The Catholic Church is facing a problem that frankly is interesting to not just them, but other non-Catholic Churches too. In many non-Catholic congregations, its not uncommon to read that they have a Spanish service in the afternoon. But it wasn’t until yesterday when CNN.com ran an article that ought to get many churches thinking.
In the article, Emily Probst reports:
“It’s the browning of the Catholic Church in the United States,” says Pedro Moreno Garcia, who until last month led the Hispanic ministry for the Archdiocese of St. Louis. Moreno Garcia points to St. Cecilia’s Spanish-dominant Mass schedule as a sign of the times.
“Hispanics are the present and Hispanics are the future of the Catholic Church in the United States,” says Moreno Garcia.
One-third of all Catholics in the United States are now Latinos thanks to immigration and higher fertility rates, according to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. While St. Cecilia’s parish has relished the growth, elsewhere, the Latino population boom has rocked the pews.”
All that information is important to getting down to what is the interesting part of the article.
The article continues,
“After more than 15 years working for the Catholic Church in majority-Hispanic areas of Texas, Moreno Garcia spent the last year tackling the challenges of a community where Latinos, although growing, are still the minority.
He recalls a few heated phone calls after the archdiocese newspaper, the St. Louis Review, added a page in Spanish. He fights prejudice with thought-provoking questions. “When you go to heaven, and you’re in front of St. Peter, what would you want to have in your hand, your baptismal certificate or your passport?” Moreno Garcia asks”.
Great question and point to people’s hang ups. But yet still that is not what was so interesting to me in this article.
Here is that portion:
One archdiocese parish that is struggling with the Latino influx is Holy Trinity in St. Ann, Missouri, a suburban community with an affordable housing stock that has prompted a population shift in the last decade.
Separate Sunday morning Masses in English and in Spanish at Holy Trinity are creating division among the devout.
“We’re two separate parishes operating under one roof,” says Parish Council President Gina Shocklee.
“I refer to it as Holy Trinity Catholic Church, and then there’s Holy Trinity Hispanic Church,” says council member Jody Tedeschi, who worries the separate Masses promote segregation.
Holy Trinity’s parish council has spent the past year looking for ways to bridge the divide with limited success.
“When I come to Mass at noon, the Anglos leave, and [Latinos] go in and we don’t even say ‘hi’ to each other, not even ‘hi,’” says Garcia. “Sometimes I think there is a wall, but that wall exists only because we don’t have enough faith.”
“I would really like if we could all be together, because we all worship the same God. We are all God’s children,” Garcia says, “but the problem is the language.”
A majority of Latino churchgoers in the United States attend Mass with mostly Latinos in the pew and Spanish-speaking clergy at the pulpit, according to a 2006 Pew Forum survey. Today, 15 percent of priests ordained in the United States are Latinos, according to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.”
Do you see it? A church family that wants to be a family, but because of the language barrier they feel like just strangers to each other. I rejoice in the fact that this church is wanting and longing to connect, but my heart breaks for them they can’t.
Thinking about churches that have this same set-up, makes you wonder though, do their people feel the same way? The Catholic Church is smart enough to work and find a solution to this problem. Its actually very imperative that they do, because no one wants to loss people. But what about other churches that are facing the same issue. What steps are they taking? And where might they find their solutions?
