Juan Carlos SCANNONE. Theology of the People: The Pastoral and Theological Roots of Pope Francis. New York: Paulist Press, 2021. Pp.237+xviii. $39.95 pb. ISBN 978-0-8091-5475-3. Reviewed by R. Zachary KARANOVICH, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467.

In his Theology of the People: The Pastoral and Theological Roots of Pope Francis, Juan Carlos Scannone, the recently deceased Argentinian Jesuit and teacher of the former Jorge Bergoglio, offers an enlightening exploration of the theology of the people through an analysis of key events and documents as seen through Scannone—a figure at its heart. Scannone’s text is a fast-paced journey through the theology of the people–from its historical roots to its current manifestations in Francis’s papacy.

The book is set out in three parts. In “Part I: Historical Approach,” Scannone first outlines some essential terms and commitments of the theology of the people. Emerging at the time of the Second Vatican Council, a focus on the “people” was foregrounded as a result of an evaluation of the needs of the people in Latin America. The term was to be understood in a multivalent and complex way, connected principally to culture, i.e., the “common lifestyle of a people” (7). And, as with the broader interpretation of Latin American theology at that time, it was—and continues to be—affirmed that “the poor . . . are the ones who better and more authentically express that which is common to the people,” as opposed to the “antipeople” who “betray” their fellow people through structural injustices (7-8). The preferential option for the poor is, then, the lens through which the people are defined and should self-identify. Such a focus necessarily lifts up the value of popular religiosity as the evangelization of culture and would later be key to conceptions of “inculturated theology” (10-11). Also essential to the theology of the people is a broadened understanding of “evangelization” that includes liberation. As Scannone summarizes, theology ought to be interested in “fostering a liberating evangelization that articulates both (word and sacrament) without separating them . . . [and] bind[ing] the dimensions (divine and human) of the incarnation and, consequently, of the Church’s mission” (29).

In “Part II: Toward an Inculturated Theology,” Scannone provides some thoughts regarding “the inculturation of theology itself,” by which he means the inextricable location of theology in culture. For him, this inculturation is a truth not just for the Argentinian or Latin American church, but the entire Church. Three convictions—which form the methodological center of the theology of the people—are at the heart of this: “the option for the poor as a theological category, popular piety as a locus theologicus, and their interaction with each other and with the inculturation of theology” (36). Scannone continues through this section to deepen the concepts introduced in Part I, grounding them in historical examples from Argentina. These concrete examples help avoid what, at times, can seem to be an unnecessary repetition of earlier explanations, but they also offer important insights into the contextual factors that have facilitated the emergence and development of the theology of the people. One interesting example is his discussion of the Tinkunaco feast in Argentina (75-79). Among other things, the exploration of Tinkunaco offers an opportunity to see the two-way street in which the theology of the people interprets popular piety/religiosity: they are both acts informed by the Word and expressions of the Word—that is, either inculturated expressions of the faith learned or something to learn of the faith (see 113).

Finally, in “Part III: Theological-Pastoral Approaches of Pope Francis,” Scannone draws a line from the mid-20th century shift of the theological paradigm surrounding Vatican II to the contemporary teachings of Francis—teachings that, in Scannone’s opinion, cannot be understood apart from the theology of the people. Two essential pieces emerge in this final section. First, the theology of the people helps distinguish Francis’s thought from liberation theology. While the theology of the people indeed shares in the common enterprise of seeking the liberation of the oppressed, the focus is not through the use (or mere use) of economic criticism, but rather the broader “individual, social, cultural, political, economic, international, and even religious” criticism necessary to address the “spiritual worldliness” that is tainting contemporary sociocultural realities (136-37).

The solution Francis proposes in both Evangelii Gaudium—which, of Francis’s current corpus, Scannone evaluates the most—and Laudato Si’ is through four criteria or principles: 1) time is superior to space, which prefers the “horizon” of time that “constantly opens before us” and leads us to a better future as opposed to the spaces defined by power and jurisdiction that restrict and exclude; 2) unity over conflict, which prioritizes a unity in “social friendship” that does not ignore difference, but that respects them in a “communion of differences”; 3) reality is more important than the idea, which strives to avoid the temptation of dominating ideologies; and 4) the whole is greater than the part (and the mere some of its parts), which desires work for the always greater common good in a way that does not nullify the existence of the individuals within our global collective (187-99).

Deeply rooted in the theology of the people, these criteria make up the “polyhedron” used to “judge and discern the situation of a people (or the people of God) by their function of their building and leading in peace, justice, and fraternity” (199). They help determine a path toward a healthier sociocultural situation and built healthy peoples.

This is a rich text whose shortcomings are few. At times, especially for the novice or first-time paruser of the subject, the writing and its translation can seem almost too direct–to move a bit too quickly. A lack of additional connective tissue between the ideas can make reading it less narratival and more enumerated. Further, the text does not lend itself easily to readers without some theological background. It is presumed the reader has some baseline knowledge of theology and the conflicts within theology around the time of the Second Vatican Council as well as some of Pope Francis’s writings. One could expect that it is an appropriate book for upper-level undergraduate theology students. Regardless of one’s background, however, those readers who reach the text’s conclusion will be deeply enriched by Scannone’s work and will have a framework to better understand Pope Francis’s commitments. For those who take this work and the Holy Father’s exhortations seriously, we must heed Peter Casarella, who writes in the forward: “[T]he readers in the English-speaking world will have to discover their own synthesis and their own path to a theology for the people whose identity as a people was forged ‘in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity’” (x). Given our current state of affairs, never has this task been more important.