If a people is known by the stories it tells, so too is a church. Since its inception in the mid-1970s, Latino/a theology has redefined notions of personhood and relationship, culture and interculturality, and notions of the divine itself. However, a coherent, systematic Catholic ecclesiology has yet to be elaborated from a Latino/a perspective.
This book undertakes that systemization in a multidisciplinary way, drawing upon Latin American and U.S. Hispanic literature as well as theological reflection, to devise an ecclesiology shaped by narrative. The author analyzes a variety of narratives—fiction, history, religious rituals, demographic studies—to find viable starting points for systematizing the “story” of the Church, which is ultimately what ecclesiology seeks to do.
Natalia Imperatori-Lee is associate professor of religious studies at Manhattan College, NY, where she teaches in the areas of contemporary Catholicism, U.S. Latino/a Theology, and gender studies.