Timothy Matovina's Latino Catholicism: Transformation in America's Largest Church provides a substantive overview that is both wide-ranging and thorough in its discussion of US Latino Catholicism. His account makes clear the important role that Latino/Hispanic Catholics have played in US Catholicism's past, and he leaves little room for doubt of their transformative role in the present and future church. Matovina weaves together historical accounts, sociological data, personal stories, theological insights, and pastoral concerns to tell a compelling story of Latino Catholicism to the present. The tone is sympathetic without eschewing a critical look at the internal divisions within the US Hispanic community. Matovina also examines the positive efforts and inadequate responses of US bishops and the broader Catholic community in serving their fellow Catholics who are part of the Hispanic community.
The book organizes its vast amount of material in eight thematic chapters. The first, “Remapping American Catholicism,” sets the book's trajectory. Matovina challenges standard historical accounts of US Catholicism that begin with a beleaguered English minority in seventeenth-century Maryland, the subsequent influx of European immigrants in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and their Americanization. A focus on Florida, California, and the Southwest makes clear that “the origins of Catholicism in what is now the United States were decidedly Hispanic” (7). Matovina also exposes the inadequate and misleading accounts of Hispanic Catholicism's religious deficiency and emphasizes the people's enduring faith, particularly when, in 1848, they were declared US citizens and remained faithful in the face of deep cultural and religious prejudice in their own homeland.
Matovina then turns to contemporary Latino Catholicism, organizing his analysis in seven chapters: “Integration,” “Hispanic Ministry,” “Parish and Apostolic Movements,” “Leadership, Worship and Devotion,” “Public Catholicism,” and “Passing On the Faith.” In exploring each topic, Matovina provides the relevant historical perspectives and explores general trends. What makes his treatment especially engaging is his use of specific examples: he moves deftly between the particular examples that enliven and personalize the narrative and broader observations that provide the big picture. Matovina also communicates the complexities of the Latino Catholic community, including its ethnic and national diversity as well as the political, social, cultural, and economic fluidity among Latino Catholics. The ongoing influx of new émigrés who speak little English further complicates the community's pastoral needs. Matovina's account makes clear why no single strategy can serve the entire Latino Catholic community.
All the chapters address in some way chapter 2's topic of integration. In each chapter, Matovina presents the tensions that arise as Latino Catholics navigate their varied desires to retain their cultural-religious identities and to become full participants in American life. Matovina also provides accounts of significant initiatives among Latino Catholics that make them agents of transformation in the American church. Illustrations include the three Encuentros, national gatherings of representatives from the Latino community; Cursillo, the inspiration for contemporary retreat movements, and prayer and faith-sharing small groups; lay leadership, given the shortage of Hispanic priests, exemplified, in the chapter on leadership, by Estela Ruiz, who responded to Marian apparitions with evangelization and urban reform efforts in South Phoenix; the embodied, public worship and devotional practices such as Good Friday processions and Marian devotions; and Latino leadership in effective congregation-based community organizing. The final chapter, “Passing On the Faith,” is a sobering look at the challenges posed by the complexities of the Latino Catholic community, with special attention given to the generational differences between immigrants and their more acculturated children, who, like other Catholic young people, know little of Catholic tradition and doctrine and often view their parents’ faith as out of touch with their own lives.
Timothy Matovina has made a major contribution to the study of US Catholicism with Latino Catholicism. Anyone with an interest in US Catholicism, including those who are involved in Catholic ministry, lay or ordained, ought to be familiar with this book's content. Every college or university with a theology or religious studies program should add it to their library collection. Matovina reminds his readers that Latino Catholics are a great gift to the US Catholic community. One finishes the book appreciating the unique dimensions of Latino Catholicism, its longtime presence in the United States, its rich history, its witness to the relational and embodied qualities of the Catholic faith, and how that faith is the daily life of struggles and joys in the company of Jesus, his mother, and all the saints.
