On Faith and Miracle: A Cosmological Perspective on Faith and Miracle as ‘Social Categories of Understanding’ in Brazilian Catholicism

Abstract

The concepts of faith and miracle frequently appear in the anthropological literature on Christianity. Yet these phenomena are rarely employed as social categories of understanding, and this is particularly true for research related to Catholicism. By way of my own ethnographic experience in three different fieldwork sites of Brazil’s Northeast (Agüera - where apparitions of the Virgin Mary occur; Monte Santo - a Catholic pilgrimage sanctuary; and Casa Amarela, a neighbourhood in Recife, the capital of Pernambuco state), I argue that a cosmological perspective is central to understanding Brazilian Catholicism. Furthermore, and perhaps more importantly, such a perspective reveals faith and miracle as key elements to an understanding of Catholicism as it is lived in this context. As such, I suggest rethinking faith and miracle as “social categories of understanding,” which dialectically organize Catholic logic and cosmology: the interconnectivity of humans, nature, and the supernatural.