Faith Formation and Popular Religion: Lessons From the Tejano Experience. By Anita de Luna

Faith Formation and Popular Religion: Lessons From the Tejano Experience.
By Anita de Luna, MCDP. With a forward by Timothy Matovina. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2002. Pages, xvii + 205. Paper, $26.95. ISBN: 0742513483

Reviewed by: Margaret C. Escobedo
The late Dr. Anita de Luna, MCDP, is well known to many readers of this journal. She taught in the Department of Religious Studies and was director of the Center for Women in Church and Society at Our Lady of the Lake University in San Antonio. She was on the faculty with the Goddess Gate program in Mexico City, has served as visiting professor at several universities, and was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Notre Dame. A frequent lecturer on Hispanic spirituality, culture, evangelization and religious life at national conferences, she published numerous articles in journals and periodicals, and was renowned for decades as an activist and leader for Hispanic ministry and formation and the advancement of Latinas and Latinos in church and society.

This book, which is part of the series Celebrating Faith: Exploration in Latino and Theology, edited by Virgilio Elizondo, is the first major work exploring how Christian faith has been transmitted among Mexican American in Texas. The volume is a catalyst for Tejanos and other groups to design faith formation texts that inspire and sustain their own spirituality. It is also about the relationship of Tejano spirituality to the official teaching texts of the Church from the sixteenth to the twenty-first centuries. The author succinctly and admirably offers the Hispanic community a model for a spiritual revitalization that can embrace all cultures in our mestizo future. Additionally, for this reviewer, de Luna’s treatment of the Nahua worldview, culture, and religious beliefs that originate the concept of mestizaje are sufficient reason to read this fascinating volume.
Her motivations for writing were the influence of catechesis and religiosidad popular in her own spiritual formation, the need to propose catechesis as a worthy source for the study of Christian spirituality, the urgency to reconnect spirituality with catechesis and theology, and a desire to articulate Tejana/o spirituality in the name of many Hispanic/Latina women who have been the organic interpreters and transmitters of the faith. The increasing number of Hispanics/Latinos defecting from the Catholic Church was a factor that added further incentive for this work. Each chapter begins with a recuerdo from the author’s own lived experienced. De Luna accentuates the importance of contextualization and focuses on a dynamic triad between catechesis, theology, and spirituality that is vital to the relevance and effectiveness of evangelization. She draws from the perspectives of U.S. Hispanic theologians and Tejano leaders in particular, identifying five significant elements that express Mestizo/Tehano spirituality: providence, Mary and Jesus, hope amidst suffering, relationship and mestizaje. She later uses these five elements as categories to assess and critique select catechisms.

De Luna examines two major catechetical texts for the sixteenth century, the Doctrina cristiana para instrucción de los Indios by the Dominican Pedro de Cordoba and Psalmodia Christiana by the Franciscan friar Bernardino de Sahagún. Both texts “to varied degrees, use theological aesthetics; they are rich in symbols, metaphors, and profound means. These texts and their evangelizing methods are critical to the understanding and voicing of a Hispanic/Latino spirituality because they make up the genesis not only of this particular spirituality, but of Hispanic theology, catechesis and theological anthropology.” (92)
The author argues that, although they are not completely absent, the five core elements of Tejano spirituality are less discernible in the nineteenth-century Catechismo nuevo de la doctrina Cristiana by Jerónimo de Ripalda, which reflected Spanish medieval spirituality, and the Texto de la doctrina Cristiana of French immigrant priest François Bouchú, which was more evocative of European spirituality. Neither work was strongly rooted in the context of Tejanos, written in their language, or reflective of their religious practices, all of which contributed to “the beginning of the end of a regard for the lived faith” (115) in nineteenth-century catechesis among Tejanos.

Though representing a nineteenth-century divergence from religiosidad popular, however, the Ripald and Bouchú catechisms served as bridges for the catechisms used in the evangelization efforts of two women’s religious orders in the first half of the twentieth century: Our Lady of Victory Missionaries (OLVM) Sisters and the Missionary Catechists of Divine Providence (MCDP, de Luna’s own religious congregation). The mission of both congregations encompassed providing religious instruction to the poor and neglected Hispanic children. De Luna points out that “when the catechetical texts stopped reflecting the symbols of the people’s lived faith, the religious orders – which were the living documents – supplied the aesthetics that the text missed.” (159). Significantly, the OLVM Sisters, who were founded in 1922, required that their non-Hispanic members learn Spanish, while the MCDPs are the only religious community that has a majority of Mexican American members emerging from the Tejano community.

The catechetical texts employed by these two communities in their initial work were used creatively and complimented each other. As required by pastors during that era, the sisters used the questions of the Baltimore Catechism as a summary of the doctrine presented in the instruction. But they also engaged the images of the Catechism in Pictures. Since this resource did not have a written text, the Sisters used it as a visual tool for lessons and religious formation presented in music, song, religious drama, and memorization. As a result of this creative mix, “the MCDPs represent the ‘coming of age’ of Mexican Americans” (159) in forging their own richly contextualized and life-giving process of formation in the faith.

This book is not only well researched but also a watershed for the ongoing dialogue on Hispanic/Latino spiritual identity and for the revitalizing of catechetical texts that sustain and nourish Tejano spirituality. It provides a model for theologians, scholars, pastors, and directors of religious education to examine catechetical texts and their relationship with the faith expressions and spirituality of the people they serve. The rapidly-expanding Hispanic population in the United States challenges all dioceses and archdioceses to investigate the catechetical texts that they are using with Hispanic Catholics. This book will be helpful in determining their choices and is a must look for all pastoral agents ministering to Hispanics.

Anita de Luna distinguished herself as a very dedicated theologian, leader in religious education and pastoral formation, and innovative theological thinker. She has made a lasting contribution to the Mexican American community and here furthers her life’s work by insisting on the need for the inclusion of Mexican Americans in the process of designing pedagogical tools for the formation of Tejanos and their spirituality. As a Mexican American woman, mother, catechist, and director of lay ministry formation, I applaud her work.