Popular Religiosity Research Articles

Laïcité et religiosité populaire dans un contexte populiste

La perception sociale sur la laïcité a connu des mutations importantes au Mexique, même si sur le plan juridique les normes restent inchangées. Les acteurs sociaux ne sont plus les mêmes qu’il y a deux décennies. Le paysage religieux a changé. De même, le régime politique a subi des changements substantiels, modifiant le type de relations des institutions religieuses avec l’autorité politique et des fidèles avec leurs propres institutions religieuses. L’arrivée du populisme a substantiellement modifié les relations des gouvernements avec les groupes religieux, mais plus encore avec les croyant.e.s qui sont de plus en plus nombreux à ne pas souscrire systématiquement aux diktats doctrinaux de leurs Églises d’appartenance. La religiosité populaire étant l’expression la plus importante de la majorité des croyant.e.s, c’est dans ce cadre politico-religieux que s’inscrivent les principales questions qu’abordera ce texte.

A ‘Thirst for Torment’ vs Suffering ‘for Righteousness’: The Polemics of Old Believer Sacrifice at the Turn of the Era

This article describes Old Believer polemics about sacrifice via self-immolation and other forms of ‘self-inflicted death’ between the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. The main object of condemnation by the Russian state and church authorities was the Old Believer system of sacralising one’s own sufferings (the creation and distribution of related narratives, appeals to popular religiosity, and the veneration of new martyrs). The author examines Old Believer writings and decrees, admonitions, and texts created by the authorities as parts of one discursive field and concludes that rational methods for combating Old Believer martyrs were consolidated in the Petrine era at the conceptual level in order to preserve the taxable population. Feofan (Prokopovich) offered the most original explanation for the widespread Old Believer veneration of new martyrs by interpreting it as bliss at being ‘persecuted for righteousness’ (1722): this interpretation was the basis for his admonition On the Invalidity of Unauthorised Suffering. The active disciplinary intervention of the authorities in the sacrificial discourse and the misinterpretation of self-sacrifice that spread among the Old Believers led their leaders to speak of piety as an indispensable condition for salvation. The desire of various participants in the discourse to speak on this topic generated, if not to a specific “language”, then a whole set of experiences embodied in genetically different rhetoric.

La ermita de San Sebastián de Moguer

This paper analyzes the origins and historical, architectural and heritage evolution of the hermitage of San Sebasti?n (Moguer). We are facing one of the oldest specimens of Andalusia, built due to the links of the town with the American commerce and for the cult of the image of San Sebasti?n that is widespread in the provinces of Huelva and Seville during the following centuries. The study allows us to understand the political, economic and social changes of Moguer, originated by the different events that took place in this municipality: American bonding, Lisbon earthquake, French invasion, Civil War, etc. In the same way, the evolution of the thaumaturgical origins of the building to the reforms, adaptations, conservation and maintenance of the factory from the 17th century onwards with the attachment of the society to popular religiosity: the image of Jesus Nazarene.

True Harmony Between Liturgy and Popular Piety: Expressing The Thomasian Faith in The Sabuaga Festival

True Harmony Between Liturgy and Popular Piety: Expressing The Thomasian Faith in The Sabuaga Festival

Popular-Indigenous Catholicism in Southern Mexico

This paper examines popular indigenous religiosity in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca in the 1990s, in the context of a “progressive” pastoral program formed within the campaign of the New Evangelization, and attuned to the region’s large indigenous population. Based on ethnographic research in an urban Oaxacan context, I offer an account of the popular Catholic ritualization of death which highlights its independence, and sensuous, material, collective orientation. I approach popular Catholicism as a field of potential tension, hybridity, and indeterminacy, encompassing the discourses and teachings of the Catholic Church in continuous interaction with people’s own sacred imaginaries and domestic devotional practices.

Os elementos "insatisfatórios"da religiosidade popular: notas parciais a partir de José Comblin, anos 60

O teólogo católico José Comblin, na sua vasta produção intelectual, dispõe de algumas reflexões a respeito do catolicismo e suas tipologias. Em alguns momentos dos seus escritos, tratou do catolicismo enquanto uma religiosidade popular cuja integridade à mensagem cristã não era satisfatória. Nesse sentido, é que o presente texto pretende apresentar alguns dos elementos que sustentam essa argumentação feita por Comblin acerca da religiosidade popular. Isso será feito a partir da releitura de dois trabalhos desse teólogo: do livro Os sinais dos tempos e a evangelização; e do artigo Para uma tipologia do catolicismo no Brasil, ambos publicados em 1968. Por fim, as reflexões encontradas favorecem o entendimento que, para alguns clérigos da Igreja, mesmo aqueles alinhados à vertente progressista, é difícil avançar em direção a novas formas e perspectivas no catolicismo.

Jeremy Bentham on Organised Religion

Bentham’s attack on organised religion was principally an attack on the ‘Church-of-Englandist’ ruling few, and, in particular, the ecclesiastical establishment. This article will examine Bentham’s argument that the ecclesiastical establishment fostered and exploited religious belief, as well as the hopes and fears associated with popular religiosity, in the pursuit of ‘sinister interest’. Bentham recognised a senior clergy that extorted enormous sums of money from the population, instituted a fraudulent education system that subjugated the children committed to its charge, and took advantage of the corrupt alliance of Church and state in order to advance and protect its worldly power and riches. This article will discuss Bentham’s proposals to sweep away the mischiefs done by organised religion, both to morality and to good government, and will argue that Bentham’s hostility towards the ecclesiastical establishment did not prevent him from recommending that priests be stripped of their power, place and exorbitant wealth as gradually and as painlessly as possible. It will also explain why Bentham thought that liberating religious belief from the coercive control of a self-serving class of men would be more conducive to personal happiness than prohibiting religion altogether.

Entre rezos, festejos y disputas por un santo esqueleto

Este es un estudio religioso que versa sobre la religiosidad popular que se da en torno al culto a San Pascual Bailón en Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Chiapas, México. La particularidad de este santo radica en que su representación es un esqueleto de madera ataviado con una túnica franciscana que permanece en un carretón-ataúd, el cual es venerado por miles de personas en diversas latitudes del Estado. En ese sentido, el objetivo del trabajo es describir y analizar cómo a partir de las transformaciones sociorreligiosas contemporáneas en Chiapas, se han modificado diversas prácticas de la Mayordomía y Priostería de Tuxtla que repercuten en el culto a San Pascual Bailón. Para ello, en la investigación se presentan los pormenores del origen del culto a San Pascualito hasta nuestros días. Asimismo, se expone la etnografía de la fiesta patronal, donde se distingue, la forma en que el pueblo vive la devoción a San Pascualito y la manera en la que se conjugan diversas expresiones religiosas.

The Opium of God’s People: Latin American/Hispanic Theology, Popular Religiosity, and the Challenge of Narcotrafficking

The manipulation of popular religiosity by drug trafficking at the epicenter of the world drug market represents a challenge for Latin American theology. How might it reflect on popular religiosity in areas replete with cartels? How might it help popular religiosity to become the fruit of true justice without imposing the judgmental worldview of enlightened elites? This article will attempt to answer both questions over the course of four sections. First, it will describe the history of Latin American revaluations of popular religiosity as a theological starting point. Second, it will demonstrate the conceptualization of popular religion by Latin American and Hispanic scholars and theologians in the United States. Third, it will analyze how drug trafficking permeates popular religiosity in Latin America. Finally, it will propose an appropriate pastoral and theological approach to popular religiosity in areas affected by drug trafficking.

Presentation of the cult of Christian saints in anti-religious museum exhibitions during the era of the “Great Turn”

The article describes the goals, principles and different forms of the presentation of the cult of saints in the exhibitions of anti-religious and local history museums in the context of the ideological and cultural tasks of museum construction in the early 1930s. The issue of the presentation of icons and objects of church worship for anti-religious purposes was extremely acute: on the one hand, it was impossible to create an exposition about religion without exhibiting artifacts related to it, on the other, these artifacts were supposed to expose religion. After the campaign to uncover the “relics”, they were often exhibited in museums for anti-religious purposes, but this demonstration most often had the opposite effect. The article analyzes the materials of the discussion on the possibility of using icons and religious objects in anti-religious exhibitions. The author shows that during the period under study, the contradictions between the “anti-religious”, who considered interest in religious art as “grave aestheticism” that strengthened religion, and representatives of the so-called “culturalism” who tried to preserve and exhibit items of religious culture in museums. Particular attention is paid to studying the search for a “third way” in resolving the existing conflict between the classical principles of exhibiting religious art and the new so-called an “anti-religious” approach, which was based on the comparative study of religions and field anthropological research on popular religiosity. The main principles of this “third way”, focused on the preservation and display of items of religious culture, were the rejection of their pietistic interpretation, attention to formal art analysis, as well as Marxist historical, cultural and sociological analysis.

Misión en cuestión: antropología y evangelización en la Prelatura de Ayaviri (1968-1975)

Una nueva aproximación hacia la religiosidad popular —y su valoración— marcó significativamente la actuación de la Iglesia católica latinoamericana en las décadas posconciliares y dio lugar a un creciente número de investigaciones antropológicas de las subculturas religiosas. No obstante, las reformas de las prácticas evangelizadoras en línea con dichos estudios despertaron poco interés académico. Este artículo analiza la compleja relación entre antropología y misión en la Prelatura de Ayaviri (Puno), que a partir de la Conferencia Episcopal de Medellín (1968) se apoyó en la investigación científico-social para reformular su práctica pastoral. Específicamente, este artículo aclara cómo el renovado compromiso de la prelatura con el «otro», el campesino quechua, no solo contribuyó a la producción de conocimientos sobre el panorama sociorreligioso regional, sino también causó dificultades a una Iglesia cuya naturaleza misionera fue objeto de escrutinio y cambio a principios de los años setenta.

The Three Waves of the Charismatic Renewal in Réunion Island

In Réunion Island, the Charismatic Renewal was introduced in 1974 by the Mauritian nun Marie-Lise Corson. It quickly became extremely successful against the Assemblies of God, a Pentecostal movement which had established itself on the island eight years earlier. And just like this other movement, it drew heavily on the “Creole religious system” in order to foster a seemingly reverse process of “eradicating” popular religiosity. It redefined the traditional system without discrediting it.
 Beginning with the 1980s-1990s, growing religious globalization encouraged new communities originally set up in mainland France or Quebec to come to the island. The life of these outside groups intersected with that of the local assemblies and leaders, winning them over. This second period further corresponded to a normalization of the Renewal which brought its practices back into the Catholic fold.
 A third phase started in the late 1990s and early 2000s with the creation of groups on the fringes of the diocesan Renewal that tended to re-emphasize the attributes of Creole identity and move closer to the neo-Pentecostal movement.
 Thus, the study of the birth and development of the Charismatic Renewal in the French Indian Ocean département brings to light three waves. Drawing on ethnological research, this paper will analyse them by looking at the ways in which this transnational and transdenominational movement has interacted with local religious and cultural practices.

PATRIMÔNIO CULTURAL RELIGIOSO NA CIDADE DE JUAZEIRO DO NORTE – CEARÁ - BRASIL E A TESE DE TOMBAMENTO AFETIVO EM GEOGRAFIA

Interessa-nos apresentar neste artigo a formulação de uma tese envolvendo tombamento afetivo em geografia. A tese está fundamentada no estudo de dois patrimônios religiosos urbanos diferenciados ocupando um mesmo espaço no centro da cidade de Juazeiro do Norte no estado do Ceará. O primeiro trata-se do conjunto patrimonial Praça do Largo do Socorro. O segundo, idealizado como atrativo turístico, foi implantado nesta mesma praça como espaço museal e memorial. A análise destaca particularmente as diferenças conceituais entre estes dois patrimônios e, nos termos desta análise, apresentamos a tese de tombamento afetivo patrimonial. Propomos discutir a tese de que a Praça do Largo do Socorro é tombada por meio da afetividade humana, pois trata-se de um espaço de forte dinâmica simbólica assentada na religiosidade popular a qual se transformou em herança patrimonial através das vivências e das dinâmicas simbólicas envoltas ao religioso.

Mount Ucka and the shrine of our Lady of Trsat : mithology, tourism and popular religiosity in northern Croatia

espanolSe aborda la relacion entre el macizo croata conocido como monte Ucka, la mitologia eslava, el turismo y la religiosidad popular en el norte de Croacia. Para ello, se realizan entrevistas informales y observaciones antropologicas de campo en los contrafuertes y la cumbre del pico Vojak, en el refugio de montana de Poclon, en las aldeas de Veprinac y Volosco; y en el santuario de Trsat, importante lugar de peregrinacion y devocion popular cristiana, situado en una colina cercana al monte Ucka. Ademas, se analiza la construccion simbolica de la montana sagrada y su importancia en el robustecimiento de la identidad croata, teniendo en cuenta la recreacion de la mitologia eslava por medio de su representacion en la folleteria turistica de la Riviera de Opatija. Asimismo, con fines comparativos para la presente investigacion, se ascendio a otras montanas sagradas de Croacia tales como el monte Vidova Gora en la isla de Brac o el macizo de Biokovo en Makarska. El monte Ucka participa en la universalidad del mito de la lucha entre deidades celestes y del inframundo, por mediacion de la figura de Perun, el dios atmosferico eslavo, cuya morada se identifica con uno de los contrafuertes costeros del macizo. Otras entidades mitologicas, tales como las brujas que habitan en los pinaculos carsticos, o el llamado Babbo Natale, remiten al folclore de montana caracteristico de Europa del Este y del oriente del arco alpino. El proceso de cristianizacion de este monte queda reflejado en la toponimia local y en la dispersion de iglesias, santuarios marianos y abadias. La investigacion se completo con un ascenso a la colina de Trsat, para documentar la actividad de los peregrinos en la iglesia y las ofrendas depositadas en la capilla votiva. El mas antiguo santuario mariano de Croacia se encuentra erigido en una pequena elevacion al otro lado del golfo de Kvarner, que ofrece una vista privilegiada hacia el macizo de Ucka y la riviera de Abadia. EnglishThe relationship between the Croatian massif known as Mount Ucka, Slavic mythology, tourism and popularreligiosity in northern Croatia is addressed in this paper. For this, informal interviews and anthropological fieldobservations are carried out on the buttresses and the summit of Vojak Peak, in the Poclon mountain refuge, inthe villages of Veprinac and Volosco; and in the sanctuary of Trsat, an important place of pilgrimage and popularChristian devotion, located on a hill near Mount Ucka. In addition, the symbolic construction of the sacredmountain and its importance in strengthening the Croatian identity are analyzed, taking into account the recreationof Slavic mythology through its representation in the tourist brochures of the Opatija Riviera. Also, for comparativepurposes for the present investigation, other sacred mountains in Croatia such as Mount Vidova Gora on theisland of Brac or the Biokovo massif in Makarska were ascended. Mount Ucka participates in the universalityof the myth of the struggle between celestial deities and the underworld, through the figure of Perun, the Slavicatmospheric god, whose dwelling is identified with one of the coastal buttresses of the massif. Other mythologicalentities, such as the witches who inhabit the karst pinnacles, or the so-called Babbo Natale, refer to the mountainfolklore characteristic of Eastern Europe and the east of the Alpine arch. The process of Christianization of thismountain is reflected in the local toponymy and in the dispersion of churches, Marian sanctuaries and abbeys.The investigation was completed with an ascent to the hill of Trsat, to document the activity of the pilgrims inthe church and the offerings deposited in the votive chapel. The oldest Marian shrine in Croatia is located on asmall elevation on the other side of the Kvarner Gulf, which offers a privileged view of the Ucka massif andthe Abbey riviera.

Karl Gaspar’s Transformative Spirituality: Rediscovering Precolonial Philippine Spirituality and Its Challenges to Contemporary Filipino Pentecostal Spiritualities

Karl Gaspar’s Transformative Spirituality: Rediscovering Precolonial Philippine Spirituality and Its Challenges to Contemporary Filipino Pentecostal Spiritualities

El hilo de la memoria: prácticas teológicas y político-religiosas del catolicismo liberacionista en Argentina

El presente artículo analiza los usos de las teologías en la configuración del catolicismo liberacionista en la Argentina desde la post-dictadura hasta la segunda década del siglo XXI, identificando dos momentos típicos. El artículo comienza con el análisis de los Seminarios de Formación Teológica, núcleo del espacio católico liberacionista de los años 1990. Partiendo de la reivindicación de la figura de los mártires y de una reelaboración teológica de carácter horizontal y participativo, mostraremos cómo este espacio actualiza el legado de la Teología de la Liberación en el marco de la resistencia al neoliberalismo. Presentaremos los puntos de contacto y de diferencia entre la Teología de la Liberación, entendida como corriente intelectual continental, y la Teología del Pueblo, una variante nutrida de las efervescencias político- religiosas de la Argentina. En el segundo momento, a partir del papado de Francisco, se activan nuevas militancias político- religiosas que enfatizan la intersección entre religiosidad popular y organización política de los sectores populares. El ejercicio de memoria aparece como un locus común que anuda distintas etapas históricas de sectores católicos disidentes. En términos metodológicos los hallazgos de ese manuscrito se sustentan en una investigación de cuatro años realizada sobre militancias político- religiosas contemporáneas, a partir de entrevistas en profundidad, observación de eventos y análisis de fuentes secundarias.

Devotions, promises and miracles: How religious beliefs and practices support poor people´s agency in Latin American

ABSTRACT The article addresses Latin American poor people's religious beliefs and practices, analysing particularly three of them: devotion, promise, and miracle. We argue that these three religious features are related to people’s agency and can have impact on personal and community wellbeing. The data that support the analysis come from a case study in Buenos Aires based on two sources: 1. A questionnaire applied to a representative sample of Buenos Aires slum inhabitants. 2. In-depth interviews of women living in poor settlements. The theoretical discussions link the concept of popular religiosity as it is being addressed in Latin America, with approaches that emphasises agency. The main argument is that the bodily, emotional, and relational aspects of religion, framed within a cosmological and holistic cultural matrix, shape poor people’s agency with positive outcomes.

MARIA, DOS ANDORES À MEDICINA CASEIRA: SEU NOME E OS NOMES POPULARES DAS PLANTAS MEDICINAIS

O presente artigo procura construir, a partir da nomenclatura popular das plantas medicinais, uma discussão em torno da identidade devocional mariana do cristianismo de base católica. A abordagem da religiosidade popular presente no território brasileiro mostra que o imaginário religioso compartilhado pelos praticantes do catolicismo é evidenciado nas suas várias formas de reivindicar e/ou invocar a cura das doenças. A pesquisa consiste na análise da nomenclatura presente em livros de fitoterapia, botânica e demais obras que mencionem a medicina caseira. A forma de interligação da saúde com o sagrado é ressignificada a cada sentimento que surge nas tradições do povo. Em nosso entendimento, a fé popular e o seu modo de ser vivenciada pode criar uma linguagem simbólica através do costume do povo de nomear as plantas medicinais com nomes marianos.

«Let's think, think, brothers»: popular religiosity before and after the 1917 revolution (on the example of the Middle Volga Region)

In the article, the authors attempted to consider the urgent problem of the evolution of relationship between the government and the church at the everyday level of the people's faith without a chronological divide in the form of events of the 1917 revolution. Folk faith is a kind of apocrypha, generated by the daily adaptation of various religious teachings by the congregation, with their level of education and cultural development. The congregation within the boundaries of this work refers to the representatives of the simple social classes in the pre-revolutionary period, bourgeois and peasants, and ordinary residents of the Samara region in the Soviet period, that is, the so-called little man. This little man in such a multinational region as the Middle Volga region, was largely embraced, despite the russification and Christianization (Orthodox), by confessional and national traditions. In the late XIX early XX century, before the 1917 revolution, religious persecution in relation to religious dissent manifested itself in such practices of church and secular power as exhortation procedures, seizures of literature, objects of worship, in the rigorism of verbal culture, when offensive connotations were used in clerical work against Old Believers and sectarians. After the 1917 revolution, the period when the construction of ideology was only taking place is of particular interest. And, despite the ideological atheism of the new Soviet regime, despite the struggle against the church and religion, the 1920-ies were a period of some tolerance towards sectarians. This period continued until the 1930-ies, when the Soviet government already clearly led anti-religious and anti-sectarian policies. The study of the popular religiosity of the representatives of the Middle Volga during the period of social upheaval is necessary for the further improvement of religious-state relations and the formation of the spiritual consciousness of citizens, which confirms the scientific relevance of this topic. The purpose of this article is to examine the evolution of the relationship between the government and the church at the everyday level of the people's faith without a chronological divide in the form of events of the 1917 revolution. The results of the work done prove that everyday life, from the perspective of consideration, as is customary in ethnographic methods, from the inside, shows that the picture of the human world cannot change due to a change in the political system instantly. A person can adapt to the new rules of the game, but what we call the people's faith is much deeper, this is how a person behaves alone with himself.

The Local Promotion of Mazu: The Intersection of Lineage, Textual Representation, Confucian Values, and Temples in Late Imperial China

This article explores the role that local elites played in the development of the Mazu cult, a local goddess cult in Putian district in late imperial China. I argue that local elites were central in the promotion and transmission of the cult. Through compiling and writing key Confucian texts featuring Mazu, they reshaped, manipulated, and represented certain aspects of her cult in accordance with their interests. As a result of the activities of local elites, Mazu became associated with the Lin lineage, an influential local lineage. In this manner, Mazu came to be seen as an expression of the lineage’s authority, as well as an imperial protector embodying local loyalty to the state and a daughter who was the paradigm filial piety. In addition to the literary production, local elites, in particular the descendants from the Lin lineage, established an ancestral hall of Lin in the port of Xianliang dedicated to Mazu, further sanctioning divinely the local elites’ authority and privilege in the community. I conclude that the locally promoted version of goddess worship operated at the intersection of state interests, Confucian ideology, the agency of local elites, and the dynamics of popular religiosity.