Rebhun, “Living Saints, Dead Saints”

Rebhun, Linda-Anne. 2016. “Living Saints, Dead Saints, and Ordinary Women in Northeast Brazil.” In Religious Diversity Today: Experiencing Religion in the Contemporary World. Edited by Liam D. Murphy, 131-152. Santa Barbara: Praeger.

Excerpt: “I met Maria do Rosario when I was conducting anthropological research in the city of Caruaru, in the inland portion of the Northeast Brazilian state of Pernambuco. The late 1980s and early 1990s saw a transition from military to civilian government, as well as massive rural to urban migration in the area…Maria do Rosario’s neighbors told me that she was a saint who had taken a vow to Saint Rita of Cascia, patron saint of bereaved mothers and abused wives…Many Catholics, like Maria do Rosario, practice local versions of Catholicism, shaped by regional history and folklore as well as Church theology.”