Reviews for Biography of a Mexican Crucifix: Lived Religion and Local Faith from the Conquest to the Present

The average rating for Biography of a Mexican Crucifix: Lived Religion and Local Faith from the Conquest to the Present based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2017-09-27 00:00:00 James Pace This is a fantastic, fantastic book. The author shares a beautiful synthesis of pranayama and the Hail Mary prayer. He encorporates the history of the prayer and explores its most delicate nuances of meaning. I've prayed this prayer my whole life, but now it takes on so much more. I have been using the suggested breath exercises with wonderful results. I have fallen in love with the prayer all over again. God bless Richard Galentino!

Review # 2 was written on 2013-06-26 00:00:00 Kim Huynh Good book that is refreshingly respectful of Vodou. There are some biases in which Desmangles refuses to be critical of either the US or the Catholic Church, both of whom established clearly racist policies against Haiti in her early independence. There is also a base assumption that Catholicism is a true, universal, humanist religion and therefore Vodou is interpreted in ways that make it more compatible with Catholicism's metaphysics. Finally, Desmangles seems uncritical of Maya Deren as a source and relies on her too much. This unfortunate leap of faith results in Desmangles framing the Vodou self as two-part (which strikes me as over-simplified since all of my other sources describe at least five components), and the distinctions between these two parts is a bit muddled. Beyond that, this book is sensible, compassionate and clearly interested in furthering understanding rather than exoticism. Worth reading.