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Lived Religion in Latin America
Gustavo Morello
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Lived Religion in Latin America
Lived Religion in Latin
America
An Enchanted Modernity
G U S TAVO M O R E L L O, S . J.
1
3
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Morello, Gustavo, 1966‒ author.
Title: Lived religion in Latin America : an enchanted modernity /
Gustavo Morello, S.J.
Description: New York : Oxford University Press, [2021] |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021008615 (print) | LCCN 2021008616 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780197579633 (paperback) | ISBN 9780197579626 (hardback) |
ISBN 9780197579657 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Religion and sociology—Latin America. |
Latin America—Religion. | Latin America—Religious life and customs. |
Latin America—Social life and customs.
Classification: LCC BL60 .M6385 2021 (print) | LCC BL60 (ebook) |
DDC 306.6098—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021008615
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021008616
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197579626.001.0001
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Paperback printed by Marquis, Canada
Hardback printed by Bridgeport National Bindery, Inc., United States of America
To T. Frank (in memoriam), Jack and Cy,
Because I was a stranger and you made me welcome.
Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: Norma’s Lived Religion and How to Study It 1

1. A Latin American Critical Sociology Perspective on Religion 21
2. Historical Context 40
3. Respondents’ Religious and Social Landscape 63
4. Latin Americans’ God 96
5. Latin Americans’ Ways of Praying 121
6. Religion in Latin America’s Public Sphere 152
Conclusions 173
Respondents 183
Notes 215
Bibliography 217
Index 233
Acknowledgments
The material I present here is the result of a research project called “The
Transformations of Lived Religion in Urban Latin America: A Study
of Contemporary Latin Americans’ Experience of the Transcendent,”
funded by the John Templeton Foundation (JTF ID # 58079). The opinions
expressed in this publication are those of the author and do not necessarily
reflect the views of the John Templeton Foundation. I am very grateful to the
Foundation for its support.
The project was a team enterprise, and I am in debt to the work of, and
conversations with, my colleagues Nestor Da Costa (co-principal investi-
gator, from Universidad Católica del Uruguay), Catalina Romero (Pontificia
Universidad Católica del Perú), and Hugo Rabbia (Universidad Católica
de Córdoba, Argentina); and to research assistants Veronique Gauthier,
Rolando Perez (PUCP), Camila Brusoni, Valentina Pereira (UCU), Lucas
Gatica, and David Avilés Aguirre (UCC); and finally to Caliesha Comley
(Boston College), a tenacious project manager. I also want to thank the 253
respondents who shared their lives with the researchers. I hope I have been
able to make good use of your stories.
Thanks for your time, patience, and trust.
During the application and execution of the grant, I received help and sup-
port from Boston College’s Office of University Advancement and Office of
Sponsored Programs, the Jesuit Institute, and its director James Keenan, SJ.
My colleagues from the Department of Sociology supported this project, en-
couraging and inspiring me in ways they probably do not even imagine. I am
really touched by their generosity. I have found at Boston College a commu-
nity of students, colleagues, and administrators who have helped me to ex-
pand my horizons and thrive in my career. I am very grateful for that.
While working on the research project and this book, I shared my
ideas with many colleagues. I presented papers at annual meetings of the
Latin American Studies Association in New York (2016), Lima (2017),
and Barcelona (2018); the American Sociological Association (2016); the
American Academy of Religion (2017); the Association for the Sociology of
Religion (2017); and the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion (2018).
x Acknowledgments
I was invited to give talks at Centro de Investigación en Ciencias Sociales

y Estudios Regionales, Universidad Autónoma del Estado de Morelos,
Cuernavaca, Mexico (2017); Universidad Blanquerna, Barcelona, Spain
(2018, 2019); Universidad de Deusto, Bilbao, Spain (2017, 2018); Trinity
College, Dublin, Ireland (2019); Centre Sevres, Paris, France (2019); Centre
Ceras, Paris, France (2019); Fondazione Bruno Kessler, Trento, Italy (2019);
Universidad Católica de Córdoba, Argentina (2016, 2017, 2018); and
Universidad Católica del Uruguay, Montevideo, Uruguay (2016, 2018). At
different points in the research, I had fruitful conversations and meetings
with Ana Lourdes Suarez and Juan Martin Lopez Fidanza (Universidad
Católica Argentina), José Casanova (Georgetown University), Daniel Levine
(University of Michigan), Renee de la Torre (Centro de Investigaciones y
Estudios Superiores Antropologia Social, Guadalajara, Mexico), Horacio
Crespo (Universidad Autónoma del Estado de Morelos, Mexico), Silvia
Fernandes (Universidad Federal Rural Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), Christian
Smith (Notre Dame), Peter Berger (Boston University), Iziar Basterretxea
(Universidad de Deusto, Bilbao, Spain), Veronica Roldán, Roberto Cipriani
(Roma Tre, Italy), Emilce Cuda (Universidad Arturo Jaureche, Argentina),
and Austin Ivereigh (Oxford University, UK). I want to highlight especially
the support and encouragement I received from Nancy Ammerman (Boston
University), who generously shared her experience and feedback at different
stages of the research project and read the drafts of this book. The exchanges
with these colleagues challenged me and pushed my investigation forward.
They made me think and I am grateful for that.
The idea for this book began with an invitation from Campion Hall,
Oxford University, to give the D’Arcy Lectures during Hilary Term (January–
March) of 2019. I am very grateful to James Hanvey, SJ, and Nicholas Austin,
SJ, for the invitation and the welcome in Oxford. Patrick Riordan, SJ, was a
supportive brother during those months. I enjoyed Oxford’s intellectual life
and appreciated the input and questions from the members of the Hall and
those who attended the lectures. They made me clarify, refine, and structure
my ideas in a much better way. Thanks!
I am grateful to many administrators at Boston College, who through sev-
eral programs and grants helped me to edit and publish this book. I benefited
greatly from the Undergraduate Research Fellowships that allowed me to
hire undergraduate students during these years to work on different aspects
of my research: special thanks to Traea Vaillancourt, Ashley Lajoie, Sofia
Ribeiro, Joel Rivera, Ana Grisanti, Michelle Baca, Brenna Cass, María Teresa
Acknowledgments xi
Rodriguez, Keni Obiora, William Krom, Alex Madronal, Jackson Pellegrini,

Michael Cavanaugh, Patrick Crorkin, Violette Simeon, Collin Fedor, David
Joyce, David Gallardetz, Daniela Lampru, Allyssa Pullin, Cristina Villalonga,
Charles Butrico, Mary Noal, Alyssa Trejo, Cristina Regis, Lucía del Rincón
Martinez, Verónica Rodríguez, Pablo Cardenal, Megahn Hokr, Max German,
and Jack Engelmann.
I am grateful to dean Gregory Kalscheur, SJ, dean of the Morrisey
College of Arts and Sciences for his support in many stages of this process.
I also benefited from the Post-Colonial Seminar, run by my colleague Zine
Magubane (who also encouraged me to retain a hostile review I will dis-
cuss in the introduction). At various points I discussed the manuscript with
my BC colleagues Eve Spangler and Alejandro Olayo-Méndez, SJ, and with
Michele Dillon (University of New Hampshire), Wendy Cadge (Brandeis),
Susan Crawford Sullivan (Holy Cross), Warren Goldstein (editor, Critical
Research on Religion), Jonathan Calvillo (Boston University), and Elisabeth
Arwerck (editor, Journal of Contemporary Religion). Juliet Frey edited the
manuscript, and engineer Rodrigo Martí sketched the city maps. I appreciate
their thoughtful inputs and generous collaboration.
Early discussion of some of the ideas proposed in this book have been
published in different journals. I want to thank the editors and anonymous
reviewers:
• “Introduction: Lived Religion in Latin America and Europe. Roman

Catholics and Their Practices,” Visioni LatinoAmericane 9(17) (July
2017): 13–23.
• “Making Sense of Latin America’s Religious Landscape” (first au-
thor with Catalina Romero, Hugo Rabbia, and Nestor Da Costa),
Critical Research on Religion 5(3) (December 2017): 308–326. Article
first published online, September 20, 2017, https://doi.org/10.1177/
2050303217732131.
• “Modernidad y religiosidad en América Latina,” Razón y Fe 276, issue
1429 (2017): 327–338.
• “Argentina,” in Henri Gooren, ed., Encyclopedia of Latin American
Religions (Cham: Springer, 2018).
• “Latin America’s Contemporary Religious Imaginary,” Social
Imaginaries 4(2) (2018): 87–106.
• “ ‘Everything Is Mixed Up’: The Pope, the Poor, and the Location of
Religion in Argentina’s Public Sphere,” Latin American Perspectives (2019).
xii Acknowledgments
• “The Symbolic Efficacy of Pope Francis’ Religious Capital and the

Agency of the Poor,” Sociology (2019).
• “Why Study Religion from a Latin American Sociological Perspective?,”
Religions 10(6) (2019): 399.
I am grateful to the many advisers I have had, including José Luis Lazzarini,
SJ, Jorge Seibold, SJ, Juan Carlos Scanonne, SJ, Dan Levine, Fortunato
Mallimaci, and Horacio Crespo. They nurtured my intellectual life in ways
I could not imagine when I met them. T. Frank Kennedy, SJ, passed away
when I was working on this project. He was a bighearted mentor and a good
friend.
My Jesuit brothers in Boston and Argentina, my family in Cordoba and
Asunción, and my friends (in the United States, Argentina, and in many
other places) have always cared. Their love nourishes my life.
Horacio Crespo was my adviser during a master’s program at Universidad

Nacional de Córdoba that I finished in 2001. He is now at Universidad
Nacional Autónoma del Estado de Morelos, Cuernavaca, Mexico. Under
Horacio’s supervision and with his advice, I worked on a magazine
(Cristianismo y Revolución) that was an intellectual and social network for
left-wing revolutionary Christians in Argentina during the 1960s. In 2003
I published a book based on the research I did then, and Horacio wrote
the introduction. We have been in touch ever since. At some point in 2003
(I do not remember exactly when) Horacio and I met for a coffee. At that
time I was pondering the idea of pursuing a PhD, and considering possible
subjects for the dissertation. I was not sure about it. I had been teaching
business ethics at Universidad Católica de Córdoba, so something in that
area could be an option. Another option was to study the decade of the
1970s in Argentina’s history and explore the role of the Catholic Church
under state terrorism. Or, just to avoid that problematic history (although
I did end up writing about it and published a book on the topic), a third
option was for me to study the relationship of the Catholic Church with
Argentina’s democratic transition. In any case, I was looking for a thesis
theme.
After listening to me carefully, what Horacio said has guided my work
ever since. “Look,” he said, “you have to look for a broader topic, some-
thing that will stay with you after the PhD, something that is worth investing
your life in. Look for an area of research that is relevant to you, to who you
Acknowledgments xiii
are. Something that will be meaningful in the next 20 years. . . . Where do

you want to be in 20 years’ time? In what discussions do you want to be in-
volved? And democracy? No! The problem of the church is not democracy!
The problem of the church is the whole of modernity! Where do you want to
stand in that discussion? What do you want to say about it?”
I guess this book is my answer.
Introduction
Norma’s Lived Religion and How to Study It
Norma, from the city of Cordoba in Argentina, is a 59-year-old Catholic

woman. She was not able to finish primary school, and most of her working
life has been spent cleaning houses. With her husband, who passed away a
couple of years ago, she was able to buy a piece of land in the eastern part of
the city. There, at the rear of the property, they built their house. Years later,
one of her two daughters built another apartment at the front for her own
family. In total, nine persons live in the multifamily dwelling. Norma has an-
other daughter who lives nearby, so on Wednesday, her day off, she takes care
of some of her grandchildren and sometimes her two great-grandchildren.
She identifies as Catholic. She does not miss the Christmas mass in the
nearby church, and often goes on pilgrimages to the sanctuary of Our Lady
of Lourdes, near the city of Alta Gracia, about 20 miles away from Cordoba.
When she does not have money or time, she goes to pray at a grotto that is
in a public square some two miles from her house. She also has at home an
image of St. Expedite that a friend gave to her some time ago (figure I.1).
When there is a death in the family, they gather to pray a rosary for nine days
after the wake.
She showed the researcher a Pentecostal book of prayers from a nearby
church (figure I.2) where she went with a friend of hers. She also pointed to a
wall clock with a Jewish hamsa (figure I.3) and to her altar.
Her altar consists mostly of a little grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes deco-
rated with rosaries (figure I.4). She also has placed there a picture of two of
her grandchildren, dressed up in the uniform in Argentina’s public schools
(a white smock). At the time of the researcher’s visit, two remote controls
were in the same table, where she also has a plane on the top shelf. In an-
other shelf in her living room the audio system shares space with St. Expedite
(figure I.1).
Lived Religion in Latin America. Gustavo Morello, S.J., Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2021.
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197579626.003.0001
2 Lived Religion in Latin America
Figure I.1 Norma’s bookshelf. St. Expedite is on the upper shelf, at the left-hand
side, beside some candle lights. A sound system is in the middle of the same
shelf, and family pictures are spread in other parts of the bookshelf
This book is about religion and modernity, how religion interacts with
modern culture, and how modernity influences religion. This interaction is
pictured in Norma’s photos: the grotto of the Virgin of Lourdes, the portrait
of two of her grandchildren wearing the secular public-school uniform, two
remote controls, a model airplane, St. Expedite’s image, her sound system, a
hamsa, and a Pentecostal booklet.
By “modernity” I signify not only the technological developments, but
mostly the dynamics of capitalism, the differentiation of social functions
Introduction 3
Figure I.2 Norma’s Pentecostal prayer booklet
and specialization of spheres of knowledge, and the expansion of human

rights, all in a context of the nation-state political system. In regard to reli-
gion, I mean the cultural practices people use to connect with a suprahuman
power that they experience influencing their lives. We will talk about these
two concepts a lot in the rest of the book.
The thesis I present here is simple: there is an interaction between mo-
dernity and religion, but the result has not been a diminishing of religiosity,
but its transformation. Exploring religion as Latin Americans practice it, we
discovered change, not decline. In Latin America, there is more religion than
secularists expect, but of a different kind than religious leaders would wish.
Figure I.3 A hamsa decorates Norma’s clock in the house’s main room
The difficulty in assessing religiosity as it exists in Latin America is due in

part to the continuing use of descriptive categories that were not designed
for religious cultures outside the North Atlantic world. Those categories
point us toward a different kind of dynamics; in fact they obscure Latin
American religious dynamics. If we look at religion from the perspective of
Latin America and from the people who practice it, we will find a different
definition and different conceptual tools for understanding the religious ex-
perience of Latin American people, and perhaps they will help us to look at
religion in a different way.
Introduction 5
Figure I.4 Norma’s home shrine. The central piece is a replica of the Our Lady
of Lourdes grotto, with some rosary beans hanging on it. There are pictures
of her grandchildren in school uniform and two remote controls. On top is a
model airplane
From Latin America
Modernity has spread all over the world as a hegemonic civilizational model
legitimized by the promise of security and prosperity (Taylor 2004). And
without any doubt, it has transformed Latin American societies. The dy-
namics of capitalism, the nation-state organization, the differentiation of so-
cial functions, the creation of specific “spheres of values” (for the sciences,
politics, economy, religion, and so on, each one with its own logic and
authorities), and the expansion of human rights (today mostly sexual, repro-
ductive, and environmental ones) are modern features in Latin American
societies. The problem is that the “real” modernity, the “lived modernity”
that Latin Americans experience, has failed to deliver security and prosperity
for all (Echeverría 2000).
We know that over the past century much progress has been made. In
no other time in history have so many people been able to live longer and
healthier lives, under democratic governments, and enjoy reliable ac-
cess to fresh water, food, healthcare, and education. In the first decade
of the twenty-first century a growing economy and redistributive poli-
cies brought about 80 million Latin Americans up to middle socioeco-
nomic status (SES) and reduced the number of people living in misery.
However, the promise of a better life remains substantially unfulfilled. At
least 130 million Latin Americans can still be considered “chronic poor,”
meaning that they have not reached “prosperity and security” (Cord et al.
2015; de la Torre et al. 2014; Programa de las Naciones Unidas para el
Desarrollo 2014). Structural poverty, growing inequality, and environ-
mental exhaustion call into question the effectiveness of this concrete mo-
dernity as a civilizational model.
Moreover, these global achievements have a darker side. In many non-
Western societies, Latin America included, the encounter with modernity
was mediated by colonialism, imperialism, or the hegemony of capitalism
and global media (Martínez 2012). The modernization these societies expe-
rience looks more like a colonial imposition than the result of a struggle to be
free of the yoke of the Crown or the church (Gaonkar 2002; Morello 2007a).
Sciences, including the social sciences, are part of the intellectual appa-
ratus of modernity.
Acknowledging their achievements does not mean we should ignore their
limitations. Sociology’s cradle was the French Enlightenment, and because of
the Enlightenment’s fight against the Catholic Church, sociology was inter-
ested in the good (or bad) health of religious institutions at a time when their
role in the public sphere was disputed. Sociology was born in the midst of the
struggle of the European bourgeoisie to gain space in an area that had long
been under the exclusive control of the royals and the clergy. To understand
the resulting change (and to measure and explore it), the discipline (and its
main theoretical model used to explain religion and modernity, the seculari
zation theory) assumed that religion was what Western European Christian
Introduction 7
institutions defined as such. And sociology used those criteria to explore re-
ligion in the rest of the world.
The situation in the United States was different. American society tolerates
and even welcomes the presence of religion in the public sphere, at the same
time that it promotes separation between church and state. In this social con-
text, religious institutions have to compete for the faithful. The plurality of
religious institutions and the freedom of the faithful to switch from one to
another are features of the American religious landscape. And US scholar-
ship has explained that situation in many different ways, developing its own
understanding and categories. But Latin America is not the United States.
The Latin American religious sphere has its own particularities. Religiosity
happens outside the churches (Ameigeiras 2008; Blancarte 2000; De la Torre
2012; Martin 2009; Romero 2008, 2014)—not against them, but not nec-
essarily within them. The persistent lack of Sunday services in most of the
geographical areas of the region (we will talk about Latin America’s religious
history in chapter 2) made it impossible for the faithful to attend Mass regu-
larly. The rhythm of participation was structured around the feast of a patron
saint, Holy Week, or Christmas. In great part, the shortage of services during
colonial times was due to the insufficiency of priests. Religious celebrations
were often run by the faithful. Today, the consolidated presence of different
Protestant groups and the possibility of having lay minsters (pastors) offi-
ciating at a celebration have brought an important change in the Latin
American religious dynamic. Religious services are more accessible today
than ever before. However, weekly church attendance has never been a prac-
tice that identified a Latin American religious person. Practicing religion in
Latin America does not mean necessarily going to church.
Protestant churches are well established on the continent (we will ex-
plore that in chapter 3). Religiously speaking, the region is more diverse
than one hundred years ago, but in most of the countries the options are
three: Catholic, Protestant, and nonaffiliated. Of course, there are many
other significant minorities (Native and Afro religions, Mormons, Jehovah’s
Witnesses, Adventist, Judaism, Buddhism, and Islam), but overall the “reli-
gious market” is not as open and does not have as many suppliers as in the
United States.
My point here is that so far, the North Atlantic sociological toolkits (the
secularization theory and the religious economy model) that have been used
to study religion, even by Latin American scholars, either have focused pre-
dominantly on the institutional aspects of the religious dynamic or have
relied on institutional documents as sources. Sociology has not paid enough

attention to Latin Americans’ religious practices. We need more research
that would help us to understand their religiosity better.
When we look at the level of the practices, we discover that regular per-
sons, religious nonspecialists, do not necessarily follow what their religious
leaders instruct to do. That is very clear in sexual, economic, and moral issues
(Mallimaci 2013). But what happens within the “properly” religious realm,
that of the experience of the sacred? Basically, the pattern is the same. People
receive institutional inputs, but also inputs from other sources (religious or
not) and combine them to make sense of their own personal situation. That
autonomy is not arbitrary. People are trying to understand the complex situ-
ations they live in (Morello 2017b). And most people have to deal with am-
biguous and outside-the-book circumstances. Their “lived modernity” is not
necessarily rational, nor is it always just (Morello 2018). I want to explore
what people do, and not so much how traditions evolve or how religious
institutions influence their flocks. Without denying the role traditions and
institutions play, I have chosen to observe religion as ordinary people actu-
ally practice it.
Religion as practiced is more complex than the sum of supernatural
beliefs, moral rules, and organizational structures. Lived religion is a com-
plex, untidy, multifaceted mixture of beliefs, expressed in everyday practices
in which people engage their bodies and emotions. Often these practices
are creatively adapted, modified, and blended by the individual, who usu-
ally performs them in the public sphere (Ammerman 2014; McGuire 2008;
Spickard 2017). Exploring lived religion rather than institutional structures,
I highlight human agency.
Finally, I am interested in studying contemporary practices synchronically,
so as to emphasize the interrelations more than the historic transformations
within a single tradition. The value of a synchronic examination of religion
is the awareness of the interconnectedness of events, persons, objects, and
traditions (Knott 2005).
Religious Practices
To explore Latin Americans’ lived religion (I’ll develop this concept in

chapter 1), I directed a research project called “The Transformation of Lived
Religion in Urban Latin America,” a qualitative and comparative endeavor
Introduction 9
that applied the approach of lived religion in three Latin American cities,
Cordoba (Argentina), Lima (Peru), and Montevideo (Uruguay).
Three teams, one per city, led by Néstor Da Costa in Montevideo (who
was also the co-principal investigator), Catalina Romero in Lima, and Hugo
Rabbia in Cordoba conducted the project. Veronique Gauthier, Rolando
Perez (Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú), Camila Brusoni, Valentina
Pereira (Universidad Católica del Uruguay), Lucas Gatica, and David Avilés
Aguirre (Universidad Católica de Córdoba) were research assistants, and
Caliesha Comley (Boston College) was the research project manager.
The research project was explorative and inductive; its aim was to describe
and understand how contemporary urban Latin Americans, both believers
and nonbelievers, from different socioeconomic status and generations ex-
perience transcendence in everyday life. The study brings attention to the
perspective of ordinary people. Since organizations do not provide a full or
accurate picture of the religious landscape, we listened to the voices of people
beyond the walls of religious institutions. Ordinary Latin Americans were for
us the “experts.” What they deemed religious was the object of our research.
Looking at the level of everyday life of both believers and nonbelievers
enabled us to investigate religious transformations. We explored what
tensions emerge from the way people enact their relationship with God and
with religious institutions, and the impact their lived religious experience
has on contemporary urban Latin American societies.
For Latin Americans, religiosity is assuredly different than in other parts
of the world and has been transformed across generations; it is not what it
used to be, but it has not gone away.
We found that a different modernity than that in North Atlantic world
generates a different religiosity. There is an interaction between modernity
and religion, even a tension, but the result has not been a diminishing of the
religiosity, but instead a transformation of religious practices due to the crea-
tive autonomy of the believers. We called that interaction “enchanted moder-
nity” (Morello et al. 2017).
Our research focused on narratives of religious experience in the
respondents’ lives. To collect those stories, we conducted two sets of
meetings with the same individuals. The first one, a semi-structured inter-
view, provided an overview of the individual’s daily routines and religious
daily practices, faith itinerary, beliefs, decisions made, and relations with
others (family, friends, and acquaintances); we asked about work and work-
place, free time, and social and political involvement. It was before those
interviews took place, or in some cases during a “pre-interview” meeting,

that respondents gave their explicit consent for the interview and allowed us
to make the content public after de-identifying it. Some respondents chose
their own pseudonyms.
For the second meeting, we asked participants to bring meaningful articles
or photos of themselves so that we were able to conduct “object-elicitation”
interviews (Ammerman 2014; Ammerman and Williams 2012; Williams
2010). Most of them came back with objects, garments, images, or photos
of people, symbols, things, or places and told stories about the significance
those objects have for them in their lives. We opted for an object-elicitation
method as much as possible, rather than photo-elicitation, because we
wanted to encourage participants to show us something that was meaningful
to them. We did not want to narrow the range of items that people could
bring, allowing them to bring what they judged relevant. This was a good
decision. Participants became active participants in the research process;
they “produced” the pictures (sometimes they took them and sent them to
us; others displayed the objects and asked researchers to shoot the pictures).
The research gathered information from different SES groups of contem-
porary Latin Americans in three different cities, whose primary religious
orientation was Catholics, Protestants (including mainline Protestants,
evangelicals, Pentecostals, and neo-evangelicals), other traditions (Jewish,
Mormons, Buddhists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Adventists, Muslims, Umbanda,
an Afro religiosity, practiced mostly in Brazil and Uruguay), and “nones”
(nonaffiliated believers, agnostics, and atheists). We considered the “religious
orientation” to be the one respondents self-reported at the pre-interview
meeting, or at the beginning of the first interview.
SES is a more complex measure than poverty since it is a combination of
income, education, and occupation. When we talk about poverty, we are usu-
ally talking about income. To measure it, most surveys use the threshold of
$1.90 daily income. If a person makes more than $1.90 per day, that person is
above the poverty line.
We measured SES in each of the countries involved so as to facilitate local
comparisons with national data (AAM, SAIMO, and CEIM 2006; Da Costa,
Pereira Arena, and Brusoni 2019). To simplify our sample, we divided it in
two SESes: lower and upper/middle. Since ours was a nonrandom, inten-
tional sample, we overrepresented lower-SES participants because they are
usually underrepresented in academic studies about religion that involve
interviews. Due to ethical concerns, scholars tend to conduct interviews at
Introduction 11
university campuses. Some persons might need a complicated commute to

reach the campus or feel uncomfortable in an unfamiliar environment. So
in this project, researchers strove to conduct interviews closer to where the
people were, so as to facilitate the meeting. The interviews were conducted
mostly in the homes of the interviewees, at other times in spaces such as
bars, squares, workplaces, and religious buildings, and also in university
classrooms.
We chose only two segmentation variables (religious self-identification
and SES) because more segmentation variables might have led to a more
complex and larger sample. We strove to include a sample balanced in gender
and age to ensure comparison among different inhabitants and among dif-
ferent generations within the same city. We excluded from the sample those
who were “specialists” (i.e., current and former religious ministers/leaders,
historians, sociologists, philosophers, theologians, and journalists).
The complete interview process began in November 2015 and finished
in January 2017. In that time period, the data available in the cities gave us
the following distribution: In Cordoba, 61% of inhabitants identified them-
selves as Catholics, 8% as Protestants, and less than 1% each as members of
other religions. Almost 29% identified as “nonaffiliated” (Rabbia 2014). In
Montevideo, 42% identified as Catholics, 15% as Protestants, and less than
6% were from other religions. The nonaffiliated were about 37% of the popu
lation (Instituto Nacional de Estadisticas 2006). In Lima, 78% of the popu-
lation identified as Catholic, 15.7% as Protestants, 3% as nonaffiliated, and
3.3% declared membership in other religious traditions (Ihrke-Buchroth
2012). With that data in mind, we built an intentional, nonrandom sample.
(See table I.1.)
In each city, Catholics are the largest percentage of religiously affiliated
people. Therefore, around half of the sample is Catholic (114); half of those
are upper and middle and half are lower SES. In the three cities, Protestants
(evangelicals, Pentecostals, and mainline Protestants) comprise the second-
largest religious tradition. We interviewed 52 Protestant persons, 25 of lower
SES and 27 of middle or upper SES. Nonaffiliated (atheists, agnostics, unaf-
filiated believers, and indifferent) are a growing sector of the population in
Latin America. We interviewed 60 respondents of this group (half of them in
Montevideo, reflecting the particularities of the Uruguayan religious land-
scape [Da Costa 2006]), 29 of lower SES, and 31 of upper or middle SES.
Other religious affiliations in Latin America have a very wide range. As
this category represents a minor percentage in religious self-identification in
Table I.1 Research sample design
SES Catholic Protestant Other Nonaffiliated N

total
Cordoba Upper/middle 22 9 6 11 90
(Argentina) Lower 20 11 3 8
Total 42 20 9 19
Lima (Peru) Upper/middle 22 14 9 6 80
Lower 16 6 2 5
Total 38 20 11 11
Montevideo Upper/middle 14 4 2 14 80
(Uruguay) Lower 18 7 6 15
Total 32 11 8 30
the three cities, we overrepresented them in our sample. Each research site
adjusted its sample as needed. We aimed for a sample of at least five people
in each category (SES and religious tradition), as a way of ensuring a critical
number of subjects for data saturation (Guest, Bunce, and Johnson 2006). In
some cases the interviewing teams did not achieve that aim (sometimes after
checking an interview, a respondent was reassigned to a different category, or
an interviewee was discarded after analysis showed that the person held or
had held a leadership position in a church).
Due to the profound nature of many of the issues to be covered in the
interviews, we wanted respondents to be comfortable with the interviewers.
Therefore, we opted for a snowballing process, usually starting with
acquaintances or colleagues. That is, the researcher approached respondents
through the recommendation of someone they already knew (Peña and
Frehill 1998). The first interviews were relatively easy to get, mainly the ones
from nonaffiliated people of upper/middle SES. Our own social circles re-
flect the situation of Latin American academia: mainly nonaffiliated in the
upper strata of society. All teams struggled to get lower-SES interviewees,
and among those, the most difficult were the nonaffiliated. The strategy that
worked best was to access the popular sector through social organizations,
religious and secular, that were working in the field.
Most of the time, respondents were very glad to have the opportunity
to talk about their religiosity. The interviews provided a space for reflec-
tion about one’s experience of the divine, a rare opportunity for most of our
participants. Some persons mentioned that they do not talk about these
Introduction 13
topics even with their closest relations (family, friends), or with their reli-
gious ministers.
Many got emotional during the meetings.
With regard to how our respondents understand their own religious
status, a significant number of them experience religion as a “work in pro
gress.” Participants changed their religious identification (i.e., switching
from Pentecostalism to “nonaffiliation,” for example), or changed to a
different tradition within the same affiliation (i.e., switching from “com-
mitted” to charismatic Catholicism). Many respondents even adjusted
their identification during the interview process. It is certainly the case that
Latin American religion is an existential journey more than a dogmatic or
intellectual destination. People are on religious paths and occupy certain
“spiritual locations,” but they have not necessarily reached a “destination,”
nor have they achieved dogmatic clarity. To be a believer, according to our
respondents, means to have doubts. Indeed, people were quite comfortable
talking about their doubts, a fact that challenges sociological approaches
to religion that focus heavily on its intellectual rather than its practical
aspects.
We conducted five pilot interviews at each site to test the questionnaire.
After some adjustments, we did five more interviews. At that point, we did a
provisory coding in order to check if the questionnaire was collecting what
we were looking for. Each team pre-coded the transcriptions manually. In a
meeting in Cordoba in April 2016, we discussed the trends we were finding,
did some “fine tuning” of the questionnaire, and dug deeper into our theo-
retical framework. We also invited two scholars who had no previous contact
with our research to look at our data with fresh eyes. With the results of these
efforts in hand, we settled on a list of topics to try as codes and created a final
version of the questionnaire. Between March and July 2016, we worked on
100 documents (interview transcripts and field notes), selected about 4,400
quotations, and identified 71 codes grouped in 15 “family codes”; that is, we
clustered related codes under a wider category. During this time we had on-
line discussions using emails and video calls. We checked and adjusted the
codes and defined new ones, and in total created 115 common codes (for the
three cities) grouped in 15 family codes. Then we coded the rest of the mate-
rial (415 documents, including interview transcripts and field notes) using
Atlas.ti software. In addition, each team coded for their particular sample
and interests, so the merged database had 231 codes in total to sort 22,992
quotations.
In October 2016 we gathered in Boston to discuss our findings and invited

colleagues from the United States, Brazil, Mexico, Peru, Spain, and Italy to do
a peer review of our work. We sent them drafts of the material and incorpo-
rated their suggestions into our work in progress. During the whole project,
we held six in-person and 44 virtual team meetings, and had eight round ta-
bles with religious leaders. We presented partial findings at different times to
18 colleagues from the countries already mentioned, and they gave us helpful
insights.
The aim of this project was not to make generalizations about the whole
Latin American population, nor the population of the cities studied, but to
dig into the participants’ religious practices. We wanted to understand their
lived religion and craft new conceptual tools that might better reflect their
religious experiences. Since respondents form a “convenience” sample, the
results are not generalizable to all the inhabitants of these cities, even less so
to the Latin American population. However, these results do shed light on
their religiosity. In this regard, this study should be viewed as an explora-
tory one, with important implications for larger national studies about Latin
Americans’ lived religion.
From the “Poor”
Although the data we collected concern people of both upper/middle and

lower SES, in this book I focus on those of lower SES, the poor. I have ana-
lyzed transcriptions only from the 118 respondents in this category (see table
I.2). The interviews lasted an average of one hour and thirty minutes, and
usually resulted in about 30 pages of transcription. So the amount of data
comes to about 3,540 pages.
A rejection of one of the many papers I submitted for publication fol-
lowing our research triggered my decision to focus on respondents of lower
SES in this book. I authored an article about the views of poor Argentineans
on Pope Francis’s interventions in the public sphere.
Reviews and rejections are part of any academic life, and I am used to
them. And the truth is that the paper needed some fixing. However, one re-
viewer made comments that were disturbing:
Why should we assume that only the “poor” determine the role of religion
in the public sphere? . . . What exactly is their level of education? . . . To what
Introduction 15
Table I.2 Sample distribution of lower-SES participants, by city, gender, and

religious self-identification
Catholic Protestant Other Nonaffiliated Total
Cordoba 20 11 3 8 42
Female: 12 Female 6 Female 2 Female 4
Male: 8 Male 5 Male 1 Male 4
Lima 16 6 2 5 29
Female 8 Female 5 Female 1 Female 3
Male 8 Male 1 Male 1 Male 2
Montevideo 18 7 6 15 46
Female 9 Female 2 Female 2 Female 8
Male 9 Male 5 Male 4 Male 7
Total 118
extent can they analyze news and media statements critically? What do they
read in general? The views of these people presumably with a relative [sic]
low level of education and limited capacity to think critically should be re-
spected, but they can hardly be used to reach any general conclusions about
the role of religion in the public sphere. (My italics.)
When I read this I was shocked, as were the colleagues with whom I shared
the review. According to the reviewer (and the editor who accepted it as
valid), the poor not only should not be at the table of academic discussion
(they don’t have enough education to achieve critical thought), but do not
deserve to be asked (their views cannot be generalized, as this seems to
be a privilege of upper-status individuals’ opinions). The comment still
enrages me. I just cannot believe that anyone with an academic back-
ground (the journal is a top-ranked one in the field of sociology of reli-
gion, so I assume reviewers are chosen carefully) could be so classist, so
demeaning.
According to this reviewer, lower SES persons have no say when we explore
the role of religion in the public sphere. In Latin America, in 2017, 46% of the
population were of lower SES (21% lower, and 25% lower-middle) (OECD
2018). In the world, according to the World Health Organization (2009),
72% of the world population lived in those conditions in 2007. Scholars who
exclude the point of view of lower-SES persons limit our comprehension of
the world in which we live. Our knowledge about religiosity and atheism,
belief and unbelief, is incomplete, possibly defective, if we dismiss from our
inquiry more than 70% of the world’s population! If we do not ask the poor
what they do when they do religion, we are wrongly assuming that real re-
ligion is what less than 30% of the world population do. This implies that
the only way to reach universal conclusions is by inquiring about the beha-
vior of educated elites. What is actually a limitation of many studies (they
collect data from middle-and upper-SES respondents who are able to meet
at university campuses) became a norm for this reviewer. The poor should
not be studied to reach any “general conclusions.”1 Fortunately, academic in-
terest in understanding the religious practices of individuals of lower SES is
common among scholars from Latin America and the United States (I am
not familiar with the literature of other parts of the world) (Ameigeiras 2008;
Brenneman 2012; Burdick 1993; De la Torre and Martin 2016; Levine 2012;
Parker Gumucio 2008; Suárez 2015; Sullivan 2011; Vergara 2005).
Since some scholars want to push the poor outside the bounds of academic
research, I chose to place them at the center of mine. I decided to focus on
lower-SES individuals to explore what they do when connecting with tran-
scendence. My personal background played a role in the analysis. My whole
career as a sociologist has been as a Jesuit. That is, I am a Catholic priest who
belongs to the Society of Jesus, a religious order. And that circumstance has
influenced my way of doing research.
Both my lived modernity and my lived religion are different in many
senses from the one respondents in this sample live. I am a priest, which
makes me one of the “religious specialists” whom we left out of the sample.
I studied philosophy and theology (and got a “licentiate” in both disciplines),
and in my personal life I practice Ignatian spirituality. These experiences
have shaped my “lived religion.” I studied religion and political violence in
Argentina while getting an MA and a PhD in social sciences at two secular
institutions: the oldest (Universidad Nacional de Córdoba) and the biggest
(Universidad de Buenos Aires) universities in Argentina. I am a member
of a global, academic, upper-SES group, working in the United States since
2012. As an immigrant, I bridge US and Latin American academia, moving
across cultural lines and transporting resources both material and intellec-
tual. I enjoy modernity in a privileged way very different from that of the
research subjects. I was fortunate enough to spend part of my sabbatical year
in Oxford, to present and discuss many of the findings with colleagues from
other cultural milieus and disciplines. In addition, during these past years,
I have held fruitful conversations with scholars and Jesuits from different
parts of the world.
Introduction 17
One problem in understanding Latin Americans’ religiosity is that some

scholars think the ways in which lower-SES people in general, and Latin
Americans in particular, live their religiosity have nothing to tell us. Being a
Jesuit from Latin America puts me in contact with Latin American theology
and religious options that influenced my scholarship. To some extent, my
methodological choice is the Christian Latin American “option for the poor”
translated into a research strategy. I decided to look for what people do when
they do religion, outside institutions, but also outside the normative view of
scholars who will not consider the poor as subjects of knowledge.
In this study, the poor, that is, respondents of lower SES from Córdoba,
Lima, and Montevideo, are not mere objects of research. They are the
experts. I took their stories seriously (Wuthnow 2011). I analyzed their
quotations with sociological tools and reached my own conclusions. They
have produced the photographs used, participating in the data collection.
Analyzing the transcripts of their interviews and the objects they brought to
the interviews, I tried to acknowledge the agency others have denied. I think
that, since every human being is a rational social actor, individuals of lower
SES should be taken seriously as producers, and creators of knowledge. They
have a contribution to make. They might not be able to articulate it in an ac-
ademic way, but there is wisdom in their point of view that will contribute to
human knowledge.
In this work, I privileged views from Latin American cities and from
participants of lower SES. I profoundly disagree with colleagues who argue
that the poor should not be considered subjects of knowledge. I hope that
this book reveals a picture of these Latin Americans’ religious agency and
critical wisdom. I used a sample of participants of lower SES also because of
demographic reasons: 45% of Latin Americans are living in that stratum, and
more than 70% of the world’s population are poor. If we cannot create sci-
ence from the poor, if the poor’s experience is not “universal” (as the journal
reviewer indicated), why should we assume that we can create it from the
elites? It is important to analyze the lived religion of participants of lower SES
in these three Latin American cities because their lived religion opens up our
scientific categories so we can better understand religion itself. I studied the
lived religion of lower-SES persons, not to understand the “religion of the
poor,” but to understand religion.
My premise is that if we look at regular persons’ practices, we discover that
the interaction of religion and modernity differs from the interaction that
developed in the North Atlantic world. The findings show that, when we look
beyond the categories both religious institutions and sociology have used
to define religion, we see more religion in practice than secularist theories
might assume exists, but in a form that is not necessarily what established
religions define as religion.
Modernity has definitively changed religion in Latin America, but reli-
gion is alive and present in everyday life, as we see with Norma. She identifies
as Catholic and says she does not frequent church. However, in the conver-
sation she mentioned that she never misses the Christmas mass and regu-
larly goes on pilgrimages to the Our Lady of Lourdes grotto. She also attends
Pentecostal meetings to which she walks with a friend. In her house she has a
special place for a hamsa and a figure of St. Expedite.
Norma exemplifies the religious connectedness in the city: one’s religious
tradition is not the only source of one’s religious practices. Other churches
nearby play their role; friends who experience something religious that they
like may introduce you to what works for them. And the media are important;
Norma mentioned (as did many respondents in Cordoba and Montevideo)
watching the soap opera Moses, produced by Brazilian evangelical churches
but broadcast on prime-time commercial TV.
On both her altars (figures I.1 and I.4) Norma displayed religious figures
with symbols of modernity and pictures of beloved persons: St. Expedite, a
sound system, and one of her great-grandchildren (figure I.1), the grotto of
Lourdes, a plane, and a portrait of two of her grandchildren in white smocks,
a symbol of Argentinean secular public education (figure I.4). The relation-
ship between modernity and religion, between one’s own tradition and other
confessions, between piety and secular institutions might be problematic
in other contexts but not for Norma (nor for most of our respondents) who
placed on her altar family relations, multiple religions, and modernity.
So what do we find when we look at religion from outside the North
Atlantic world and gather our data from lower-SES, nonspecialist persons,
instead of using the well-established categories and focusing on what reli-
gious institutions do?
The Book Ahead
Studying the conflictual interaction of modernity and religion has been

at the heart of the sociology of religion. In c hapter 1, I explore the usual
explanations of this tension. I start with secularization theory, which, even
Introduction 19
when criticized, is present in debates and embedded in different method-

ologies in use to study religion. Then I present an explanation of the Latin
American religious landscape inspired by the American- born religious
economy paradigm. Later, I study the popular religion approach, a model that
originated in Latin America, which pays attention to people’s practices out-
side institutional traditions. Finally, I propose a lived-religion approach to
study Latin American religiosity.
In the second chapter, I present a historical account that, I hope, helps us
to understand Latin America’s religious present. How did we get here? Latin
American religious history gives us a better understanding of the contem-
porary Latin American cultural background. Western religious perspectives
(Catholicism, Protestantism, secularism, evangelicalism) came to Latin
American with different colonial powers: Spain, Portugal, United Kingdom,
France, the United States. At the same time, Latin America’s religious history
also shows the agency of Latin American peoples, the ability to create and re-
create practices in spite of institutional constraints, and to locate religion in
the public sphere in spite of secularist ideas. The agency of the people and the
influence of religious figures in the public realm have been part of the Latin
American religious experience.
Because people’s lived religion happens in everyday life, it is relevant to
know what daily life looks like, both in the privacy of the home and in the
workplace and other public spaces. In chapter 3, I present a contemporary
panorama of Latin America’s religious landscape, and also respondents’ ex-
perience of “lived modernity.” In the three Latin American cities studied,
modernity is a challenging way of life. Economic justice is perhaps one of the
biggest pending bills—a promise that has not been fulfilled.
Latin American economies—the most secularized social sphere—have
not brought about the prosperity and security modernity promised. The
point of this chapter is that if Latin Americans experience modernity in a
different way than Europeans or US. citizens it makes sense that they experi-
ence religion differently (even when many of their traditions come from the
United States and Europe).
In chapter 4, I present the image of God respondents have. They mostly
conceive of divinity in terms of a personal being. They use relational
metaphors to name this being (father, friend, husband) and experience it
in their regular, ordinary lives. They feel, touch, hear, and see the interven-
tion of something suprahuman in their lives. God keeps making miracles for
them. Respondents’ experience of God helps them to make sense of their life
circumstances (there is a plan) and pushes them outside themselves (to meet
and engage with others); the call from this personal, suprahuman power is a
social one, one that invites them to relate with others in a meaningful way. If
life is about encounters, the afterlife is about re-encounters.
What defines a person as religious is having a relationship with a
suprahuman power. Accordingly, many practices can help to keep that rela-
tionship going. In chapter 5, we will explore respondents’ practices that in-
clude the whole body, emotions, objects, places, and other persons. Some of
these practices are not prescribed by religious institutions, nor are they per-
ceived as religious by the secular society. Because prayer is the “black box”
that registers the connection between the subject and the suprahuman, we
will explore it in detail: how people “connect” in prayer and the role of others
in that practice.
In chapter 6 we explore the role of religion in Latin America’s public
sphere. For respondents, religion and politics share the space where power
is traded. The preferred position is to challenge the economic order and
to generate peaceful relations among the people and defend human dig-
nity. Respondents dislike the use of power to pursue a partisan agenda and
to have a privileged voice over other persons. At odds with the laicity pro-
ject, respondents welcome religion in the public sphere when it challenges
modernity to include the poor and advocates for human dignity. Religion is
welcomed as a countercultural force. However, this acceptance of religion’s
presence in the public sphere does not mean a resacralization of it. Religious
respondents enforce the modern differentiation of social functions.
Finally, in the conclusion, I examine what we learn from the religious
experience of these Latin American respondents of lower SES. I present
what their religious practices tell us about religion—the idea of religion as
a relation—and a portrait of the Latin American religious landscape as an
“enchanted modernity.”
1
A Latin American Critical Sociology
Perspective on Religion
The argument of this book is, basically, that if we look at religion from non-
Western perspectives and consider the practices of regular people when they
do religion, we will find more religion than we may have assumed we would
find, but it will not be as “orthodox” as expected.
The expectations of some social sectors that advocated for freedom of re-
ligion in the private sphere but for its absence from the public sphere, com-
bined with the dogmatic beliefs of well-established religious traditions, have
shaped the tools we use to look at religion. In this chapter, I want to crit-
ically assess the toolbox sociology uses to study religion, highlighting its
contributions and limitations from a Latin American perspective. While
traditional explanations like secularization theory and religious-economy
models point toward the tension between religion and modernity in Western
Europe (to which secularization theory is often applied), and the possibility
of articulating both terms in a different way, as in the United States (religious
economy), a popular-religiosity paradigm considers Latin American crea-
tivity and culture.
Keeping in mind what many historians, ethnographers, anthropologists,
and sociologists have accomplished, a critical approach to sociology of re-
ligion can bring into the field the consideration of religion in a broader
sense: not only what the institutions say, but also what the people do when
they practice. I propose a “lived religion” approach because this perspective
retains the contributions of secularization theory and religious-economy
and popular-religiosity models and at the same time brings into the discus-
sion the perspective of ordinary people.
In this task, let’s start from the beginning: why is it still relevant to study
religion? A first answer has to do with demographics. The majority of the
world’s inhabitants (about 90%) believe in something beyond this world, and
about 85% identify with a religious tradition. It is likely that this trend will
continue and even grow in the next 50 years, since believers are younger, tend
Lived Religion in Latin America. Gustavo Morello, S.J. Oxford University Press. © Oxford University Press 2021.
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780197579626.003.0002
to have more children, and generally pass on their beliefs to their offspring
(Berger 2014; Pew Research Center 2014a).
If you are a professional who lives in a Western city, this religiosity
might sound foreign. Probably your daily interactions are mostly with
“nonbelievers.” In some circles, such as professional groups with high so-
cioeconomic status in the western hemisphere, it seems that nonaffiliated
people are more common than religious persons. And in those circles, this
might well be true—professionals, especially scholars and the intellectual
elite, tend to be nonbelievers or, in many cases, believers of some sort who
do not identify with any religious tradition. They are known as “nones”
(nonbelievers and nonaffiliated). The two areas of the world where you find
big groups of “nones” are China and Western Europe (Berger 2014). These
three populations (intellectual elites, Chinese, and Western Europeans—
many people are both intellectuals and Chinese or Western European, of
course) have lower birthrates and tend to have a higher average age.
Another way of answering the question about the relevance of studying
religion draws on historical reasons. As Christian Smith puts it, “A purely
secular existence is not the human default” (Smith 2017, 235). History shows
us that human societies, with the exception of some regimes in the twentieth
century that banned religious activities, have always had some kind of reli-
gious practices. We can assume that in the next 50 years human beings will be
involved in religious experience in one form or another. Eventually various
current religious forms may disappear, and new religions may emerge. It is
certain that in the future, religions will look different from those of today.
Religion is not an unchanging entity that must be accepted or transmitted
as a whole. It is a space for human ties and social life, open to changes and
transformations, with old ties and new solidarities (Levine 2012). In any
case, even when younger people tend to be less religious than older persons
(Pew Research Center 2018), we can expect that religions will be important
for some and perhaps many persons across the world in the foreseeable fu-
ture (Smith 2017).
Religions are relevant to study because they help people to define a core
of values that give meaning and identity and that guide their actions, a core
that helps them to identify what is “right and wrong,” defining what is sa-
cred for them (Knott 2005; Smith 2017). Of course, religious traditions are
not the only things that give meaning, identity, or a moral conscience. And
to be sure, religion does not influence all people in the same way. But reli-
gious experiences affect the ways in which people relate with others, the ways
A Latin American Perspective on Religion 23
in which these people make emotional, personal, political, or social choices.

Religion mobilizes people as much as race, gender, class, and political ideas;
it shapes the social imagination (Levine 2012; Morello 2007a; Taylor 2004).
Researching religion may help us to understand many of the world’s
inhabitants and what the religious means in their lives. At the same time, it
might help us to better understand the nonaffiliated persons: What does their
nonaffiliation tell us about religiosity in their society? How do they perceive
each other, and what are the differences between believers and nonbelievers
in daily life? Finally, studying religion might help us to have a better grasp
on other human ideas, experiences, and institutions that sometimes are
associated with the religious, such as moral values and political and social
behaviors.
Critical Sociology: The Enlightenment and

the Spirit of Capitalism
Among the many ways of studying religion (you can look at it with theo-
logical, psychological, political, and many other lenses), sociology does not
concern itself with the sources of faith, with the accuracy of dogmas believed,
or with the proper moral behavior that the followers of a tradition should
adhere to. Sociology focuses on the social repercussions that religion has
in the lives of people, and conversely how transformations in social life af-
fect people’s religiosity. It explores the interactions among religion and other
social constructions, such as politics, the economy, or culture. In this book,
I propose an exploration of the interactions of two social constructions, reli-
gion and modernity, from a sociological perspective.
By no means do I suggest that sociology has a neutral view of religion, as
opposed to, let’s say, a “partisan” view from the standpoint of theology. As
with many other scientific disciplines, sociology has a perspective and a his-
tory that taints its view. As a product of the Enlightenment, sociology cast a
mordant eye on religion from its very beginning. Religious institutions were
seen as authoritarian organizations that imposed irrational, unscientific
beliefs on people, backward and traditionalist institutions that jeopardized
human freedom (Spickard 2017).
Sociology was born in the midst of the battle of the French Republic
against the church. The French Republic established a regime of laïcité, a spe-
cific model of church-state separation. People could do whatever they wanted
in private, but there was no established church, and no religious signs should
be displayed in the public sphere: religion and religious figures were avoided
when discussing public issues. For the first generation of sociologists (August
Comte, Karl Marx, Emilie Durkheim, Max Weber), religion was a holdover
of the “unenlightened past” (Spickard 2017, 52). The Enlightenment also
privileged the idea that rationality and empiricism are the sources of know-
ledge. In its campaign against religious obscurantism, sociology empha-
sized the conceptual and dogmatic aspects of religions: to sociologists of the
Enlightenment, instead of rationalized, empirically proven, scientifically
discussed views of the world, religions were based on irrational beliefs.
Because of that historical struggle, from the very beginning sociology was
mostly interested in the institutional and intellectual aspects of religions
(Spickard 2017). Sociology was shaped by a society that was looking for a
progressive, rational view of human relations, as opposed to the allegedly au-
thoritarian and fantastical stand of religion. The political model of that social
organization, the aforementioned laïcité, a word without a proper English
translation, crossed the Atlantic Ocean (Blancarte 2006). In Latin America, it
meant a model of church-state separation that advocated the suppression of
the Catholic influence in the public sphere and the control of the church by
the national state—a model that still has a deep influence in Latin American
public space.
Paradoxically, the lights of Enlightenment blinded sociology: the same
social actors who were fostering Enlightenment and human freedom
were engaged in the colonialist expansion of Western European ideolo-
gies and empires in Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean. The bourgeoisie that
fought against the Crown in the French Revolution was the one that held
on to colonialism and slavery during Haiti’s independence war (1791–1804).
Nineteenth-century colonialism shaped sociology. Sociology was part of the
colonial worldview, a way of understanding societies from a Western per-
spective that was imposed as the norm (Go 2016). Enlightenment’s social
imagery was the only possible model of civilized human life. Progress, un-
derstood as scientific and technological development, was the new and true
religion.
Secularization theory emerged as an explanation of the religious situation
in Western Europe during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries
and shaped the discussion about religion in the social sciences. This hege-
monic paradigm has as its basic affirmation, “The more modernity, the less
religion.” The theory argues that modernity brings religious diminishment,
including decline in memberships and general weakening of religious

institutions’ influence in the public sphere (Berger 2014; Bruce 2011; Gorski
and Altmordu 2008).
The first generation of sociologists was biased by their historical con-
text when they tried to understand religion. In many cases, what European
scholars knew about religion outside Europe was second-hand. They had
never conducted fieldwork outside Europe and usually relied on personal
letters and other secondary sources.1 However, they established some of the
perspectives and categories we still use to address issues of religion, such as
the distinction between material and spiritual realities, sacred and profane,
public and private, and modern and primitive forms of religion (Engelke
2011). Sociology’s classic authors created a toolbox that we are still using. But
it has a colonialist and Eurocentric bias and, ironically enough, is based on
limited empirical observations.
Let’s take Max Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, a
classic of the sociology of religion. His thesis is that the Protestant ethic and
capitalism have elective affinities that made Northern European societies
more modern than others. The book was published in 1905. This period was
at the apex of the European colonial expansion in Africa and Asia, but Weber
never mentions any force other than a specific form of Western religiosity,
Calvinism (Carroll 2007), as the source of economic development (marked
by the increase of savings and a robust financial system). He does not make
a single reference to the role of colonialism in the expanding economy of
Northern Europe in the late nineteenth century (Magubane 2005). The cate-
gories he created, still unavoidable when studying the sociology of religion,
completely ignore colonial relations.
Secularization theory is not wrong so much as incomplete and misused.
The challenge of a critical sociology of religion is to provincialize the West,
creating intellectual tools that, while helping to forecast or explain a beha-
vior, are mindful of the silenced realities and conditions in which that know-
ledge was produced. Sociologists are looking for ways of understanding the
religious beyond the traditional categories in order to avoid both taking
religion as a mere byproduct of class, politics, and race, and “proving” that
religion is or is not the “opiate of the masses.” More and more, contempo-
rary research engages in a critical understanding of religion, its benefits and
harms for people (Bender et al. 2013; Levine 2012).
Moreover, a critical task for the sociology of religion is to challenge the
idea that “religion” is what certain social groups do, and the rest is “religion
of . . .”—of the poor, women, peasants, and the like. I assume that, for so-
ciology, there is not a “proper” way of practicing “religion”; and that every
religious practice is contextualized: it is either religion of the poor or the
elites, religion of the center of the margins. But there is not a “neutral,” “pure,”
“standard,” practice of religion of which the others are “variations” or the “re-
ligion of . . .”
Why Do It from Latin America?
Since religions are historical, they have to do with concrete cultural dynamics
and therefore cannot be understood only with North Atlantic parameters.
All knowledge is grounded. The conceptual tools that we use today (the
constructs of “religion,” “religious practice,” and “membership,” to name just
a few) were aimed at understanding the transformations that modernity pro-
voked in European religiosity. The advantage of continuing to use these cat-
egories is that they allow scientific dialogue. The limit is that they leave out
cultural particularities typical of other regions.
As mentioned earlier, by “modernity” in the social sciences, we usually
understand the separation of social functions and the specialization of the
spheres of value (a sphere for economics, politics, science, religion, each
with its own rules and authorities, independent of other spheres); the dy-
namics of economic capitalism (industrialization, urbanization, technolog-
ical development, globalization); and the ideas of human, civil, political, and
social rights, all of these within the frame of nation-states. In spite of Latin
America’s having an experience of modernity different from that in Europe
or the United States, economic development, democratic governments, and
a growing awareness of human rights are all modernity dynamics present in
Latin America. In the region, we tend to use “hybrid,” “baroque,” “incom-
plete,” “forced,” and so on, as particular adjectives for describing this specific
form of modernity. But the substantive remains “modernity” (Echeverría
2000; García Canclini 2001; Martínez 2012; Ribeiro 1971). It is clear that
modernization reached different contexts in different ways. In many cases, it
was as a hegemonic cultural force, imposed by military or economic power,
that belittled the local as backward, that arrived through varied concrete
agents. And so now in each situation there are crystallized concrete values
and different ways of being religious. Latin American societies have different
histories and therefore different manifestations of modernity and, because
of that, different religious responses to it (Casanova 1994; Eisenstadt 2000;

Garrard-Burnett, Freston, and Dove 2016; Inglehart 2009; Morello 2015;
Ravagli Cardona 2013; Semán 1997; Serrano 2006).
With Latin America in mind, the principal critique of secularization
theory is that this paradigm assumes that “religion” and “modernity” in the
historical experience of Western Europe are universal forms. Because the
founding scholars of sociology were mostly engaged in disputes with the
churches, they understand the quest for the divine in the terms and catego-
ries set by religious institutions. Secularization theory’s main concerns have
been the strength of religious institutions and the methodology employed to
measure it, and what counts as “religion,” “religious institution,” and “mem-
bership” is defined by Western European standards of Christianity. This per-
spective, useful during the European Enlightenment, leaves unstudied many
of the ways in which contemporary Latin Americans experience transcend-
ence in everyday life (Ameigeiras 2008; De la Torre 2012; Fernandes 2009;
Hervieu-Léger 1999; Morello 2019d; Semán 1997, 2001; Suárez 2015).
Because of its Enlightenment cradle, sociology of religion has emphasized
ideas and beliefs over practices. Sociological models that mostly focus on re-
ligious beliefs might not be useful to properly comprehend religious practices
that also have material, embodied, and emotional components. Defining
the quest for the divine in terms of close adherence to a set of dogmas and
commands leaves unstudied many of the ways in which regular people expe-
rience transcendence every day in their Latin American urban settings. And
this is a real problem because studies show that for many religious people a
religious person is one who practices religion in everyday life (Ameigeiras
2008; Ammerman 1997, 2007b; Mallimaci 2013; McGuire 2008; Romero
2008, 2014).
Secularization theory was one historical answer to the question of how
modernity affects religion. Therefore, its conceptual tools have a bias and
should be used with care when applied to different cultural contexts. The
theory has looked at religion from a specific religious background (North
Atlantic Protestantism), from the center (colonizer societies), and from
the top (secular and religious elites). In many cases, scholarship on Latin
America has accepted the “secularization” answer, that is, the diminishment
of religion, as valid for local religiosity (Blancarte 2006; Mallimaci 1993).
The secularization story in Latin America has drawn distinctions between
sacred and profane, magic and religion, church and sect that have not al-
ways helpful. Though widely challenged, secularization theory seems to be
an unavoidable perspective when discussing the religious situation of Latin

America. Secularization theorists have set the dichotomies we use to discuss
the experience of the divine (religious/profane, public/private, spiritual/ma-
terial), as well as determining what counts as a religion, who belongs to a
religious group, and how to measure such belonging (Ammerman 2007a;
Berger 2014; Engelke 2011; McGuire 2008; Parker Gumucio 2006; Morello
et al. 2017).
If for Europe the interaction of “modernity and religion” resulted in
“less religion,” in the United States it has meant “pluralization.” Scholars
researching the US religious milieu found that secularization theory did not
explain it adequately. Based on their observations of a lively religious land-
scape in the midst of a modern society, American sociologists developed
a “religious economy” model, based on rational choice theory. The main
point for them was the difference between established churches in Europe
and the disestablishment of religion in the United States. European national
churches, supported by the states and granted a preferential social role, did
not need to compete for the faithful. For the US institutions, the situation was
different. Without any state support, they had to be creative in engaging with
potential followers. This situation created a vibrant religious market, where
suppliers were eager to tailor and target their “products” to potential “clients”
(Chestnut 2003; Finke and Stark 1992; Warner 1993).
In Latin America, it is true, Catholicism is no longer a monopolistic reli-
gious provider (Chestnut 2003), but it is not accurate to say that the religious
market is as unregulated as it is in the United States. In Latin America, the
Catholic Church is in many cases an “official” one: not “established” as in
Western Europe, but not “disestablished” as in the United States (Casanova
2008; Garrard- Burnett 2008; Gómez 2015; Lecaros 2016; Oro 2006).
Churches may get some state support, but are not part of the state appa-
ratus. Moreover, the first Protestant groups that came to the region did so
under governmental agreements between national states (usually between
the newly independent Latin American nations and the British Crown).
Catholic and Protestant churches built their social location vis-à-vis the
states, not civil society, as in the American experience. Latin American re-
ligious markets have always been regulated to some extent by the states
(Bianchi 2004; Di Stefano and Zanatta 2009; Freston 2001; Negrão 2008).
While in the United States choosing among denominations does not
seem to be a problem, the case is different in Latin America. It is true that
conversions are part of Latin American religious dynamics (Steigenga and
Clearly 2007). However, it is not accurate to say that Latin Americans “are at
liberty to choose among the hundreds of religious products” (Chestnut 2003,
3). Until recent years, the social pressure (that is, the “cost”) of switching
remained high, and the available options were mostly Pentecostal (Frigerio
and Wynarczyk 2008). Another particularity is that practices from different
traditions are incorporated into one’s religious orientation without implying
a change in the denomination (De la Torre and Martín 2016; Lecaros 2016;
Negrão 2008), and because of that Catholicism has always been diverse;
believers do not need to leave it to experience a different religious “product”
(Garrard-Burnett, Freston, and Dove 2016; Lecaros 2019; Morello 2015;
Sanchis 1997). Finally, the religious-economy model does not pay attention
to the persons who practice religion outside institutions. In Latin America we
have not only believers practicing religion without a strong link to a church,
but also an increasing number of people who consider themselves believers
without an attachment to a church, whom we (Da Costa et al. 2021) included
in the “nonaffiliated” category in our research.
Latin America is a context that cannot be properly assessed with tradi-
tional sociological theories used to explain the transformation of the reli-
gious landscape in other regions of the world. There has been a failure to
grasp ways of understanding religion other than affiliation, beliefs, and
church attendance, with conceptual tools limited by this bias and therefore
not applicable to cultural contexts where those measures are inadequate
(Morello 2019d). Surveys, we will see later, measure practices that may not be
relevant in Latin America.
Current sociological theories do not satisfactorily account for the religious
situation of Latin America. The task is to expand the sociology of religion’s
toolkit so as to better understand Latin Americans’ religious life. If we look
from a different perspective, we may very well discover a different story
(Blancarte 2007; Casanova 1994; De la Torre 2012; Garrard-Burnett 2008;
Levine 2012).
A Lived-Religion Approach
I propose a lived-religion approach, with a synchronic take, that pays at-

tention to urban contexts. Cities are social spaces where religions come in
contact, interact, and relate with each other. They are also places where the
tensions between religion and modernity should manifest, since it is urban
areas where modernity is experienced on daily basis: access to technology,

specialization of social functions, separation of spheres, and exposure to di-
versity are all features that characterize urban daily life. Because exposure to
modernity happens prominently in cities, I studied religion in urban settings.
Most Latin Americans live in cities, but not everyone in the city has the same
experience (United Nations 2018). Here we will explore the margins of the
cities, the experience of people who are not members of the global academic
elite (like myself), who are not blessed by financial markets, who only some-
times enjoy human rights.
It is a synchronic approach because I want to highlight the interconnected-
ness of religiosity that takes place in urban contexts (Knott 2005). I will make
some differentiation among traditions, and there will be some glances at par-
ticular group practices, but this is not a comparative study. So far we have
studies about Catholics, Evangelicals, and “other” religious groups in Latin
America, and some exploration of the nonaffiliated (Da Costa 2020; Da Costa
et al. 2021; Rabbia 2017). But we do not have a view that highlights the ge-
neral aspects of religious behavior, the common ones. Sociology should help
us to go beyond the confessional distinctions. I present a sociological view of
participants’ lived religion, not of lived Catholicism or Pentecostalism. I have
tried to explore the interconnectedness of religious bahavior’s different
aspects. I think this view helps us to appreciate religiosity beyond the bound-
aries of religions. I showcase some variations and nuances among traditions,
but my main aim is to highlight the intertwining that happens in religiously
diversified Latin American cities. I am aware of confessional boundaries, but
I believe a sociological analysis should not be constrained by them. Nor do
I pretend to present an “essential” view about Latin American religion. This
book is just a way of analyzing religion, from the experience of urban, con-
temporary Latin Americans of lower SES, that may help us to better under-
stand human religiosity.
My point is analytical. I want to explore the core views of urban religious
practitioners, beyond religious confessions. To some extent, this approach
reflects an experience researchers had while interviewing for the study re-
ported here. As already mentioned, in many cases when respondents filled
out the demographic data form, they wrote down “Pentecostal” or “Catholic,”
but during interviews, several adjusted their affiliation, saying something
like, “More than Catholic, I think of myself as . . . ,” or words to that effect.
Applying a synchronic analysis to respondents’ lived-religion narratives, I try
to be faithful to that experience. I do not ignore theological differences, nor
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
On October 24, 1800, the Pittsburgh Gazette was moved to ask the
Presbyterian congregation, of which its proprietor was a leading
member, a number of pertinent questions: Could they hope for good
morals without religion or the fear of God; could religion be
maintained without public worship; had they a house in which public
worship could be performed with decency and convenience? Were
they not able to erect a respectable and commodious church
building, as well as to provide for the maintenance of a minister?
Would not money so employed “be more for the benefit of the town
than horse racing, billiard playing, etc., etc.?” The answer of the
congregation was to procure the appointment of the Rev. Robert
Steele as supply and the church began to show signs of life again. In
April, 1802, Steele was received as a member of the Presbytery, the
136
action being approved by the Synod in the following September.
From that time forward, the church began that spiritual and material
advancement—although there were ebbs and flows in its progress—
which has continued to this day.
REFERENCES
Chapter IV
84
Pittsburgh Gazette, November 28, 1800.
85
Tree of Liberty, August 23, 1800.
86
Pittsburgh Gazette, October 10, 1800.
87
88
Perrin DuLac. Voyage dans les Deux Louisianes, Lyon, an
xiii. [1805], p. 131.
89
H. H. Brackenridge. Gazette Publications, Carlisle, 1806,
p. 12.
90
Centennial Volume of the First Presbyterian Church of
Pittsburgh, Pa., Pittsburgh, 1884, p. 154.
91
Charles J. Sherrill. “Dancing and Other Social Customs,”
Scribner’s Magazine, New York, April, 1915, vol. lvii., pp.
479–490.
92
93
Pittsburgh Gazette, January 3, 1800.
94
Pittsburgh Gazette, October 29, 1802; Pittsburgh Gazette,
August 25, 1798.
95
96
Pittsburgh Gazette, September 25, 1801.
97
98
Tree of Liberty, February 19, 1803.
99
100
101
H. M. Brackenridge. Recollections of Persons and Places
in the West, Philadelphia, 1868, p. 60.
102
Tree of Liberty, July 11, 1801; Pittsburgh Gazette, July 13,
1793.
103
H. H. Brackenridge. Incidents of the Insurrection in the
Western Parts of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 1795, p.
66.
104
S. Jones. Pittsburgh in the Year 1826, Pittsburgh, 1826, pp.
43–44.
105
106
107
108
Pittsburgh Gazette, May 28, 1802.
109
110
Tree of Liberty, April 11, 1801.
111
Tree of Liberty, April 11, 1801; ibid., January 9, 1802.
112
Tree of Liberty, December 27, 1800.
113
F. Cuming. Sketches of a Tour to the Western Country in
1807–1809, Pittsburgh, 1810, p. 222.
114
115
Pittsburgh Gazette, August 28, 1801; ibid., August 5, 1803.
116
Pittsburgh Gazette, February 3, 1803.
117
Pittsburgh Gazette, November 16, 1799; ibid., May 3, 1800;
ibid., November 26, 1802.
118
Centennial Celebration of Pittsburgh Methodism, 1888, p.
63.
119
Pittsburgh Gazette, August 26, 1786.
120
James Veech. “The Secular History,” Centenary Memorial of
the Planting and Growth of Presbyterianism in Western
Pennsylvania and Parts Adjacent, Pittsburgh, 1876, p.
320.
121
Pittsburgh, Pa., 1784–1884, Pittsburgh, 1884, p. 212.
122
Pittsburgh Gazette, April 2, 1802.
123
124
125
126
James Veech. “The Secular History,” Centenary Memorial of
the Planting and Growth of Presbyterianism in Western
364.
127
Rev. D. X. Junkin, D.D. “The Life and Labors of the Rev.
John McMillan, D.D.,” Centenary Memorial of the
Planting and Growth of Presbyterianism in Western
33.
128
H. H. Brackenridge. Incidents of the Insurrection in the
Western Parts of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 1795, p.
71.
129
Henry Adams. The Life of Albert Gallatin, Philadelphia,
1880, p. 130.
130
Pittsburgh Gazette, December 12, 1800.
131
Pittsburgh Gazette, February 27, 1801.
132
133
Rev. William M. Paxton. Two Discourses upon the Life and
Character of the Rev. Francis Herron, D.D., Pittsburgh,
1861, p. 28.
134
Richard McNemar. The Kentucky Revival, Albany, 1808,
pp. 9–72.
135
David Elliott. The Life of the Rev. Elisha Macurdy,
Allegheny, 1848, pp. 55–78.
136
CHAPTER V
THE SEAT OF POWER
The year 1800 ushered in more than a new century in

Pittsburgh. It heralded the beginning of another era. The decade
beginning with that year will ever be memorable in the annals of the
city. During those ten years the foundation was laid on which the
great industrial city was subsequently built. In 1800 the population of
Pittsburgh was 1565, and in 1810 it had risen to 4768, an increase of
204 per centum, which was the greatest percentage of increase that
has ever taken place in its history. This decade marked the dividing
line between that which was obsolete and that which was newly-
born.
In 1803, Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul of France, ceded to
the United States the vast Louisiana Territory, whereby the area of
this country was more than doubled, and commerce between
Louisiana and Pittsburgh increased tremendously.
As far back as 1791, Alexander Hamilton, the Secretary of the
Treasury, had communicated to the House of Representatives his
famous report of manufactures. In this far-away community, with coal
at its doors, and iron in the near-by mountains, Hamilton’s new
doctrine found willing disciples and industry had more than a
beginning. Soon after the close of the Revolutionary War, iron ore
was mined in the Juniata Valley, and furnaces and forges
established, and bar iron and castings made. The iron was carried to
Pittsburgh, partly on horseback, and partly by water, down the
Conemaugh and Allegheny Rivers. Small shops for the manufacture
of articles of iron were opened. Shortly afterward iron ore was also
mined in the counties of Fayette and Westmoreland and furnaces
and forges built and iron produced. The distance being shorter from
Fayette and Westmoreland Counties than from the Juniata Valley,
iron was thereafter brought to Pittsburgh only from the former
districts. The iron shops increased in number. Coal was the pole star
which lighted the way to their establishment. A writer who saw the
advantages of Pittsburgh with the eyes of a Münchhausen, writing of
the value of its coal, declared, that the blaze afforded “so strong a
light, that in winter, ... neither tailors, or other mechanics burn
137
candles.”
At the close of the eighteenth century, the black smoke of the
iron shops, the glass manufactory, the boat yards, the distillery, the
brewery, the tanneries, the brickyards, and the increasing number of
dwelling houses had already given the town a sombre hue. Industry
went forward with leaps and bounds, and manufactories on a larger
scale were set up. They were insignificant, if compared with even the
medium-sized establishments of to-day, but were large and
important in the eyes of people who, prior to the American
Revolution, had been practically prohibited from engaging in any
manufacturing by their English masters. Cotton mills were
established, as were iron foundries, nail factories, engine shops, a
tinware manufactory, a pipe manufactory, and in 1808 a second
138
glass works, that of Robinson & Ensell. The extent of the plants
can be gauged, when it is known that one of the nail factories
employed thirty men, the tinware manufactory twenty-eight men, and
139
one of the cotton mills twelve men.
In 1804, the Bank of Pennsylvania opened a branch in
Pittsburgh. A stage line from Chambersburgh to Baltimore and
140
Philadelphia was placed in operation in the spring of 1803. In
1804 this was extended to Pittsburgh, the first coach from Pittsburgh
to Philadelphia being run on July 4th.
Religion was now keeping pace with the increase in population
and the growth in material prosperity. Hitherto those who were
religiously inclined were obliged to attend the services of either the
German or the Presbyterian church. Other churches were now
brought into existence. The Episcopalians formed an organization in
1805, under the name of “Trinity Church,” and began the erection of
their brick octagonal building, on the lot bounded by Liberty,
Seventh, and Wood streets, which was a landmark in its day.
Ever since the English occupancy, the population had been
Protestant in religion, although Protestantism in the early days
signified little more than a stout opposition to Roman Catholicism.
The Presbyterians, who constituted the bulk of the English-speaking
Protestants, had looked askance when the Episcopalians, whom
they regarded as closely akin to Roman Catholics, formed their
church organization. When it was rumored that Roman Catholic
services were to be held, they shook their heads still more doubtfully.
Prior to 1800 there was hardly a professed Roman Catholic in
Pittsburgh. In 1804, the number was still so small that when the
missionary priest and former Russian prince and soldier, Demetrius
Augustine Gallitzen, came and celebrated mass, there were only
141
fifteen persons present to assist. In 1808, a congregation was
142
formed, and the next year a one-story brick chapel was erected at
the southeast corner of Liberty and Washington streets, Washington
Street then extending to Liberty Street. The site is now occupied by
the entrance to the Pennsylvania Station. Practically all the
parishioners were Irish, and it was natural that the new edifice
should be named “St. Patrick’s Church.” The Methodists organized a
143
congregation at the same time as the Roman Catholics, and in
1810 erected a small brick building on Front Street below Smithfield,
opposite the lower end of the site at present occupied by the
144
Monongahela House. The Baptists were growing in numbers and,
although lacking a church organization, met at one another’s
houses, and listened to the exhortations of traveling missionaries of
145
that faith.
The Freemasons must be credited with a movement,
inaugurated at this time, which was to have a far-reaching effect.
The meetings of Lodge No. 45 in the taverns had been conducive of
almost everything except sobriety. The effects were degrading, and
in many cases injurious, not only to the persons affected but to their
dependents as well. Also the evil was growing, and was contrary to
the expressed ideals of the order. Practically all the leaders in the
village, whether in public or private life, had been or were still
members of the lodge. Among the older members were General
Richard Butler and his brother, Colonel William Butler, General John
Neville, Judge Hugh Henry Brackenridge, Captain Joseph Ashton,
John Ormsby, Colonel James O’Hara, Captain Michael Hufnagle,
Major Isaac Craig, Senator James Ross, Samuel Ewalt, and Captain
John Irwin. Younger members were Dr. Andrew Richardson, Dr.
Hugh Scott, William Wusthoff, Anthony Beelen, Thomas Baird,
James Riddle, Tarleton Bates, Rev. Robert Steele, and Henry
Baldwin. It is not surprising that such men should sooner or later
realize the calamity which confronted the members of the lodge, and
decide upon eliminating the cause. The change was effected upon
the completion of William Irwin’s brick house, at the southwest
corner of Market Street and the West Diamond, just prior to the
opening of the new century. Thenceforth the meetings of the lodge
were held in a room on the third floor of this building, and the
temptation to excessive drinking was at least farther removed than
when the sessions were being held in the “Sign of the Green Tree.”
This was the first practical temperance movement in Pittsburgh.
Market Street was one of the narrowest streets in the town, but
was the principal commercial thoroughfare. Coincidentally it was
called “Main Street.” It received the name by which it has been
known for more than a century and a quarter, from the fact that the
first market house, erected in 1787, was located at the northwest
corner of this street and Second Street. In 1800 the street was
bustling with life. More drays and carts and wagons were moving
over at least a portion of the thoroughfare than is the case to-day.
Intermingled with the other vehicles were wagons from the country,
drawn by oxen. In wet weather the roadway was ground into mud
and thin mire. The merchants generally lived with their families in the
houses where their business was conducted. The street was noisy
with children. Trees grew on the outer edges of the foot-walks, and in
the summer grass and weeds sprang up, watered by the street wells
and pumps that supplied the residents with water.
Most of the prominent people lived on Market Street. Judge
Hugh Henry Brackenridge, although often absent from Pittsburgh in
the performance of his judicial duties, maintained his residence on
the street, until August 24, 1801, when he removed with his family to
146
Carlisle. All but one of the physicians were located there. Here
the leading mercantile establishments were concentrated. Open
spaces still intervened between the houses, and there were gardens,
inclosed with fences painted white, in which flowers bloomed and
vegetables flourished, but the spaces were rapidly being built upon.
Everywhere the sounds of hammer and saw greeted the ear, and
heaps of brick and beds of mortar encumbered the street.
Public improvements were commenced: Market and Wood
streets were being paved, as was Chancery Lane from the
Monongahela River to Second Street. Front and Third streets were
being graveled from Market to Wood Street, as was also Diamond
147
Alley. The price of land was advancing. The Penns had sold most
of the lots fronting on Market Street, in 1785, at the average price of
ten pounds each in Pennsylvania currency, a pound being equal to
two dollars and sixty-six and two-thirds cents in United States money
of the present value. The lots were of varying dimensions: some had
a front on Market Street of one hundred and sixty feet, and a depth
of eighty feet, while others had fronts of from fifty-six to eighty feet,
and were of different depths. In 1789 and 1790, respectively, two lots
were sold for fifty pounds each. In 1791, two others were sold for
one hundred and twenty pounds each. In 1793, a lot on the East
Diamond, where values had not appreciated to the same extent as
on Market Street, was sold for one hundred pounds. After 1800, the
lots began to be subdivided, and still higher prices prevailed, and
they continued to advance year by year.
The Act of Congress of July 6, 1785, established a national
currency, the unit being a dollar, equal in value to the Spanish milled
dollar. The Spanish milled dollar had been in circulation in this
country for many years, and was the expressed unit in the paper
money and other obligations, authorized by Congress since the first
year of the Revolution. The United States mint, however, was not
authorized until the passage of the Act of Congress of April 2, 1792,
and the first coinage of silver and gold did not take place until two
years later. During this interval the circulating medium was mainly
Spanish silver money and the consideration mentioned in
conveyances was usually in the Spanish milled dollar. In 1801, a lot
having a front on Market Street of thirty feet and a depth of seventy
feet, was sold for six hundred and twelve dollars and fifty cents; in
1803, a lot having a front of forty-six feet and a depth of seventy feet
was sold for thirteen hundred dollars. In 1804, an undivided fourth
interest in a lot having a front of fifty-six feet, and a depth of one
hundred and seventy-five feet, was sold for eight hundred and
seventy-five dollars. In 1805, a half interest in a lot also having a
front of fifty-six feet, and a depth of one hundred and seventy-five
feet was sold for twelve hundred dollars. In 1806, an eighth interest
in a lot having a front of fifty-six feet, and a depth of one hundred and
seventy-five feet, was sold for two hundred and seventy-five dollars.
In 1807, a sixth interest in a lot having a front of fifty-six feet, and a
depth of one hundred and seventy-five feet, was sold for six hundred
and sixty-six dollars and sixty-six cents.
Most of the houses were built on land leased from the owners, or
on lots subject to the payment of ground rents, which accounted to
some extent for the inferior quality of the improvements. The number
of brick houses on Market Street was still so limited that the
merchants were fond of referring to the fact that the establishments
conducted by them were located in a “brick house” or “next door to,”
or “across the street from,” a “brick house.”
A majority of the merchants and professional men on the street
were young, or at least had not arrived at middle age. Like all the
men in new communities, they were possessed of unbounded
energy, which found vent in their business affairs, in a desire for
pleasure, and in an inordinate ambition for political preferment.
Perhaps it was owing to this cause, that the number of town and
other offices were so numerous. The town officers were a chief
burgess, a burgess and four assistant burgesses, a town clerk, a
high constable, two assessors, and two supervisors. The duties of
the assistant burgesses were to assist the chief burgess and the
148
burgess in the performance of their duties. The justices of the
peace were even more plentiful than the town officers. They were
appointed by the governor and held office during good behavior,
which was practically for life. Appointments were constantly made,
usually as a reward for party fealty, and there being a dearth of
deaths among those in office, the number of justices of the peace
had become inordinately large. There was also a cause peculiar to
Pittsburgh, for the craving for office. The legislative acts of the
borough were performed at Town Meetings held in the court house
by the “Burgesses, Freeholders, and Inhabitants, householders,” at
149
which all the male adults whether citizens or aliens who had
resided in the place for a year, had a voice. In 1800, there were
nearly two hundred qualified electors who had a right to participate in
150
the Town Meetings, and practically the entire number were
politicians. A desire for the glare of public life developed, and the
creation of offices resulted.
Considering the extent of the town and the number of the
inhabitants, the stores were numerous, there being, in 1803, forty-
151
nine stores and shops. The explanation was that much of the
trade of Pittsburgh was with travelers passing through the place, and
with settlements farther west and south. The travelers were
frequently delayed for long periods. Owing to the lack of a sufficient
stage of water in the rivers, as high as a hundred boats, each
carrying an average of twelve emigrants, were sometimes tied up
along the Monongahela River between Pittsburgh and New Geneva,
152
and as many more along the Allegheny. The various supplies
required while there and for the further journey were furnished by the
merchants of the town.
The stores were usually what is termed “general stores,” where
everything necessary for the use of pioneer families could be
purchased. Only a few establishments dealt in special lines. On the
shelves were articles that at present are suggestive of the day in
which they were sold. Taken in connection with the dress of the
people, the food they ate, their churches, their societies, their work,
and their amusements, they form a more or less complete outline
picture of the time. Items which stand out in relief are Franklin
stoves, chimney hooks, window weights, brass and stock locks,
brass and iron candlesticks, snuffers, horse fleams, iron combs, iron
buttons, knee buckles, powder flasks, American and German
gunpowder, bar lead and shot, wallowers for Dutch fans, and
153
cards. The sale of cards was an industry of importance in
agricultural communities. At present the name is confusing. The
civilization of the day had not developed business or visiting cards,
and if playing cards were intended they would have been so
designated. The cards sold in Pittsburgh were brushes with wire
teeth used in disentangling fibers of wool, cotton, and hemp, and
laying them parallel to one another preparatory to spinning. In 1794,
the advertisement of Adgate & Co., “at the card manufactory, corner
of Market and Water Streets,” appeared in the Pittsburgh
154
Gazette.
The occupancy of Market Street began at Water Street. Some of
the early settlers were still living in the houses where they began
their business life. Samuel Ewalt was among the earliest merchants
on the street. His store was at the northeast corner of Market and
Water streets. He owned the entire block on the easterly side of
Market Street, between Water and Front streets, his land extending
eastwardly a considerable distance.
On Water Street, one lot removed from the west side of Market
Street, was the home of Colonel Presley Neville. While a very young
man, living in his native Virginia, he had served as an officer in the
Revolutionary War. During this period he married the eldest daughter
of General Daniel Morgan. In Pittsburgh Colonel Neville held many
public positions. He had been inspector of the Allegheny County
brigade of militia, agent for the United States for receiving and
storing whisky taken in kind for the excise, a member of the
155 156
Legislature, and was now surveyor of Allegheny County, and
was engaged in selling town lots, and lands in the adjacent
157
townships. In 1803, he was a candidate for chief burgess, but his
vote was a tie with that of his opponent, Colonel James O’Hara, who
had also been an officer in the Revolution The determination of the
case being with the governor, the decision was in favor of Colonel
158 159
O’Hara, but under the law Colonel Neville became burgess.
Below Colonel Neville’s house, at the northwest corner of Water and
Ferry streets, was a large two-story frame building set in a garden.
This was the town house of General John Neville, the father of
Colonel Neville. Like his son, he was a former Revolutionary officer;
he had been Inspector of the Revenue under the excise law, during
the Whisky Insurrection. The burning of his country home by the
Insurgents was one of the events of the short-lived revolt. On Water
Street, one door above Redoubt Alley, was the frame tenement
house of Major Isaac Craig. The building had become historic. It was
here that Alexander Hamilton, Judge Richard Peters of the United
States District Court for Pennsylvania, together with the United
States District Attorney, and the United States Marshal, who
accompanied the army of General Lee into Western Pennsylvania,
held court and interrogated Hugh Henry Brackenridge, and others
suspected of fomenting the Whisky Insurrection.
West of Major Craig’s home, a short distance east of West Alley,
was the large frame dwelling of Colonel O’Hara. O’Hara was the
most enterprising citizen in the town, and an important factor in its
early development. At one time he was engaged in almost a dozen
enterprises. He was also the largest owner of real estate both in
Pittsburgh, and Allegheny County, resident in the borough. Among
the older merchants were William Christy, John Irwin, and William
Irwin. They had formerly been partners, but the partnership had long
160
since been dissolved, and each now had a store of his own.
Christy’s establishment was at the northwest corner of Market and
Water streets. He sold all kinds of cloths and velvets, cassimeres,
corduroys, and flannels, teas, sugar, and “common groceries of
161
every denomination.” During the Virginia régime, he was a
162
lieutenant in the Pittsburgh militia, and in 1802 was town clerk.
Adjoining Christy’s store was that of Dr. Andrew Richardson.
Richardson was a physician. At this time physicians not only
prescribed medicines, but prepared and sold them, and Richardson
was no exception. His advertisement reads like that of a latter-day
druggist: “Oil of Vitriol. I have for sale at my medical store a quantity
of oil of vitriol which I will sell low for cash. Also a variety of drugs
and medicines which I will sell wholesale or retail at the same
163
terms.”
He was prominent in many respects. Besides being a physician,
he was a justice of the peace, and a leader in politics. In January,
1800, Governor McKean appointed him Register and Recorder of
Allegheny County in place of Samuel Jones, his Federalist father-in-
164
law, but he soon relinquished the office. He was likewise a
prominent Freemason, being secretary of Lodge No. 45, and was
well known as a public speaker. At the dinner given on the first
anniversary of the inauguration of President Jefferson he was one of
165
the two presiding officers. On St. John the Evangelist’s Day,
December 27, 1798, he delivered an oration before Lodge No. 45,
which was considered of such importance that the lodge procured its
publication in the Pittsburgh Gazette.
The style was florid. Richardson was high in the councils of the
Republican party, yet his argument was that of a Federalist. It was a
panegyric on Freemasonry, and an expression of hope for universal
peace and love. Opening with a review of the conflict convulsing
Europe he launched out into a severe denunciation of the course
that France was pursuing. “Already hath nation arisen against nation
in lawless oppression,” the orator proclaimed. “Already hath our
infant country been threatened with a final subjugation.” Continuing
he asked: “And who are those who dare to usurp a superiority over
us? The French! Once the boast of history, the pride of the smiling
page; but now a band of robbers, dead to every feeling of humanity,
lost to every virtue; a band of robbers whose lawless acts have
drawn upon them the just resentment of our virtuous brother, the
illustrious Washington, who, though loaded with the oppressive
weight of sixty-six years, stands ready once more to unsheath his
conquering sword to save his country from rapine and murder. Shall
he stand the war alone? No, every Masonic heart will rush like
166
lightning to his standard, with him conquer, or with him die!”
Richardson’s outspoken views appear to have caused an
estrangement with the local Republican leaders, and in 1801, when
he was a candidate for the State Senate, they were arrayed against
him. He was charged with the unpardonable sin of reviling Thomas
Jefferson, the idol of American public life. The Pittsburgh Gazette
and the Tree of Liberty contained frequent references to the incident.
Richardson himself published a card, which was at once evasive and
apologetic. He was accused of having three years before drunk a
toast, “Damnation to Jefferson and his party,” in Marie’s tavern. He
admitted having been in the tavern on the occasion referred to, but
added: “This much I will say, that if such a toast was given by me, it
was improper, and I must have done so on the impulse of the
moment. I cannot say whether it was given at all.” The Republican
tide was too strong and he was defeated, and was again defeated in
1802, when a candidate for representative to the Pennsylvania
167
House of Representatives, and he met with a like fate when a
168
candidate for the same office in 1803. In August of 1809 he died,
169
a disappointed man.
In the same block with Dr. Richardson, at the southwest corner
of Market and Front streets, were the cabinet-makers and
170
upholsterers, Dobbins & McElhinney. Directly across Market
Street from Dobbins & McElhinney, was the establishment of the
Chevalier Dubac. The sign gave no inkling of the noble birth of the
171
proprietor, reading simply, “Gabriel Dubac.” He had recently
172
removed to this corner from Front Street. He has been described
173
as the most popular citizen of the village. With his wines, dry
goods, and groceries, he sold confectionery. His dog “Sultan,” and
his monkey “Bijou,” were the joy of the children. He was an
accomplished scholar, and possessed most polished manners.
When he closed his shop and entered society, he was the delight of
all with whom he associated. He was in the habit of dining on
Sundays at the home of General Neville. When the French princes,
the Duke of Orleans, afterwards Louis Philippe, King of France, and
his two brothers, the Duke of Montpensier and the Count of
Beaujolais, visited Pittsburgh in 1797, it was the Chevalier Dubac
who assisted in making their stay agreeable.
REFERENCES
Chapter V
137
“A Sketch of Pittsburgh,” The Literary Magazine,
Philadelphia, October, 1806, p. 252.
138
Cramer’s Pittsburgh Almanac for 1809.
139
140
141
Rev. A. A. Lambing. A History of the Catholic Church in the
Dioceses of Pittsburgh and Allegheny, New York, 1880,
p. 38.
142
1807–1809, Pittsburgh, 1810, p. 69.
143
1807–1809, Pittsburgh, 1810, p. 69.
144
Centennial Celebration of Pittsburgh Methodism, 1888, pp.
66–67.
145
1807–1809, Pittsburgh, 1810, p. 69.
146
Tree of Liberty, August 22, 1801.
147
1807–1809, Pittsburgh, 1810, p. 61.
148
Pittsburgh Gazette, May 22, 1801; Act of September 12,
1782; Act of April 22, 1794.
149
Stewart v. Foster, 2 Binney, 110.
150
Tree of Liberty, May 23, 1801.
151
Thaddeus Mason Harris. The Journal of a Tour, Boston,
1805, p. 41.
152
153
Pittsburgh Gazette, August 23, 1794; Pittsburgh Gazette,
October 10, 1800.
154
Pittsburgh Gazette, July 26, 1794.
155
156
157
158
159
Tree of Liberty, December 10, 1803.
160
161
162
163
164
165
Tree of Liberty, March 13, 1802.
166
167
168
Tree of Liberty, October 22, 1803.
169
1807–1809, Pittsburgh, 1810, p. 71.
170
171
172
173
Morgan Neville. In John F. Watson’s Annals of
Philadelphia and Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 1891, vol.
ii., pp. 132–135.

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Lived Religion in Latin America

Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press

© Oxford University Press 2021

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in

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Library of Congress Cataloging-​in-​Publication Data

Introduction: Norma’s Lived Religion and How to Study It  1

I was invited to give talks at Centro de Investigación en Ciencias Sociales

Rodriguez, Keni Obiora, William Krom, Alex Madronal, Jackson Pellegrini,

• “Introduction: Lived Religion in Latin America and Europe. Roman

• “The Symbolic Efficacy of Pope Francis’ Religious Capital and the

Horacio Crespo was my adviser during a master’s program at Universidad

are. Something that will be meaningful in the next 20 years. . . . Where do

Norma, from the city of Cordoba in Argentina, is a 59-​year-​old Catholic

Figure I.2 Norma’s Pentecostal prayer booklet

and specialization of spheres of knowledge, and the expansion of human

The difficulty in assessing religiosity as it exists in Latin America is due in

From Latin America

relied on institutional documents as sources. Sociology has not paid enough

To explore Latin Americans’ lived religion (I’ll develop this concept in

interviews took place, or in some cases during a “pre-​interview” meeting,

university campuses. Some persons might need a complicated commute to

Table I.1 Research sample design

SES Catholic Protestant Other Nonaffiliated N

In October 2016 we gathered in Boston to discuss our findings and invited

From the “Poor”

Although the data we collected concern people of both upper/​middle and

Table I.2 Sample distribution of lower-​SES participants, by city, gender, and

Catholic Protestant Other Nonaffiliated Total

One problem in understanding Latin Americans’ religiosity is that some

The Book Ahead

Studying the conflictual interaction of modernity and religion has been

when criticized, is present in debates and embedded in different method-

in which these people make emotional, personal, political, or social choices.

Critical Sociology: The Enlightenment and

including decline in memberships and general weakening of religious

Why Do It from Latin America?

of that, different religious responses to it (Casanova 1994; Eisenstadt 2000;

an unavoidable perspective when discussing the religious situation of Latin

I propose a lived-​religion approach, with a synchronic take, that pays at-

areas where modernity is experienced on daily basis: access to technology,

The year 1800 ushered in more than a new century in

You might also like

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Introduction: Norma’s Lived Religion and How to Study It 1

Norma, from the city of Cordoba in Argentina, is a 59-year-old Catholic

interviews took place, or in some cases during a “pre-interview” meeting,

Although the data we collected concern people of both upper/middle and

Table I.2 Sample distribution of lower-SES participants, by city, gender, and

I propose a lived-religion approach, with a synchronic take, that pays at-