Mexican Monks: Blackfriars Parish Church

The Guadalupe Center is a religious nonprofit organization under the umbrella of the Providence Hospital community outreach program. The agency was founded in 2003 by the sisters of charity when they saw necessities of the Hispanic community and other underserve groups. The Guadalupe center was created to help immigrants who were being discriminated and undertreated because of their race, lack of education and language barrier. The Guadalupe Center used to be funded by Mission and Ministry Inc., but it is now completely funded by the Providence Hospital. Due to this changes in funding the Guadalupe Center had to move from Semmes were the agency had its own building to Cody Road in Mobile were they have to share the

The Metropolitan Cathedral in Mexico City was built between 1573 and 1813 by the architect that designed this building was Claudio de Arciniega. He designed this building from taking inspiration from gothic cathedrals in Spain. The focus of this cathedral was Spanish gothic, with the influence of the renaissance. Claudio de Arciniega was born in 1520 and died in 1593. There was not a lot found on him. Per Jimenez article, he was a carver in Madrid and after a while, moved to New Spain in 1555. He did some work in America like the Viceregal Palace and the Santo Domingo (Jimenez). He also did some work in Mexico till he died. The last building, he was working on was the Metropolitan Cathedral in Mexico City right before he died.

Modern practitioners of Santeria may be attracted to the religion for a variety of reasons, notable among which are curiosity with secret rituals and the longing among many immigrants and people of color to get in touch with Caribbean and African roots. What each specific individual wants from a religion is difficult to generalize upon, but Santeria offers a way for people to achieve harmony in their lives through communication with and obedience to orishas, the divine beings that act as intermediaries between humans and the Supreme Being, Olodumare. Santeria teaches how to know and appease the specific desires of a pantheon of orishas who alert devotees to problems in their lives and protect them from harm. In

For this experience, I decided to explore Buddhism in order to enhance my involvement with the religion and build a strong understanding. What intrigued me about Buddhism was the social aspect and diversity that it had to offer. In order to explore this religion from a critical and analytical viewpoint, I decided to attend a weekend service offered at San Jose Buddhist Church Betsuin. The San Jose Buddhist Church Betsuin main temple is located in the Japantown section of Central San Jose. What made this temple stand out amongst the others was its historical standing in the community. It is one of the oldest temples established in the United States. In order to learn more about the history, environment, and community as a whole, I decided to contact the temple’s staffs. After a brief phone call, I was able to schedule a tour. In preparation, I decided to do a brief research on Buddhism to familiarize myself with the religion beforehand. With all preparations and research necessary, I was ready to visit San Jose Buddhist Church Betsuin.

In 1542, a Christian missionary named Bartolomé de Las Casas wrote about the little-known realities of the brutalities occurring in the New World between Spanish conquistadors and Native Americans. Even though the Spanish originally set out to bring Christianity to the New World and its inhabitants, those evangelizing efforts soon turned into torture, mass killings, rape, and brutal slavery of the innocent natives to fulfill their greed for gold and wealth, according to Las Casas. In his primary account A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies, Bartolomé de Las Casas attempts to inform King Phillip II of the cruel acts and injustices committed by the Spanish conquistadors. Despite this condemnation, Las Casas does not reject imperialism, because he feels Spain has the obligation to spread the word of Christianity around the world. Instead, he finds fault with the Spanish conquistadors for implementing this evangelization the wrong way, by both physically harming the Native Americans and, fundamentally, in their underlying perception of them as inferior. Furthermore, the key to the coexistence of imperialism with Las Casas’ Catholic ideas and his defense of indigenous peoples lies in considering and treating these Native Americans as equals and as humanity rather than inferiors.

The overall culture and society in Mexico is greatly influenced by Catholic traditions that have been practiced for generations. These traditions are looked at as social events in Mexican communities (Hoffman 258). A quinceñera is one Catholic rite of passage that is considered to be an important milestone as it represents the transition of a girl into a woman on her fifteenth birthday. Friends and family are expected to attend Catholic ceremonies such as these despite any religious affiliation because of how intertwined Catholicism is with Mexican society (Euan Alvarado). This connection means that the majority of religious Mexicans are Catholic, and makes it difficult for other religions to grow. The Catholic Church also creates a sense of

Bartolomé de Las Casas presents, for its time, an astounding claim human equality before God. Defending the native people of the New World from the violence executed by Spain and the claims to authority given voice by Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda, Las Casas provides a precocious assertion of human rights and the limits on civil and church authority. In this paper I will argue that Las Casas makes a nuanced assessment of civil government, to which he gives a vital but limited authority. I further propose that Las Casas, even while holding to the traditional and scriptural authority of the church, ascribes a similarly circumscribed earthly authority. The effect of these positions is to afford to non-Christians rationality and the freedom of

The Haitian Revolution (1791-1803) and the accompanying slave revolt transplanted many refugees from the revolution into North America. Both former slaves and free people of color began to arrive in cities like Baltimore and New Orleans in the late eighteenth century and early nineteenth century. The Maryland Gazette published an announcement of “six ships [one a Guineaman, with negroes] four brigs, and four schooners, being part of the fleet which sailed from Cape Francois on the 23d ultimo. The passengers and crews amount to 619 persons…” The blacks on board the Guineaman would become the center of the black religious community that was established in the “chapelle basse” or lower chapel of St. Mary’s Seminary. It was this black

The First English Evangelical Lutheran Church of Glendale (First English) purchased twenty-one acres of land in the Angeles National Forest. The land was purchased in 1957 and was located along a natural canal used for drainage. First English conducted a retreat center on approximately twelve of the acres that were flat in character. The retreat center was for handicapped children and consisted of a multitude of buildings, including bunkhouses, outdoor chapel, and a dining hall.

For the Mexican Tradition Dia de los Muertos I will be doing my pet Roscoe. He was fast, big, and fun. He had white fur and blue eyes we had a little playground he used to run crazy and go inside there to hide. He loved kids. I remember when I went into my pool and was ready to get out than he was standing there and he was so excited!! Roscoe was such a good dog. He will be remembered.

The completion of military conquest in the “New World” marked the end of the indigenous peoples’ way of life and made way for Spanish rule under Catholic authority. The land that was conquered was retitled “New Spain” (Mexico) and the crown hoped to use monastic orders to convert the populace and establish Christian authority. The monastic orders sent to New Spain helped build the foundation of colonial life. The founding of cloisters symbolized the “triumph of Christianity over the pagan beliefs of the indigenous peoples.” Convents in particular provided women with a certain amount of socio-economic power in a patriarchal society.

After conquering the Aztecs, it was important to establish trading routes to the west coast to facilitate trade with China. Second, it was important to incorporate the indigenous people into a structured class that would benefit Spain. A hybrid administrative tributary system was adopted by Spain, a system that paralleled the Triple Alliance of the Tenochtitlan. To provide a constant source of revenue, chiefdom districts were put into place for the Indians to pay a portion to the crown either by harvest, labor, or income. At first, conquistadors who received an encomienda or land gift, were allowed to use Indian slave labor for mining and agriculture, however slavery was officially abolished in 1550. Expansion of cattle grazing by the encomidena’s

By the late 1500s, Christian denominations had been popping up all over Europe. This was in response to the reports of indulgences (selling of freedom from purgatory), clerical immorality, abuse of money, along with many other bad actions that were rampant among the Church. It was these problems that Luther and others rebelled and created their own religions. With the rising of these Reformation movements, the Church needed to make some reforms itself. These reforms took the form of educating the clergy, opening monasteries, the Inquisition, and the organizing of councils. In fact, even though Protestant attacks brought these reforms, many of these reforms were needed anyway. The problems in the Church were so bad that the Church would not

This week’s assignment is to answer questions, in essay format, from chapters 5 and 6 of the assigned textbook, “The Black Church in the African American Experience,” by C. Eric Lincoln and Lawrence H. Mamiya, provided the answers. Below are responses to the five questions:

What is the importance of this cathedral and how did the local people accepted the cathedral?