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6 Popular Religion as a Source for Understanding the Church If you ask a Cuban (here or there) what his or her religion is, the majority will respond Catholicism . But if one examines in detail the theological content of their beliefs and ritual practices, one will immediately see that in many cases they are distant from orthodox Catholicism. Jorge and Isabel Castellanos, Cultura Afrocubana The Castellanos’ remarks, while perhaps drawing too rigid a line between orthodox and nonorthodox Catholicism, nonetheless accent the importance of popular religion in the Cuban and Cuban-American ethos. The Castellanos also highlight the ambiguous and often tense relationship Cubans and CubanAmericans share with the institutional Catholic Church. As previous chapters demonstrate, the institutional church has a shaky history in Cuba. Various historical factors contributed to this: a shortage of clergy (especially in rural areas ), the clergy’s inattentiveness to the slave community, and its support of the Spanish during the Cuban wars of independence. These factors, among others, produced a Cuban population that was Catholic in faith and practice, yet without strong institutional ties. In Cuba, Castro’s revolution only added to the marginalization of the Roman Catholic Church. In contrast, the Catholic Church in the United States, especially in the Miami area, implemented various programs in order to aid arriving refugees and strengthen Cubans’ ties with the church. Thus, we find a Cuban-American population that is much more “churched” than the population on the island. What unites the two, however, is the primacy of popular religion as the privileged form of religious expression. These historical and sociological factors contribute to the shaping of a Cuban-American ecclesiology. While ecclesiology cannot be reduced to these disciplines, a theological understanding of the church must be informed by the historical and contemporary situation of the institution that it strives to represent and be in continuity with historical theological understandings of this institution. While ecclesiology implies a homogenous reality, the church in fact contains multiple local ecclesiologies that are shaped by contact and culture . These ecclesiologies, however, must always be viewed in light of the global, Popular Religion as a Source for Understanding the Church / 103 universal church. Similarly, the local church and its particular expression of the Christian faith can inform visions of the broader Catholic Church. This chapter explores a Cuban-American ecclesiology informed by the faith expressions of this particular community. Due to the historical and contemporary faith life of Cubans and Cuban-Americans, the foundation of this ecclesiology is popular religion. Popular religion is the most authentic avenue by which to enter into the Cuban-American church, for it is the everyday faith of the people that is the foundation of their relationship with the divine. In addition, the realm of popular religiosity is yet another site where one finds the AfroCuban foundation of Cuban/Cuban-American faith and culture. This chapter is divided in three sections. The first explores the primacy and theological function of popular religion within Latino/a theology. Latino/a theologians’ emphasis on popular religion is considered one of their greatest theological contributions , and no other theological discourse to date has explored this theological locus at length. Second, I examine Cuban and Cuban-American popular religious practices, emphasizing two particular expressions: devotion to Our Lady of Charity and to “Saint” Lazarus. These expressions demonstrate the centrality of popular religion to Cuban/Cuban-American spirituality and of Afro-Cuban religiosity within Cuban/Cuban-American popular religion. Finally, I turn to the key features of a Cuban-American ecclesiology, especially its contribution to the broader church. Difficult to define, popular religion is often described by theologians. CubanAmerican theologian Alejandro García-Rivera defines as the various attributes of popular religion that it constitutes local traditions; meets family needs; is of the masses; is associated with feast days; involves sacred places; and can involve the dead.1 García-Rivera thus emphasizes the contextual and everyday function of popular religious practices. Into her definition of popular religious practice, sociologist Ana María Díaz-Stevens introduces the concept of power as a distinguishing feature: “In other words, the religion of the upper classes and the erudite is no less popular than those of the lower classes. What is behind the distinction between ‘popular’ (as belonging to the populace) and ‘official’ (as related to the institution and the elite) is a power relationship that the religious expression of the upper classes possesses and is lacking to that of the poor.”2 Drawing from...

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