Risking a Miracle: Transcendentally Oriented Improvisation and Catholic Charismatics' Involvement in a Transylvanian Canonization

Anthropologists have begun to challenge the consensus that sainthood is not an operative factor in Charismatic Christianity, opening up space to re-examine how ritual and narrative shape habitual religious sensibilities. Through an ethnographic study of Transylvanian Catholic Charismatics' sear...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Loustau, Marc Roscoe (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Carfax Publ. [2016]
In: Journal of contemporary religion
Year: 2016, Volume: 31, Issue: 3, Pages: 335-350
Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains:B Transylvania / Catholicism / Charismatic movement / Saint / Canon
Further subjects:B Eastern Europe
B Religious movements
B Ritual
B Saints
B Healing
B Catholicism
B Improvisation
Online Access: Volltext (Verlag)
Description
Summary:Anthropologists have begun to challenge the consensus that sainthood is not an operative factor in Charismatic Christianity, opening up space to re-examine how ritual and narrative shape habitual religious sensibilities. Through an ethnographic study of Transylvanian Catholic Charismatics' search for miracles to aid a deceased Bishop's canonization, I argue that canonization is driven by a form of adaptive ritualization and storytelling, which I call ‘transcendentally oriented improvisation'. In this mode, ritualization and storytelling are existential strategies by which subjects extrapolate styles of action and discourse into new situations to transcend disordered being-in-the-world. By engaging in improvisation, my acquaintances renewed a sense of existential potentiality put at risk. Studying transcendentally oriented improvisation draws attention to risk and indeterminacy as central aspects of the lived experience of canonization and other divine mediations. Transylvanian Charismatic Catholics' involvement in canonization is also evidence that the global Charismatic movement is now integrating into mainstream Catholicism. Movement, memorialization, authority, and religious experience are the central points of contention shaping the outcome of this process.
ISSN:1469-9419
Contains:Enthalten in: Journal of contemporary religion
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1080/13537903.2016.1206229