Bishop says future of U.S. church is in
Spanish language
By LESLIE
WIRPSA NCR Staff Los Angeles
Concern for the development of effective pastoral policies for 20
million Hispanic Catholics has grown in recent years, but if a recent study and
ministry experts are correct, the concern may be too little too late to stop a
serious drain of Hispanics to other churches. During their annual policy
meeting in November, the nations 300 Catholic bishops approved plans for
a millennium encuentro (encounter) -- a meeting of 5,000 Hispanic Catholic
leaders, the fourth of its kind since 1972 -- and they voted on a first-ever
Spanish-language liturgical text, the Sacramentario.
Bishop Charles Grahmann, echoing a 1995 statement made by the pope
during his U.S. visit, said, The future of the Catholic church in the
United States is in the Spanish language.
But in the day-to-day practice of the faith, where plans voiced at
conferences or drafted on paper intersect with peoples lives,
difficulties abound, according to leading veterans of Hispanic ministry. They
see the need for effective pastoral strategies as especially pressing, since --
despite the defections -- Hispanics will shortly be the majority in the U.S.
church.
A closer look at Hispanic ministry reveals serious failures
of a pastoral nature on the part of us church leaders, according to
Jesuit Fr. Allan Figueroa Deck, professor of theological studies at Loyola
Marymount University in Los Angeles and former executive director of the
National Catholic Council for Hispanic Ministry.
Sr. Dominga Zapata, Hispanic-American and Native American
consultant for the Chicago archdiocese, said that despite good intentions from
the larger church, Hispanics dont seem to feel we are genuine
children. We feel we are the illegitimate children. ... We still struggle in so
many parishes to be accepted, to sit around the table in dialogue.
One result of these shortcomings, Hispanic ministry leaders say,
is the movement of Hispanics to other tables -- primarily those of
fundamentalist Protestant churches.
An exodus
A survey released in October by the National Opinion Research
Center, headed by sociologist Fr. Andrew Greeley, documents a
hemorrhage of American Hispanics from the Catholic church at a rate
of 60,000 annually. One of every seven Hispanic Catholics has left the church
in the past quarter century, Greeley asserts, representing the worst
defection in the history of the Catholic church in the United States and
a catastrophic loss.
Greeleys findings state that in the early 1970s, 78 percent
of Hispanic-Americans identified themselves as Catholic; the percentage for the
mid-1990s stands at 67 percent. Hispanics now account for 23 percent of the
membership of Protestant churches, up from 17 percent in the early 1970s.
Catholic commentaries on this trend have often attributed the exodus to the
aggressive evangelization campaigns of fundamentalist Protestant churches in
the United States and in Latin America. For decades, Deck wrote in
the University of Notre Dame Press 1994 anthology, Hispanic Catholic
Culture in the U.S.: Issues and Concerns, Roman Catholic writers have
been bemoaning the proselytism of what they disdainfully call the sects ... but
serious self-evaluation and soul searching has usually not characterized their
reflections. In a more recent essay responding to Greeleys
findings, Deck noted: Despite the frequent mention of this concern at
almost every ecclesial gathering that has anything to do with Hispanics or even
the broader reality of the U.S. Catholic Church during the past 10 years, a
coherent response has not materialized. ... There has always been great heat in
this topic but not a great deal of light.
The growing challenges of Hispanic ministry, coupled with concern
about the accelerated shift of Hispanics to other churches, have forced many
pastoral leaders to examine more deeply the practical, cultural and
institutional barriers that prevent many Hispanics from finding a home in the
U.S. Catholic church. Analysts have begun to look at the structural origins of
Hispanic defection, the factors that push people away by action or
omission.
A key problem is the lack of Hispanics in positions of influence
and leadership within the hierarchical structures of the church, say observers.
Too often conditions do not exist that allow each cultural group to
develop its own leadership; rather the Hispanics are expected to submit to the
leadership of others in the name of unity, Deck said. Unity,
however, does not come about by fiat. It must be negotiated from a position of
mutual strength. A sprinkling of superficial customs and multicultural
liturgies does not suffice. People are not spiritually nourished, and so they
look elsewhere.
Zapata agreed. In Chicago, she said, leadership structures do not
reflect the reality of a Catholic population that is 31 percent Hispanic and
growing in sheer numbers and in geographic diversity. One challenge is
the speed of the increase of the population of Hispanics in Chicago. At one
time, there were only Hispanics in the city, now we are facing this all over
the suburbs, she said. But there are no Hispanic bishops in
Chicago, even though we have terrific bishops who speak the language. Where are
we in terms of decision-making positions in the Catholic church? she
asked.
One, holy, complicated
In addition to problems of representation in leadership, Fr.
Domingo Rodríguez, a Puerto Rican and superior general of the Missionary
Servants of the Most Holy Trinity, said that at another level Hispanics
frequently feel homeless within the one, holy, catholic, apostolic -- and
complicated -- church of Jesus Christ. Speaking to those involved in
Hispanic ministry, Rodríguez cites making people feel at home as a
number one recommendation.
Our church speaks eloquently of its concern for Hispanics,
but in the concrete situation of the parishes, it is difficult to understand
the situation. The parish is not a point of coming together where Hispanics
feel embraced, where they feel at home. Feeling at home is key, feeling a sense
of belonging in the parish, said Rodríguez, a prominent lecturer
and preacher on Hispanic issues. The Protestants have obtained
this.
Part of the alienation, Rodríguez claims, developed because
the largely middle class U.S. church that grew out of a different
immigrant experience has unfair expectations of todays Hispanics --
pastorally, economically and culturally.
Many of us in ministry latch onto pastoral approaches or
beliefs that become obsolete, given the changing realities of peoples
lives, he said.
Something as simple as different concepts of the value of time can
contribute to feelings of alienation, Rodríguez pointed out. As
Americans, we treasure time and being on time -- time is money, we even say!
Hispanics and other ethnic groups perceive time from a completely different
perspective. They treasure life, the person -- time is subservient to
these, he wrote in a guideline document for people in Hispanic
ministry.
Rodríguez warned the larger church to avoid expecting
Hispanics to follow the pattern of behavior of your immigrant
foreparents, who after a number of years assimilated and became part of the
predominant society.
Todays challenges are different, he said: There are
historical, political, geographic, economic and social factors that make the
Hispanic presence in this country a different experience than that of your
grandparents, he said.
Rodríguez said a major challenge is to make Hispanics feel
they are taken into account, that they can speak, that people pay
attention to them and not that worth is determined by how much I put in the
collection plate. The crucial question, Rodriguez said during an
interview with NCR, is Who is the church looking after? Too often,
the answer is Those who have the power and money. ... The bottom line is
not the faith, the bottom line is the money; show me the money, he
said.
Donald Miller, professor of religion at the University of Southern
California and author of the recently released Reinventing American
Protestantism, said that the smaller, more family-like atmosphere
of the Protestant churches draws Latinos, especially at a time when priest
shortages and church closings are turning many Catholic parishes in big cities
into mega-churches with huge, relatively impersonal settings.
Community is the draw
Look at it in market terms. Would you rather go to a large,
impersonal church or to a smaller, more intimate place where the Spirit is
moving, where you have an extended family experience, extended family
dynamics? Miller asked. He said that immigrants, who are strangers
in a strange land, will naturally gravitate to the warmth of a
tightly knit community ... where people are more likely to care for each
other.
Miller said people defect when their needs are not being met by
the structure within which they participate. Miller said that Pentecostal
congregations were among the first to indigenize music, encouraging
people to sing in their native language. Many Pentecostals respond powerfully
to the mystical desire of Latinos, he said.
The Pentecostal churches are much closer to the culture of
most immigrant communities than the large Catholic church, Miller said.
Churches, he added, are for immigrants transnational institutional
bridges between the country they came from and the country they are
in.
In mega-parish settings, where many cultures are present, music
and liturgy often become homogenized, Miller said. In smaller spaces, however,
if you have 100 people, all from the same city or region, it allows
religion to be experienced in the tongue the people grew up with.
Loyola Marymounts Deck agreed. In his response to
Greeleys survey, Deck outlined the structural deficiencies exacerbating
the problems of Hispanic ministry and prompting Latino defection from
Catholicism. More and more diverse cultures are being pushed into
existing parishes because the church does not have enough priests to staff new
congregations, Deck said. Moreover, territorial parish structures
may or may not offer the appropriate conditions for ongoing formation,
prayer, worship, fellowship and service.
In contrast, Deck said, smaller, non-Catholic settings frequently
offer viable communities where a real sense of ownership is
cultivated.
Maria Luisa Gastón, director of Hispanic and multicultural
services for the Paulist National Catholic Evangelization Association, based in
Washington, said she thinks a lot of Protestant groups are more effective than
many Catholic groups at embracing the ways in which Hispanics unite body
and soul ... home with church ... the economic with the spiritual ... the way
we sacramentalize daily life. Protestant churches often provide members
with transportation, baby-sitters, clothing, furniture and loving warmth
out of simple gospel values. She said these are the human
relational things we had in our own churches at home, or in our families and
they are related to what we believe God is all about.
The last Hispanic Encuentro, Gaston pointed out, recognized the
lack of this personalized element in the Catholic church. The section on
evangelization, she said, admits that from a Hispanic perspective, one
perceives a cold church without fraternal love or a communitarian
dimension. Hispanics who defect may miss aspects of Catholicism, like
devotion to Mary and the sacraments and they may feel discomfort with
Protestant criticism of Catholicism and the pope. But many are willing to
sacrifice that for the more integral approach to faith and reality,
Gastón said.
Deck said that Greeleys findings on the defection of
Hispanic Catholics are part of a more serious matter -- that of
renewal of the clerical culture, of authority relationships and channels of
participation in the wider church.
When leadership in the church is too narrowly entrusted to
the clerics, the results, as we sadly see today, are a lack of pastoral options
and a diminishment of the entire church, Deck said. There is a
linkage, therefore, between the struggle to redefine ministry, especially the
role of women in the church and the churchs ability to flourish in the
years to come.
Real collaboration
For Deck, Hispanic movement to other churches has to do with
the struggle to open up Catholic church structures to real collaboration.
Without this, he said, we do not have the practical means to respond to
the religious quest of Hispanics and many others as well.
Gaston also emphasized that the challenges revealed in ministry to
Hispanics represent larger authority, structural questions. ... How many
times in the Catholic church have we enabled Hispanics to be leaders? The
Catholic church, Gaston said, offers little in the way of affirming,
commissioning, giving authority and importance to Hispanics so they can have a
sense of, I am doing this. Hispanics get this much
more easily in the Protestant congregations.
Miller agreed that many Protestant churches, because they are
flat bureaucratically extend an enormous amount of trust in
the laity to start programs. ... They give leadership to them. ... They are not
micromanaging.
Cultivating participative leadership within Catholicism is crucial
considering that, despite Greeleys predictions of defection, Hispanics
are fast becoming the majority presence in the Catholic church. The
transformation has inherent difficulties. The most difficult thing is
this transition from minority to majority. No one knows how to manage that
change. Until now its been the Hispanics, the poor, who have had to
adapt, not those in power, said a leader in pastoral work with Hispanics
who asked to remain anonymous.
She said that many efforts at multicultural churches have been
basically Anglo-American church culture with small strips of other
identities, but without a real turning over of ownership to groups that
have not historically dominated. What must be asked, she said, is, Who
still does the planning? Who is still in charge of the decision-making
process?
Rudy Vela of the San Antonio Mexican American Cultural Center,
which has been at the forefront of Hispanic ministry for 25 years, said
effective Hispanic and multicultural ministry calls for a change in the
way we really see ourselves as church. On one hand, he said he does not
think that members of the dominant culture in the United States have a
sense of what it means to have a culture ... that has traditions, piety. ...
Theyve kind of just been swept into the undertow of who we are as
Americans, that everyone should learn how to speak as Americans, thats
what everyone should be.
Gaston echoed Velas point: The status quo, the
non-Hispanic Catholics, the Anglos registered in the parish are not willing to
give up part of what they have, as if it were only theirs. Sometimes, she
said, the only way for communities to be free to practice their faith
expressions is by following the lead of some Korean or Nigerian churches that
obtained separate buildings.
I dont have answers, though, in terms of the
multicultural reality. It is a very complex issue, Gaston said. However,
some might argue, the issue is as simple as where you ask people to meet.
Consider the last three annual liturgy conferences in the Los Angeles
archdiocese.
In 1995 separate conferences were organized for Spanish and
English liturgies. The Spanish-language event, held in an unassuming grade
school in a region with dynamic Hispanic presence, drew 1,600 participants.
(NCR, Nov. 17, 1995).
The following year, Hispanic organizers consented to a joint
English-Spanish conference. The site chosen was the elegant Sheraton Hotel in
Long Beach. The location and ambience -- it was far, it was expensive to
get there, one organizer noted -- cut Hispanic participation
dramatically. That year only about 275 Hispanic leaders attended.
The 1997 conference, which focused on Cardinal Roger Mahonys
liturgical letter, Gather Faithfully Together, which includes an
affirmation of the gifts different cultures bring to the faith,
(NCR, Oct. 24) was also held at the Long Beach Sheraton. Hispanics numbered
about 350.
Rodríguez attributed these kinds of problems to the
middle-class mentality of American Catholicism. The U.S.
Catholic mentality, which is of the middle class, has a hard time understanding
Hispanics who are not part of that middle class, he said.
Something as simple as collection envelopes can contribute to a
sense of alienation among Hispanics, he said. Many Hispanics, he said,
have been born in small villages, where they were part of the church
without having to register and this idea of contributions in envelopes
doesnt fit. Gaston said that things like registry -- and the
underlying cultural assumption that such formalities are what denote Catholic
membership -- confuse data on Hispanic Catholics. She said that while Greeley
is right about the problem of defections, the growth in numbers of Hispanic
Catholics must also be recognized.
Rodríguez said priests and parish communities should ask
themselves, What priorities are we giving to these communities in
need? He suggested that priests and bishops convoke town hall
meetings with Hispanic communities to ask, What really are the needs of
the people?
Other leaders emphasized the importance of Christian base
communities and other smaller, more personal models of worship and ministry.
We go to the traditional modes of organized church, of providing Mass, of
getting the priest, instead of going to the neighborhoods, starting communities
there, maybe not having Eucharist for awhile, but really building prayer,
said Gaston.
Zapata agreed. The base communities make so much sense for
us. As we grow, we get lost in the parish and were not familiar with all
that structure, she said. She said there must be micro-level attempts to
bring members of the parish into personal dialogue with one another. I
dont mean an international dinner, a potluck, where everyone puts out
food then goes and eats their own. I mean real dialogue, two or three families,
in their homes, sharing food and talking and struggling with the
language.
National Catholic Reporter, December 26,
1997
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