From the Editor – November 2011

From the Editor – November 2011

From June 5-8, 2011, at its Annual Colloquium and General Meeting in San José, California, the Academy of Catholic Hispanic Theologians of the United States focused on the theme, “Pan de Vida: Eucharistic Liturgy, Piety, and Justice. The Colloquium Announcement explained, it was “time to go to the corazón of our Catholic faith and worship, the Eucharist, and draw from it pan de vida y bebida de salvación not just for us but for our communities. In a relaxed atmosphere of reflection and convivencia we invite[d] Jesus to stay with us and in us as we look[ed] at his Eucharistic presence and challenge in the official liturgy of the Church, our people’s devotion, and the Church’s social doctrine. In the articles we now present in the Journal of Hispanic / Latino Theology, we share with a broader public some of the spirit of that Colloquium. These articles, originally presented at the Colloquium in preliminary form, subsequently revised in the light of discussions around the table, and then peer-reviewed, offer insightful reflections on the convergence and intersections that are named in the Colloquium theme. These essays offer not just liturgical theology considered apart from real worshipping communities, not a consideration of devotional piety alone, but a matter of both considered in richly nuanced terms in the light of the call to justice that is at the very heart of the Gospel.

We begin by presenting “Bebida de Salvación: Spirituality Studies and Latina/o Theology,” by Professor Gilberto Cavazos-González, OFM of the Catholic Theological Union. Professor Cavazos-González, whose recent publications include Greater Than a Mother's Love: The Spirituality of Francis and Clare of Assisi (Scranton: University of Scranton Press, 2010). In this contribution, which is an edited and revised version of his ACHTUS Presidential Address, he insists, “I am NOT a theologian of spirituality, Yo soy un spiritualogian, y Latino on top of that,” Insisting that the study of spirituality should claim a place at the heart of Latino/a theology, he points to the socio-spiritual method as an important point of specific contact. Next we present an essay by Professor Natalia Imperatori Lee of Manhattan College, entitled, “Hombres, Hembras, Hambres: Narration, Correction, and the Work of Ecclesiology.” Focusing our attention squarely on concrete challenges of ecclesiology, this study pointedly asks, “What should ecclesiology do in this historical moment marked by scandal, silence, and silencing? And where are the Latina/o ecclesiologists’ voices in this?” and draws on Daína Chaviano’s novel, El hombre, la hembra y el hambre to help us think through these pressing concerns. Professor MT Dávila, an ethicist who serves on the faculty of Andover Newton Theological School, contributes “Evolution and Incarnation: Musings on ‘Sacramental Science’ and its Implications for Justice.” Dedicated to Alejandro García-Rivera, who brought science and theology into eloquent conversation in his own writings, Dávila’s essay draws on evolutionary science in order to shed light on “how the sacraments might enable the faithful and the community to witness justice in this world.” We also present “La Virgen Peregrina: A New Paradigm for ‘Just’ Liturgies in a Latino/a Context,” by Rebecca Berrú Davis, an art historian who is a doctoral candidate in art and religion at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, CaliforniaThis ethnographic study of a devotion to Our Lady f Guadalupe at St. Joseph the Worker Catholic Church in Berkeley suggests that popular Catholicism is more than a matter of mere piety. In her insightful study, Berrú Davis invites us to “reconsider the idea of participation and leadership, and that it helps us to re-imagine the experience of liturgy,” and to think about the ways in which justice—understood as a matter of “right relationships”—is celebrated and embodied in this devotional practice.

There is more to come: in the near future we will publish essays by Raúl Gómez-Ruiz and Richard McCarron on the theme of Liturgia Hispana in the light of the new Ordo Missae, and articles by Gary Macy and Orlando Espín on Eucharist and popular religion then and now. These essays, like those we now present, were shaped and reshaped by a process of conversation and critical dialogue that is the hallmark of the Academy of Catholic Hispanic Theologians of the United States. By publishing them here, we hope to enlarge and expand the circle of dialogue to include you, our readers.