Popular Piety 

Rev. Horacio Brito

Rector of the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes (France)

In Evangelii nuntiandi, Pope Paul VI introduces the term “popular piety” as a theological locus to which we must pay particular attention, especially when reflecting upon the new evangelization. 

Popular piety is the authentic manifestation of the spontaneous missionary impulse of the people of God, in which the Holy Spirit is the principal agent. 

Privileged expressions of popular piety are found in the life and activity of religious shrines. These expressions, composed of human gestures, manifest, at the same time, God’s intervention in the life of men.  

As pastors, we are invited to reflect upon this reality, and to this end, the Holy Father calls pastors to a conversion of heart and to an affective connaturality able to appreciate and develop the theological life latent in gestures of popular piety. 

Popular piety teaches us to interact seriously with culture, inviting us to rediscover the presence of the Holy Spirit. 

It is an opportunity for the new evangelization, for it carries within itself a missionary strength and dimension.