Leo Guardado
Healing Catholicism?: Migration and Indigenous Healing Practices in a Global Church
The lecture will examine the context of structural and direct violence that marks migration throughout the Americas and the impact of such violence upon the health of migrant communities in the United States. Prof. Guardado will then explain some of his fieldwork with an indigenous healer from southern Mexico who migrated to New York City during Covid and the conceptual, psychological, and spiritual challenges that emerge through this work. Lastly, the lecture will raise questions about dominant Euro-American forms of Roman Catholicism that reject indigenous healing practices that serve as the healthcare of the poor, and how this rejection continues a legacy of spiritual and psychological violence that must be exorcised from the church.