St. Martin de Porres The Little Stories and the Semiotics of Culture

The little stories and the traditions that grew up around Saint Martin de Porres of Peru are fascinating and every bit as charming as the stories told of Saint Francis of Assisi. But as Garci­a-Rivera shows, these deceptively simple stories reveal much more. For the first time Garci­a-Rivera unpacks these stories, using the semiotic method and insights garnered from the works of Robert Schreiter, Eugene Genovese, and Antonio Gramsci. To build this method of theological reflection Garci­a-Rivera addresses such questions as: does an authentic Latin American theology exist? If it exists, where and how can it be expounded? What does Saint Martin de Porres' beatification process tell us? How do the little stories reflect and extend the great theological debate of Valladolid in 1550, with Bartolom de las Casas and Juan Gines de Sepulveda arguing whether the Indians were even human beings? Using the semiotics of culture to delve into these stories, the author provides rich and astonishing insights into the power of the little story, told and retold over time by ordinary folk, that make possible the Big Story of universal principles of human reality.