A worldly monasticism. New Catholic spiritualities and secularisation of monastic culture in Latin America

Abstract

The transformation of Latin AmericanCatholicism in the last decades along with the change of religious optionsbecause of the emergence of new religions has supplied the sociological basis to renewed sacred sensibilities. This work provides a general overview of a form of secular monasticism. Related in many cases with the regional historic monasticism, as well as with transnational monastic-based movements, this paper focuses on the diffusion and resignification of monastic culture in the public sphere in order to assess its materialisation in a worldly monasticism. It is argued that such a dispersal has been embraced ‒ principally but notbarely ‒ by groups and institutions that encourage personal well-being through the everyday practice of meditation, contemplative prayer and so on. A further argument of this work is that the process has been driven by the intervention of both different monastic promoters and a profusion of monastic literature in Latin American society.