Theology of the People as Modernity’s Alternative: A Review Essay

In Modernity’s Alternative, Rocco Buttiglione presents the Argentinian theology of the people as an alternative to modernity as it has developed in Europe and North America. After an introduction, the first main part of this review essay discusses Buttiglione’s account of the development of the theology of the people and the major figures in it and how the apparition of Our Lady of Guadalupe marks the beginning of an alternative modernity. The second section considers Buttiglione’s parallel between Christian Platonists’ inculturation of Christian faith into Greek culture and Guadalupe’s inculturation of Christian faith into Mesoamerican culture. The third section treats the “transpolitical interpretation of history” that Buttiglione develops from Augusto Del Noce and Alberto Methol Ferré, in which popular religiosity, rather than politics or economics, is the driving force of history. The fourth section concerns Buttiglione’s application of the theology of the people to contemporary globalization.