Conor McNamara
Religion & Ethics Editor
NOTRE DAME’s Institute for Church Life (ICL) recently hosted an informal meeting of the nation’s Hispanic Catholic Bishops to discuss ways in which the Church in the United States can better meet the pastoral needs of its growing Hispanic community.
The third gathering of its kind in three years, this ‘consultation’ provided participating bishops with the opportunity to brain-storm about important issues facing Hispanics in the Church and to identify ways of increasing collaboration between the bishops and the University.
As part of a wider bureaucratic restructuring plan approved last November, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) elected to close down its Secretariat of Hispanic Affairs at the beginning of 2007. In its place, the bishops plan to institute a comprehensive, association-wide pastoral program in which all USCCB departments will play a role in ministering to the Hispanic community.
With significant annual increases in the U.S. Hispanic population, the Church recognizes that Hispanic ministry is of the highest importance. Thus, the U.S. bishops have declared Hispanic ministry to be one of the “top five” priorities in the future of Catholic ministry.
Notre Dame has promised to do its part in supporting this pastoral mission. Of the University’s evolving role, ICL director and theology chair Professor John Cavadini said, “The ICL has offered to help the Hispanic bishops address the pastoral challenges they have identified in ministering to Hispanic Catholics in the U.S. We thought this might take the form of a National Center for Hispanic Church Affairs, but this is only a tentative formula while we are working out the details of what [that assistance] might actually look like.”
“The Institute for Church Life could provide opportunities for the Hispanic bishops to meet together, perhaps annually, to clarify their own pastoral objectives amongst themselves,” said Cavadini, adding that the ICL could then provide support in the way of programming, facilitating, or offering resources to help fulfill the objectives they identify.
Archbishop Jose H. Gomez of San Antonio, the highest-ranking Hispanic in the U.S. Church, was one of nine bishops in attendance at the Sept. 25 meeting. In an exclusive interview with The Rover, Gomez was generous in his praise of Notre Dame and the extent to which the University is helping to advance the USCCB’s domestic pastoral priorities.
“Notre Dame is doing many things that will be important in the work of the Church in the United States,” he said. “The most fundamental and long-term one is that it is giving Hispanic university students a good foundation in our Catholic tradition and giving them an opportunity to participate meaningfully in the sacramental life of the Church. This will give them a solid foundation for participation in the life and mission of the Church wherever they live.”
Gomez emphasized the continuing need to make Hispanic youths the targets of pastoral programs. “One very important event hosted by Notre Dame was the National Hispanic Youth Encuentro,” said Gomez, referring to the event at which he was the keynote speaker in the summer of 2006.
The Encuentro, which provided leadership training for thousands of participating youth ministers from throughout the country, was the culmination of parish, diocesan, and regional meetings held in several cities, including Chicago and Los Angeles, which called Hispanic young adults to assume a greater role within the Church.
In addition, Gomez said, “many of our Hispanic parishes have benefited from the services of Catholic school teachers provided by the Alliance for Catholic Education and of catechists provided by the ECHO program.”
Because of the Hispanic community’s complex social topography, the Church faces formidable challenges in trying to develop a pastoral program that will speak to the Hispanic demographic in its entirety.
Gomez summarized this complexity. “Some are descendents of the first settlers, such as some of the parishioners of my Cathedral in San Antonio (founded in 1731), while others are recently arrived immigrants – some documented and others undocumented. Some are successful professionals, others are ordinary middle class workers, while still others live in dire poverty.”
Ethnic and linguistic barriers also pose unique challenges, he said. “Some are perfectly bilingual, while others speak only English or only Spanish. There is also the great ethnic diversity since Hispanics of the USA come from every country in Latin America and the Caribbean.”
Gomez outlined the USCCB’s nuanced approach in dealing with these issues, saying, “The Church and Notre Dame are responding first of all by trying to understand, appreciate and respect the various differences so that we can preach, teach and practice our Catholic faith in a meaningful way.”
His comments coinciding with the third-annual Notre Dame Forum on immigration, Gomez said, “One of our most immediate and urgent challenges today is the pastoral care of immigrants, especially the undocumented ones.” He acknowledged the fact that there are sharp divisions on this issue in the sphere of U.S. public policy, adding that it “is a painful and complicated matter and we are praying and searching for the proper response.”
Gomez said that as the nation’s leading Catholic university, Notre Dame is taking a broad approach to meet the pastoral needs of Hispanics. “It is encouraging to see the increase in Hispanic students at Notre Dame. Notre Dame has made a good start in establishing the Institute of Latino Studies, recruiting more Hispanics into the university, and especially helping Hispanics to enter and complete graduate studies in theology,” Gomez said.
When asked what more the university could do, Gomez responded, “Recruit and offer scholarships to Hispanics in the poverty areas of our country. One of the greatest tragedies today is the high percentage of Hispanics that drop out of school and never even get to college.” With less than a ten percent Hispanic presence in Notre Dame’s class of 2011, it is clear that much remains to be done.
“In the long term,” he said, “Hispanic ministry will benefit from the Hispanic theology students who are preparing at Notre Dame to work for the Church, either directly or through Catholic schools and universities.”
“As Notre Dame did in the past for other immigrant poor,” Gomez said, “it needs to do today for Hispanics, especially the poor of our society. This could be one of the greatest services of Notre Dame to the Catholic Hispanic Community.”
Contact Conor at cmcnama1@nd.edu.
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