Cuéntame: Narrative in the Ecclesial Present

From the common Spanish phrase "cuéntame" (tell me a story), the author tells the story of the church, rooted in the experiences and lives of Latino/a Catholics in the United States.

If a people is known by the stories it tells, so too is a church. Since its inception in the mid-1970s, Latino/a theology has redefined notions of personhood and relationship, culture and interculturality, and notions of the divine itself. However, a coherent, systematic Catholic ecclesiology has yet to be elaborated from a Latino/a perspective.

This book undertakes that systemization in a multidisciplinary way, drawing upon Latin American and U.S. Hispanic literature as well as theological reflection, to devise an ecclesiology shaped by narrative. The author analyzes a variety of narratives -- fiction, history, religious rituals, demographic studies -- to find viable starting points for systematizing the "story" of the Church, which is ultimately what ecclesiology seeks to do.