A Catholic moment at Union
Theological
By PATRICIA
LEFEVERE Special to the National Catholic Reporter
New York
Union Theological Seminary, the 133-year-old Gothic-spired bastion
of progressive Protestant theology on Manhattans Upper West Side, looked
transformed February 8. Among the the unusual guests on campus were Our Lady of
Montserrat and Our Lady of Guadalupe.
Present, too, were the patroness of the Dominican Republic, Our
Lady of Altagracia, and Cubas patroness, Our Lady of the Caridad del
Cobre. Images of four of the Latino faces of Mary glowed from large candles
that greeted visitors at the entrance to Unions James Memorial
Chapel.
The event was the inaugural address of Ana Maria Diaz-Stevens, who
became Unions first fully-tenured Latino professor.
Inside the chapel the spirit was loud, festive and Latino.
Liturgical dancer Sandra Rivera of Omega Dance led a corps of dancers and a
score of Union faculty, each of them carrying a colorful carnation. The
white-robed dancers and the professors -- dressed in the crimson robes of
Harvard; the varied blues of Columbia, Duke and Yale; the red of Union and
maroon of Fordham -- swayed toward their chairs.
Mary and rosary beads
Instead of the usual Pomp and Circumstance
processional common to such occasions, the group sang De
Colores.
In front of them stood a huge, high-beamed cross with a blue cloth
flung over its wide arms. Below were more statues and paintings of Mary, with
an outsized set of rosary beads draped over a portrait of Guadalupe. An
Afro-Dominican ensemble strummed guitars, banged on bongos and serenaded
Unions scholars and staff, a group itself whose members looked more like
they were attending a Puerto Rican Day parade or street fair than a
lecture.
Diaz-Stevens, a sociologist, is in her sixth year at Union. She
can point to other women and other Roman Catholics whove won tenure at
Union, but for the little girl from the poor mountain village of Moca, Puerto
Rico, the day brought poignant memories.
When Ana Maria Diaz made her way to St. Rose of Lima Church on
West 165th Street in 1953, she was a newly arrived immigrant child. The
Irish-American nuns at St. Rose were none too pleased with how she made the
sign of the cross, dipping her hand in the font, and blessing her forehead,
eyes, nose and mouth -- all the while addressing the Trinity -- before finally
kissing the cross she had made by placing her thumb over her index finger.
Sweetheart, what is that noise? Diaz remembers the
sister asking. You are now in the U.S., and in our churches we do not do
things that way, said the nun.
St. Rose is only 40 blocks north of Union, which is situated
between Columbia University and Riverside Church, but 45 years later Diaz said
they seem a continent apart. From that early encounter with U.S. Catholicism,
she learned to obey the sisters at school and practice her traditional
religious habits at home.
Scrutiny was always a part of her intellectual makeup, she told
NCR. Everything has to be scrutinized. Just because popular
religiosity is based on tradition doesnt mean its superstitious or
stupid. Just because were Catholic, were not idolaters, she
insisted.
While Diaz-Stevens inaugural celebration was not the first
academic or liturgical fiesta to be held at Union, it was uniquely
Catholic and uniquely Marian, she said. I did it purposely -- not
so much to challenge my colleagues (four of 24 Union faculty are Catholic, and
14 percent of the student body is also Catholic) -- but to be a
witness.
Diaz-Stevens admitted that her subject matter, Memory,
Imagination and Tradition: Diasporic Latino Spirituality, is conservative
by Union standards. Unions admirers and critics alike view the seminary
as being on the fringe theologically, politically, sexually and liturgically.
I took something that can be seen as conservative and gave it a radical
twist, is how the new professor conceived her inaugural.
Madly in love with Catholicism
Referring to Unions reputation, she said, Liberalism
doesnt mean discarding all the old. It means being tolerant of traditions
and of the riches of the past. Im madly in love with being a Catholic and
madly in love with being a Christian, but that doesnt mean I accept
everything my church and the other churches do. Looking to the past,
whether it be to 20 centuries of Christendom or half a millennium of New World
existence, requires humility, she said. We dont have all the
wisdom.
She wants to show her peers and most of all her students
where we are as a Latino community, especially as Latino Catholic
women. Diaz-Stevens believes that popular religiosity has sustained
Latinos during periods when they lacked sufficient clergy. They looked to their
tradition for support at times when they were immigrants or migrants in a
strange land.
Having kept devotions linked to the Passion and Incarnation alive
in their new lands, Latino Christians have frequently returned to their home
country and have revitalized the religious and spiritual life of
the home community, she said.
For Puerto Ricans, the sung rosary has remained a popular devotion
and has served to hold the community together whether in rural villages or in
the urban sprawl of New York and other American cities. As a footnote to her
lecture, Diaz-Stevens husband, Anthony Stevens-Arroyo sang a part of the
rosary to the Union dons and students.
Stevens-Arroyo has a cantors voice that he uses to lecture
at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York, where he is professor
of Puerto Rican and Latino Studies.
Diaz-Stevens describes her husband, a married priest, as a
former Passionist who is now passionate. She was once a Dominican nun.
The couple met in graduate school at Fordham in the late 1970s and since have
collaborated on research and publications. The couple has a son, Adam, 16.
Together they published: Recognizing the Latino Resurgence in
U.S. Religion: The Emmaus Paradigm (1997) and An Enduring Flame: Studies
of Popular Religiosity Among Latinos (1994). Diaz-Stevens won the annual
award of the Cushwa Center for the study of American Catholicism for her 1993
book: Oxcart Catholicism on Fifth Avenue: The Impact of the Puerto Rican
Migration Upon the Archdiocese of New York.
For Union board member Justo Gonzalez, the tenure offered
Diaz-Stevens is a recognition of her scholarship and of Unions
profound ecumenism as well as an indication that many lay Catholics
are studying at Union. Theology is less and less a fixed canon and more
and more fluid in how it is being done, said Gonzalez, a retired
historical theologian from Emory University in Atlanta.
He pointed to different approaches to the study of theology,
noting that the social science method is highly relevant to the preparation of
seminarians and lay and clerical urban ministers. Diaz-Stevens and Union are
trying to respond to the multicultural, multi-religious New York reality, he
said. Shes not here as a token.
National Catholic Reporter, February 26,
1999
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