Healing Catholicism?: Migration and Indigenous Healing Practices in a Global Church

Guest speaker: Leo Guardado

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.