Pastoral Theology for a Christianity with a Marian Face

Abstract

Pastoral theology seeks to discern courses of action that collaborate with the salvific work of God. It is elaborated from the believing experience of concrete subjects, who are always members of a people and who are traversed by a common history and culture. In Latin America, history shows that the Virgin Mary has been a protagonist of the first order in the process by which the faith was inculturated. So much so that she has become part of the cultural DNA of the continent and her presence marks the Christian life of enormous majorities.

This article explores the historical and cultural roots of this Christianity with a Marian face, taking the Guadalupan event as an archetypal milestone of what will be the presence and action of Mary in the nascent people. The guiding thread is marked by the theological reading of the founding evangelization of Latin America developed by the Argentine theologian Rafael Tello, who understands that with the emergence of Latin American popular Christianity, new riches of Revelation unfold in history. One of these new riches is a greater understanding of the mystery of the Mother of God and her place in redemption.