Spirit, Transformation, and Gender in the US-Mexico Borderlands, 1960–90s

This poster presentation of “Spirit, Transformation, and Gender in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands, 1960-1990s” shows how four key nodes of the Charismatic Catholic Renewal (CCR) offered differing responses to ills and paradoxes of modern life.  Lay and religious people in Pecos, New Mexico; Mexico City; El Paso, Texas; and Cd. Juárez, Chihuahua leveraged ecstatic and mystical spirituality to make sense of malaise, economic disparities, and changing constructions of gender in a time of Post-Vatican II transition and rapid socioeconomic change.  An experimental monastic community in Pecos blended Benedictine order with Pentecostal expression and Jungian mysticism in order to reimagine Christian life and articulate a response to modern fragmentation.  Meanwhile, monks in southern Mexico City used spiritual revival, systemic outreach, and biblical instruction to politically mobilize believers.  The resulting Sistema Integral de la Nueva Evangelización (SINE) from Mexico City and the Charismatic mysticism of the Pecos Benedictines influenced Charismatic Catholic revival in El Paso/Juárez.  There, believers on both sides of the border constructed their own versions of the Renewal in the context of stark economic disparities, cultural hybridity, and unique spatial challenges.   In addition to offering a feminist recovery of undocumented experiences, this project contributes to a better understanding of the intersections of religious faith and practice, gender, and global capitalism in the central borderlands.