Catholicism and Indigenous Custom

When I was preparing to travel to Bolivia, I was aware that I was going from a largely Protestant society (especially in the Deep South) to an almost-universally Catholic one. Having had Catholic family members and friends in the past, I thought that I had a fairly solid understanding of how Catholicism is practiced, here in the Americas at any rate. However, only a few days in the country have shown that I was greatly unaware of the lifestyles and the beliefs of the Bolivian faithful, and the degree to which these practices are influenced and informed by indigenous traditions and culture. Likewise, the level of religious sentiment and presence of Catholicism in daily life were unexpected and initially a bit disorienting for a visitor from the publicly secular West.

            When our group visited the church of San Francisco, a historic and impressive basilica, a feature pointed out to us was the extensive use of indigenous iconography in the outer carvings of the structure, features that would have been out of place in a cathedral in the United States or Europe, whose Catholic churches draw their cultural cues largely from the Irish, Italian, or Polish backgrounds of their parishioners. One carving on the church of San Francisco displayed biblical figures communing with animals native to Bolivia, not the Near East. Another showed a visibly pregnant woman giving birth, a reminder of both the lack of sensitivity about one’s body that the native peoples possessed, as well as the indigenous exaltation of women as symbols of fertility. This historic mindset could explain why the Virgin Mary holds places of prominence in so many homes to this very day.

            Indeed, coming from the United States, and even the highly faithful state of Mississippi, it has been surprising to note the great amount of religious iconography and practice present in public life. In my Bolivian family, for example, elaborate prayers are said at the beginning of each meal, Mass is a family event, each room boasts at least one picture of a saint, and an upcoming first Communion is looked forward to with great anticipation. The beliefs of the public are clearly and deeply sincere, and form a vital part of the social fabric. Catholicism was an emphasis of the colonizers, as well as many political leaders up to the present, and so it seems that being Catholic is an integral part of being Bolivian (especially with the election of the first Latin American pope, Francis). In short, Bolivian Catholicism has been a far cry from its American counterpart, and the vivid presence of the religion in ordinary people’s daily lives has been an entirely new experience for a foreigner from a country in which one’s beliefs are far more often a private affair.