Reviewed by: Power from the Margins: The Emergence of the Latino in the Church and in Society by Bishop Ricardo Ramirez, CSB Phillip Berryman Power from the Margins: The Emergence of the Latino in the Church and in Society. By Bishop Ricardo Ramirez, CSB. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2016. 224pp. $24.00. Into this collection of essays the retired bishop of Las Cruces, New Mexico, distills a lifetime of pastoral experience. Each chapter follows a pattern: a personal experience, typically in his family, pastoral experience around a particular issue, and reflections on current challenges. Topics covered include family, passing on the faith, education, youth, social and political involvement, immigration, popular religion, worship, and Pope Francis (with whom he has more than a little in common). Ramirez frequently invokes examples from his upbringing in Bay City, Texas, on the Gulf Coast not far from Galveston, which included segregation: Latinos could use the pool only on Friday, the day before it was emptied and refilled; the Catholic church for Latinos was an abandoned railway car; in high school he couldn’t do a term paper on Mexican immigrants because there was no material available for research. After college he joined the Basilian Fathers, whom he had known since childhood. He spent ten years in Mexico as both a seminarian and then a priest, working with the poor. In the late 1970s he was on the staff at MACC (Mexican American Cultural Center) and then was made its director. The formative influences to which he returns are his family, the Basilians, his years in Mexico, and MACC. Although he mentions examples from Las Cruces, he speaks more as a pastor than a church authority. In his view, Las Cruces is a “marginal” place, far from the centers of power. Ramirez good-naturedly notes that he has been told very seriously of the proper way to eat: with a fork (United States), a tortilla (Mexico), a banana leaf (Philippines), and chopsticks (China). Like eating, culture varies from place to place, and pastors must be attuned to local culture. In various cases, Ramirez expands his personal experience with studies done by academics or policy specialists. He also cites examples of [End Page 87] Catholic initiatives, such as the Cristo Rey Schools and the work of Jesuit Greg Boyle in Los Angeles. Ramirez’s views are tempered with realism: he frequently stresses the importance of family, while early on he notes that his own parents divorced and that he was raised largely by his grandparents. Ramirez readily admits problems: the declining rates of church participation by Catholics, including Latinos. He is quite aware of differences among Latinos, e.g., between immigrants and the “second generation,” those who say “No soy de aquí ni de allá”—I’m neither from here nor there. The bishop describes an all-day annual pilgrimage to the top of a mountain outside Las Cruces, in honor of Our Lady of Guadalupe, which also includes the Eucharist. Thus he sees popular devotion and the liturgy to be complementary, not at odds. His examples are largely from the southwest, immigrants from Mexico and their descendants, or as in New Mexico, the descendants of those who settled a century before the English colonists in what became the United States. He only occasionally mentions Puerto Ricans, Cuban-Americans, or Central or South Americans. Only in passing does Ramirez note those who have found Christ in evangelical or Pentecostal churches, perhaps because like many Catholic bishops he has not yet accepted the legitimacy and reality of religious pluralism in Latin America and among Latinos. This book is short, and modestly written. Its strength, simple, clear writing in short essays, is also its limitation, since Ramirez cannot pursue any topic in depth. It could serve as supplemental reading on Latino Catholicism in pastoral theology or in Catholic studies courses, especially for students who have no direct contact with Latino Catholics. Phillip Berryman Philadelphia, PA Copyright © 2017 American Catholic Historical Society
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Jan 1, 2018
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