicano religiosity has also been independent of official structures.

However ambivalent, the relationship between the Church and Mexicanos and their religiosity has given rise to a faith community. Members of this community sometimes formulate a set of beliefs and devise rituals that do not follow the standard Church traditions. El pueblo, the people, also propose their own norms, virtues and sins. Most importantly, they support one another in the faith, irrespective of the Church's sometimes helpful, sometimes hindering role. The mutual support among the people sustains the community through change and adversity.

(excerpted from the Prologue)

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Notre Dame Press
• Publication date: 1994
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0268014280
• ISBN 13: 9780268014285
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 390
• Editor: Dolan Jay P., Hinojosa Gilberto