Catholic Church / Catholic Street: Popular religion and the interpretation of space in Chicago's Mexican American neighborhoods Kathleen A. Holscher Department of Religion Swarthmore College 30 April2001 Table of Contents Chapter One: Introduction 1 Chapter Two: An Intersection of Histories 13 Chapter Three: Image and the Dialect of Sacred and Secular Spaces 36 Chapter Four: Ritual: The Interplay of Space and Community 48 Chapter Five: The Image of the Virgin 63 Chapter Six: Conclusion 82 Appendix 87 Bibliography 96 Chapter One Introduction I-ate June aftemoon in the city and it's steaming. Sweat is beading across my shoulders and my sundress suddenly clings. I catch the redline El downtown from the apartment of friends on Lake and Austin, wander down to the museum campus, then head we$ from the lake front. On foot along Roosevelt Road, I pass above the dozens of railroad tracks that stream north into the loop. \fter a mile and a half or so I meet head onwith a procession of perhaps three hundred people travelíng east on Roosevelt. Neaþ all are Híspanic, everyone is Catholic. The pilgrims are boundfor Soldier Field, home of the Chicago Bears and, on this day, the Archdiocese of Chicago's FíeId of Faith celebratíon. I turn on my heels and shadow the procession back the way I carne, first on the other side of the street (wanting to maintain spatial evidence of the distance I feel on the situation, being neither Hispanic, nor a member of the archdiocese, nor an experíenced pilgrim), then in its midst as police fficers work to keep allfoot trffic streamlined on the north sidewalk. I am sunounded by people of all ages and both genders-- lots of young people, lots of families with young children. Most of the walkers chat casually in Spanish. Some holdbanners adornedwith religious imagery or displaying parish names; a few walk with signs supporting immigrant andwomen's agendas. One man near thefront of the line keeps up a constant string of prayers in Spanish through his loud speaker. Toward the back of the procession a group of walkers, mostly women, counter his voice with ø song. We arrive outside of Soldier Field in light driule. Instead of disappearing directly into the stadium-- the site of mass-- the entire crowd swings to the right and eventualþ gathers infront of the looming statue of Our Indy of the New Millennium. The Madonna, her stainless steelform glinting in the rain, takes me by sharp surprise. She is far more than I had expectedfrom this afternoon. Really she is far more than I would ever have expectedfrom the Chicago archdiocese. But she ís here and she is wildly popular. As I stand in quiet awe beþre the statue a heavy-set, eldeþ man (who, I would later learn, is her owner on his last day alive) hands me a prayer cardfeaturing the laminated silver of this Madonna superimposed over a photograph of Ho$ Name Cathedral. In front of me a longhaired priest leads prayers in Spanish to a guitar accompaniment. From all around rne come the responses, loud and emphatic. "Víva nuestra Madre de Guadalupe. Viva México! " It is well known that the Catholic Church in the United States has suffered in recent years from a dearth in clergy, drops in mass and parochial school attendance, and lack of funds. A spectator at Soldier Field during the June Field of Faith Eucharistic celebration, however, might remark that Catholicism appears alive and well in Chicago. To celebrate the jubilee year of 2000, the Archdiocese of Chicago converted Soldier Field into a "sacred space" reminiscent of the 1926 Intemational Eucharistic Congress held in the same location. This conversion involved the erection of a 170-foot steel-framed sanctuary and 18-foot stained glass cross, and the reintroduction of a chair used by Pope John Paul Ilin 19791 . Also present at the celebration this time around, on the grounds of Soldier Field (though not allowed into the stadium itself), was OurLady of the New Millennium. The Madonna, welded from 8400 pounds of stainless steel, standing 38-feet high on the back of a flatbed truck, lifted and supported by hydraulics, is a breath-catching reminder of the Catholic presence in the city. She is without a child and her two hands approach one another before her chest in prayer. She wears an unadorned robe and simple cloak over her loose flowing hair. Her feet are bare, her gazetravels out over the heads of those near her. She towers over spectators as formidably as the Sears tower looms above the rest of the Chicago skyline. She was commissioned by a private individual to celebrate the jubilee, and eventually admitted by current Chicago Archbishop Francis Cardinal George and the archdiocese (albeit with some hesitance) into the calendar ofjubilee year celebrâtions. She will tour parishes in the city and suburbs through the year 2000 and beyond. Steve Kloehn, religion writer for the Chicago Tribune, reported on this Madonna for the paper in late July: In an age of self-conscious skepticism, when even the Roman Catholic Church has pared down much of its iconography, the enorrhous sculpture of the praying Virgin echoes the piety of bygone ages, demonstrating the strong pull of tactile and visual symbols on the religious imaginationz. V/hat is an observer to make of this giant Madonna celebrating the new millennium? Is she really just a stainless steel echo of "the piety of bygone ages"? What can she in fact tell one about this "strong pull of tactile and visual symbols" on the Catholic devout in Chicago today? How does this hulking and unadorned figure of a woman, certainly the most public religious icon in the city in the year 2000, speak for a "Chicago-style" Catholicism? Any image this large, receiving the attention of this many people, must indeed have important things to say. Steve Kloehn. "Catholic rally holds echoes of the past." Chicago Tribune, 22 July 2000. Sec I , p.l . 2 I. The Project Mexican immigrants and their descendants currently comprise the largest ethnic population in Chicago. Heavily Catholic, this population has gro,wn into the most noticeable ethnic component of the Chicago archdiocese as well. With this group's visibility has come the equal visibility of distinctive rituals and images that fall within the culturally oriented practice of its religion. Some of these rituals and images are contained within Mexican American neighborhoods, in parishes and private homes, away from the eye of the larger public. Others have spread out to gain attention across the archdiocese, aroused the curiosity of the media, and tapped into wide public appeal. Examples of this are the pilgrimage to Soldier Field recounted above, and the formidable presence of Ourlady of the New Millennium which, though commissioned by a non-Hispanic man named Carl Demma, is representative of the Marion imagery that means so much to Catholics of Mexican descent in Chicago. Indeed the archdiocese's eventual willingness to allow this Madonna into its jubilee celebrations-- after initially recommending to Mr. Demma that he spend his money instead on some charitable cause-- was certainly influenced by the intense devotion to the Virgin demonstrated by Mexican and, to a lesser but still noteworthy extent, Polish Catholics in Chicago. This thesis examines the popular religion of Chicago's Mexican American communities. It is an attempt to better understand the Catholicism of a particular time, place and people, as demonstrated through image and ritual in the lives of those who practice it. On one level, it is a study of the religious traditions that meet and mingle in the Mexican neighborhoods of Chicago, creating a strain on popular Catholicism that is both historically and geographically distinct. On another level it is a theoretical examination of the potential of religion materialized in space; a study of the implications embedded in religious symbols and signs. And on still another level it is an exercise in thinking about the delineation of what is sacred and what is secular, what is Catholic and what is not, and the sources of authority involved in making these distinctions. ' Steve Kloehn. "Religious statues reach new heights of faith in Chicago." Chicago Tribune,2T July 2000. Sec.l, p.l. J There are many methods through which one may approach the study of popular religion. One may use history as an entrance point, or coïnmunity structure, or theology or narrative. To study the popular religion of immigrants, however, is to accept the pre-assigned priority of space. Space rushes to the forefront of the immigrant experience; geographic change, or change in space, transforms a person into an immigrant. History, culture, narrative- all are then grafted upon this fundamental change in geography. The coÍrmon experience of members of every Mexican immigrant community is a spatial one; though members arrive from disparate parts of Mexico-- some from Mexico City, others from rural rancheros-- all have traveled over great geographic distances to be thrown into the new, urban, American space of Chicago. It is especially appropriate, then, to use this crisis of space as an introduction to the study of popular religion within these communities. Image and ritual are elements of popular religion that create community space. When a Mexican immigrant community coalesces in a Chicago neighborhood, it is faced with a new geography, strange and unknown. Foreign architecture, unfamiliar images and signs in an . indecipherable language surround every member. These immigrants are suddenly living as transplants; usually without the means to revisit their native landôcapes. They occupy buildings and streets built by people they know nothing about, and are surrounded by the strangers more familiar with the space than they are.