Power of Popular Piety

A Critical Examination

Ambrose Mong

• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781532656453
• Topic: Teologia e religione
• Subtopic: Teologia cristiana

This book examinesthe ambivalence of folk Catholicism as a resource to fight against injustice, exploitation, and oppression. Cases are cited to illuminate the value and potential trespasses of popular religious beliefs and practices. Over centuries, representatives of the powerful middle and upper middle classes did not hesitate to manipulate popular piety to protect their power and privileges. In fact, much of popular religion still reflects the dominant ideology.Popular piety has the potential for liberation against unjust social and economic structures. When properly guided, this practice can broaden and deepen political consciousness and mobilize people to act. Without a strong level of political consciousness as well as liberative evangelization, popular religion will be alienating to the poor while strengthening the status quo of the rich and the powerful. This study argues that it will be the elites, the well-educated and committed Christians, not the masses, who would foster the transformation of society.

Chapter 1

Popular Piety

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

—Heb 11:1

Strengthening one’s faith through public acts of devotion creates hope not just for the afterlife, but also for the immediate benefits on Earth. It transforms one’s personal life, which in turn leads to a conscious demand for change in the community where one lives. Among the poor and the disadvantaged, with hope comes courage and conviction to advance in their struggle against social injustice, material exploitation, and political oppression. Therefore popular piety can trigger political consciousness and mobilize action among the populace. Without this consciousness and liberative evangelization, popular religion may end up alienating the poor as well as deepening the status quo of the rich and the powerful.

This chapter discusses the positive and negative aspects of popular piety in the context of Latin America, demonstrating the connection between the practice of popular piety and the theology of liberation as espoused by Gustavo Gutiérrez. Purifying and renewing Catholicism through conscientization and liberative evangelization is an important countermeasure to minimize the negative impact of popular religion. In other words, the power of the gospel to transform people and society must be emphasized, especially since devotional practices are popular among the poor and marginalized. Being poor and having faith are potentialities that can motivate them to act, to fight for a more equitable society.

Defining Popular Piety

It is not possible to provide a precise definition of popular piety, which is seen as a chimera by scholars with different persuasions. At the same time, popular piety does not exist in the abstract. It is found in the concrete attitudes, beliefs, and practices of people in specific cultural and national contexts. Even within a country, there are differences. For example, in the Philippines, popular religion in Bicol province is different from those in Manila and Cebu. A description of popular religion should take into account historical, sociocultural, and political-economic factors. Religious practices are characterized as a people’s way of “crying and remembering and aspiring,” as in the words of Harvey Cox.1 Popular piety represents the faith of the people “least integrated into the premises of modern society.” However for someone like the Marxist Italian philosopher Antonio Gramsci, popular religion is essentially superstitious belief or folklore.

As mentioned earlier, I use the terms popular piety, popular religion, and popular religiosity interchangeably, and all within the Catholic context.

Popular piety in the Catholic context is defined as the form of Christianity in which devotional practices such as praying the rosary, going on pilgrimages, and venerating the Virgin Mary and the saints, occupy a central position, while the sacramental life is relegated to the periphery.

Popular religion in Latin America is syncretic, a mixture of two religious legacies—pre-Christian indigenous religious beliefs and imported Iberian Catholicism. Leonardo Boff holds that “Catholicity as the synonym of universality is only possible and attainable through the process of syncretism from which catholicity itself results.2” Thus, according to Boff, the poor and marginalized, those who live their faith together with other religious expressions and understand Catholicism as a living reality, are open to changes from other elements. They view syncretism as a normal, natural process. On the contrary, for those who reside in the privileged position in the Catholic institution, syncretism is a threat that must be avoided at all cost.

Characterized by economic, social, and cultural marginality, popular piety is often associated with underdevelopment and backwardness. To the Church, popular religiosity is sometimes considered a deviant form of Christianity that is cut off from its official liturgy. At the Medellín Conference (1968), however, the bishops generally agreed that there is no real break, but rather a continuum between popular religion and official Catholicism, differentiated only by a matter of degree. The people thus need to be catechized properly so that they are able to see the coexistence and harmony of popular piety and the official Church liturgy.

Positive and Negative Aspects

Perhaps it is easier to understand popular piety by underscoring its strengths and weaknesses rather than trying to define it. The Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy considers popular piety as a “true treasure of the people of God” because it manifests a real thirst for God, his presence and mercy. It develops “Christian resignation in the face of irremediable situations” (Directory 61),3 and helps the faithful to bear suffering patiently, to have a measure of detachment from material things, and to be in solidarity with others.

In its authentic forms, popular piety allows the gospel to express local cultural forms and values, with the message of salvation and the freedom that Christ won for us, which includes liberation from oppressions and exploitations. When there is a lack of pastoral care, popular piety can be a means to preserve the faith and promote fidelity to the message of Christ. It is the starting point to deepen our faith and bring it to maturity, a defense point to inspire evangelization and safeguard our faith from sectarian views.

The Church document Evangelii Nuntiandi presents a positive view of popular religion: “It manifests a thirst for God which only the simple and poor can know. It makes people capable of generosity and sacrifice even to the point of heroism, when it is a question of manifesting belief.”4 Influenced by this document, the Third Latin American Conference in Puebla, Mexico (January 1979) focused on the evangelization of culture in a vital way. They took the human person as the starting point to discuss the relationships between people among themselves and with God.

At Puebla, culture is defined as “the specific way in which human beings belonging to a given people cultivate their relationship with nature, with each other, and with God in order to arrive at an authentic and full humanity” (PD 386).5 Evangelization here means conversion through the people’s core values, which will in turn form a basis for the transformation of society. Such core values are related to how people affirm or reject God, which influence the way they understand the ultimate meaning of life. According to the Puebla document, evangelization is to take into account the whole human being.

Following this attitude, the Puebla Conference highlights the positive contributions of popular piety without dismissing its adverse effects. The Puebla Document regards popular piety as people’s Catholicism that comprises “the whole complex of underlying beliefs rooted in God, the basic attitudes that flow from these beliefs, and the expressions that manifest them” (PD 444). Popular religion has thus left a profound influence on Latin American cultural identity. This people’s religion is lived out in “a preferential way of the poor and simple” (PD 447). The religiosity of the people, the document asserts, is “a storehouse of values that offers the answers of Christian wisdom to the great questions of life” (PD 448). This Catholic wisdom of the people develops a vital synthesis, combining the divine and human, the spirit and bo...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Foreword
• Preface and Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: Popular Piety
• Chapter 2: Our Lady of Guadalupe
• Chapter 3: Pinoy Piety
• Chapter 4: Accommodation and Inculturation
• Chapter 5: Superstition and Piety
• Chapter 6: Our Lady of Medjugorje
• Chapter 7: Sacred Heart and Divine Mercy
• Epilogue
• Bibliography