Latin America and the Caribbean

Abstract

This chapter presents the process of the Christian theological inculturation of Christmas in Latin America and the Caribbean: the celebration of the birth of Christ—of God Incarnate. To this end, selected Catholic Christmas celebrations are examined, including the liturgy of the Mass and extra-liturgical observances such as dance, that manifest the influence of three distinct cultural traditions: European—principally Spanish and Portuguese—as well as the diverse and complex Indigenous and African expressions. These observances are first contextualized with the earliest instances of the celebration of the Christmas Mass and season in the so-called New World. Discernible components in Christmas festivities are then presented to demonstrate the presence of cultural blending and the pervasiveness of cultural accommodations. This chapter highlights the diversity of the inculturated celebrations of Christmas and the feast’s liturgical manifestations, and contends that these differences are rooted in the fact that enslaved Africans came from different regions of their continent, and that the Indigenous reflected a wide range of pre-contact American hemispheric populations. Indeed, a tremendous religio-cultural-linguistic compression resulted as various groups encountered and appropriated Christianity and its celebrations in distinctive ways. This study concludes by considering the impact of globalization, pluralization, secularization, and commercialization in Latin America and the Caribbean on the celebration of Christmas—an observance of the eternal and unchanging divine message of the Incarnation that continues to capture the imagination of many in this part of the globe, as they participate in traditional expressions of the theological meaning of the birth of Jesus Christ.