THE HISPANIC PRESENCE IN THE CHURCH IN THE UNITED STATES

                        by Msgr. Albacete

Since this is the first general conference of the convocation, I have
been assigned the topic of the convocation itself, that is, "The
Hispanic Presence in the New Evangelization in the United States."
Obviously, it is not possible for me, nor do I have the capacity to
do it, to treat all the items and respond to all the questions that
come to mind when we reflect about such a topic as this one. It is
precisely to this purpose that we have dedicated the convocation: to
treat the different aspects of this topic, both theoretical and
practical.

Listening to the different speakers, discussing the different topics
of the workshops in the light of the call to a new evangelization
and, above all, exchanging experiences of our work in pastoral
service to Hispanics, we should be able to understand better--so we
hope--the nature and the magnitude of the challenge which such a call
conveys for those committed to serve our Hispanic communities as well
as to the leaders of the church, above all the bishops of this
country, if we wish to be faithful to the model of church proposed by
the National Pastoral Plan for Hispanic Ministry:

"To live and promote, by a means of a <pastoral de conjunto>, a model
of church that is communitarian, evangelizing and missionary,
incarnate in the reality of the Hispanic people and open to the
diversity of cultures; a promoter and example of justice that
develops leadership through integral education ... that is leaven for
the kingdom of God in society."

For my part, in this introductory conference I have decided to limit
myself to only one topic which, it seems to me, encompasses what
could be the most important contribution of the Catholic Hispanic
communities to the new evangelization in the United States. I have in
mind the topic of the relation between faith and culture.

Undoubtedly this topic is only one of the many questions raised by
the meaning of the Hispanic presence for the Catholic Church in this
country, and other concerns may appear to have a more urgent
importance. Certainly, although central, the faith and culture
relation is not all that is necessary to understand what
evangelization is. I am conscious of the danger of reducing
evangelization to a program of social or cultural renewal.
Nonetheless, I maintain that an adequate evangelization has not been
realized without it having an impact on the cultural level.

By its very nature, the Christian faith in Jesus Christ generates
culture. The words of Pope John Paul II support this, repeated always
when he treats this subject. The pope insists that a faith that does
not become culture is a faith not totally received, a faith not
totally thought through in all its depth, a faith not faithfully
lived."

It is in this area, I think, that our Catholic Hispanic communities
can make a tremendous contribution to the church in this country. For
it has to be clearly said: The Hispanic presence within the Catholic
Church in the United States is not simply "another pastoral problem."
The Hispanic presence is not a problem; it is a blessing.  This
presence is, above all, a privileged ecclesial opportunity.

On this weekend we have come to commemorate the anniversary of the
bishops' special recognition of our needs 50 years ago; it is also
time to insist that we not only wish our needs to be recognized, we
wish also that the great contribution we can make to the life and
mission of the Catholic Church be recognized as well, especially at
this moment of its history in this country. The Hispanic Catholic
presence in what is today the United States started long before the
modern pastoral service to Hispanics, and we are proud of this
history. When the invasion from the North put an end to the great
evangelizing work taking place in this part of the country where we
are meeting, the faith generating culture, and when other customs
were imposed by force, the Catholic Church in this country was
deprived of a great missionary resource, and the country was deprived
of what would have been a singular contribution to its culture.

Eventually open-eyed Catholic leaders recognized the needs of the
Hispanic peoples and committed themselves to help us. But it is only
in our own times at last that it has been recognized that the
Hispanic presence is not a problem, but a resource that the Catholic
Church in the United States urgently needs now that the failure of
its efforts to maintain the Catholic identity of the faithful in the
midst of an alien culture is more and more visible. Or so it seems,
since the bishops have called prophetic the Hispanic presence.

But words are not enough. It is necessary to act, and we can ask how
exactly the church intends to respond to this prophetic presence. A
valid response cannot consist only of help to survive in this country
as Catholics and as Hispanics; it requires also learning from the
fruits of our profoundly Catholic roots, which still, in spite of
all, remain as characteristic of the way of thinking and living of
the great majority of our people. In this effort we cannot forget
those large numbers of Hispanics who have achieved success in
American society, but at the cost of sacrificing or at least hiding
attitudes and ways of thinking originating in the inculturation of
the Catholic faith in our history as Hispanic peoples.

Other immigrants from cultures infused by the Catholic faith were
similarly forced to pay this price, in spite of the impressive
"ghetto" constructed by the Catholic Church in the United States. We
must insist that we are not prepared to pay this price. The solution
clearly is not the construction of another ghetto. The solution is a
strong campaign of evangelization which clearly recognizes that faith
either generates a culture or it is lost. The Hispanic presence
offers a new opportunity to undertake this new evangelization.

This presence constitutes what the Second Vatican Council called one
of the "signs of the times," which are ignored at the risk of
ignoring what the Holy Spirit is saying to the church at the present
moment of its history in the United States. As such, the Hispanic
presence has what we can call "theological meaning" for the church in
this country for all of the church.

By <theological meaning>, I mean what an event or reality tells us
about the nature of God's plan in Christ, of the mystery as it
becomes incarnate at each moment and place of the pilgrimage of the
people of God in history. The theological meaning is that which
speaks to us about our identity and mission as people of God, of our
relationship with Jesus, of our origin and destiny in him, the
"center of history and the universe."[1]

<Theological> in this sense does not refer to any system of
scientific reflection on divine revelation; rather it describes the
experience itself of the mystery of salvation incarnate in human
history. It is precisely what the bishops have called a <prophetic
presence>.  As with all prophetic realities, it constitutes a call to
retrieve the experience of being that people, that communion in
solidarity, which constitutes the true presence of Christ in the
world, conqueror of sin and death. In biblical terms we could speak
of a "spiritual meaning," where <spiritual> designates all that is
part of the realization of the reign of God in the world. That is why
we could also speak of a "salvific meaning."

How can we understand better the theological meaning of the Hispanic
presence for the church in the United States?

I propose that the theological meaning of the Hispanic presence in
the Catholic Church in the United States consists in the call and the
opportunity to retrieve the experience of the "preferential option
for the poor" as the point of departure to understand what the call
to a "new evangelization" says about the inculturation of faith in
this country.

The term <preferential option for the poor> has its origins in the
efforts of the church in Latin America to understand how to proclaim
and promote the liberation which the Gospel of Christ announces to
the poor. The so-called "theology of liberation" contributed the
awareness that the preferential option for the poor is essential to
understanding the mission of the church. The experience of the poor's
struggle for liberation is a privileged point of departure for
theological reflection and the proclamation of the faith.

The poor today constitute a world made up of subjugated peoples,
exploited social classes, despised races, marginated cultures and
women discriminated against. It is important to underline that the
preferential option for the poor does not mean only the efforts to
better their economic situation. That would be the concept of
<development> rejected by the theology of liberation. The <poverty>
in question goes beyond the lack of economic resources. <Poverty>
refers to a socially and culturally structured marginalization of
people by the famous "social structures of sin" at the service of
political and economic power. It could be said that this poverty is
more a cultural than an economic reality. It defines indeed what we
could call a <world>. This is the world composed by those at the
margins of society who struggle for the "space" for self-
determination. The poor are the "absent ones" of history.

In the Gospel of Luke, the word poor could be translated as "bent
down," those with their backs bent by a socially dominant power.
Another translation would be "the scared ones." The commitment to the
struggle for liberation of the "bent and scared ones," an authentic
praxis of liberation, is an appropriate base for theological
reflection and pastoral work. This commitment prevents the
degeneration of theology into abstraction and thus subject to
manipulation by the powerful.

Many think that with the fall of communism in Eastern Europe and with
the disappearance of its threat in Latin America, the theology of
liberation has been effectively surpassed. At least it is said that
it no longer challenges the church (and society) with the same
urgency as before. As if the poor had disappeared! If they have
disappeared, it is unfortunately from our conscience as we follow one
theological fashion after another.

Today who speaks of a need for an integral liberation? Who insists
again and again that if Marxist solutions do not work, the problems
and social realities that tormented Marx have not disappeared but
evolved, acquiring even more alienating and cruel characteristics for
the "absent ones of history"? Where do we hear a strong voice
denouncing the price the world's economic powers impose on dependent
countries to allow them to play at the triumphant economic
neoliberalism? We hear the voice of the pope and of the church's
magisterium.

As a lonely prophet, John Paul II repeatedly says that the world
faces today a danger far bigger than that of communist imperialism.
The world confronts a culture of death that reflects a way of
perceiving reality (better, of reducing or doing violence to reality)
whose point of departure is no different from that of communist
praxis and that therefore leads to similar bloody situations of
poverty and exclusion. With the power of its communist opposition
gone, the culture of death accelerated its devastating destruction.
The struggle for liberation from the clutches of the culture of death
is today even more urgent. Whatever one thinks of the achievements or
errors of liberation theology, its great questions continue as a
challenge to the church at the present time.

The Catholic Church in the United States has assumed worldwide
leadership in the past through its bishops' famous pastoral letters
on the economy and on peace.  Confronting the efforts of the powerful
to ridicule them, the bishops did not back down from denouncing
economic and political programs that invoked individual liberty and
national security to ignore the rights of the human person in the
area of economics and the solidarity that transcends frontiers. Many
American Catholics were confused, thinking the bishops were
interfering in purely political matters, but this concern did not
prevent the bishops' prophetic witness. It is similar to the position
of the bishops against abortion, euthanasia and the destruction of
the family. Retrieval of the preferential option for the poor would
continue the prophetic mission of the church, especially here in the
very center of the present empire of economism.

The opportunity to learn what this preferential option comprises and
how to exercise it is one of the most important contributions of the
Hispanic presence to the new evangelization in the United States.

In order to take advantage of this opportunity, it is necessary for
us (beginning with Hispanics) to understand why our Catholic faith
generates culture, why it is that faith becomes a "culture of
evangelization."

It seems to me that Catholic intellectual thought in the United
States has not reflected adequately on the relation between faith and
culture. Perhaps it could be said that due to Protestant prejudices
against culture as mediating or expressing faith, the discussion has
been limited to the legal and constitutional protection of freedom of
conscience and the requirements of religious pluralism in a
democracy. The present discussion about freedom of choice and about
religious convictions as a purely private matter continues under the
same purely legalistic terms. That is why I consider it important for
the Catholic Church to move the discussion to a more profound level,
to the level of faith, culture and the human person.

I do not think there is a more important task than this one for the
Catholic Church in the United States. All the great problems it
faces, even in the strictly spiritual area, of what it means to
follow Christ in this society will not be adequately dealt with
without consideration of this level. The "solutions" not rooted in
this level will be at best only temporary, if not inadequate or
unreal.

Pope John Paul II could not have said it more clearly again and
again, especially in his recent encyclical on "The Gospel of Life."
Let us recall his words: "In the background there is the profound
crisis of culture, which generates skepticism in relation to the very
foundations of knowledge and ethics, and which makes it increasingly
difficult to grasp clearly the meaning of what man is, the meaning of
his rights and his duties."[2] And in terms reminiscent of the theology
of liberation, the pope writes: "We are confronted by an even larger
reality [than that of individual morality] which can be described as
a veritable structure of sin. This reality is characterized by the
emergence of a culture which denies solidarity and in many cases
takes the form of a veritable 'culture of death.' This culture is
actively fostered by powerful cultural, economic and political
currents which encourage an idea of society excessively concerned
with efficiency. Looking at a situation from this point of view, it
is possible to speak in a certain sense of a war of the powerful
against the weak."[3]

It is therefore urgent to acquire an experience of the inculturation
of faith. Faith is not only an intellectual position concerning
divine realities. Faith is above all the "taking of a position" in
the face of reality, all of reality: before creation and nature with
its resources, before other persons, before the mystery hidden behind
the visible. Faith is a personal "stand," from which comes a form of
"under-standing." Faith is an act of the entire person, not only the
intellect. It is an engagement with reality. As such, the faith
embraces all levels of human existence: the private, the public, the
spiritual, the material, and the individual and social levels.

On the other hand, culture is precisely all of that through which the
human person is expressed and nourished as such as a unique and
unrepeatable subject. The word <culture> comes from the verb "to
cultivate." Culture is all that through which the human person
cultivates its identity as such. That is why we say that faith, as a
profoundly personal "taking of a position," always becomes culture.
The culture born from the efforts to follow Christ becomes a
mentality in the ethos of a people. The truth about Jesus Christ
reveals the truth about the human person at all levels, and faith in
Christ configures the human subject according to that truth. That is
why faith in Christ always becomes culture.

The preferential option for the poor, being a constitutive element of
faith in Christ, is also meant to become a cultural reality reflected
in the different social, economic, political and religious relations
through which human persons discover their identity as members of a
people. That is, faith in Christ becomes necessarily a liberating
force on behalf of the oppressed and it awakens the conscience of the
powerful to the dignity of the poor, so that they no longer will be
those "bent down" by the powerful.

The Hispanic presence can help the Catholic Church understand the
preferential option for the poor not because all Hispanics are poor.
All Hispanics in the United States are not poor. On the contrary, as
we said, many have found success in society, and we must do all we
can to increase their number. Moreover, the contribution of these
professionals, industrialists, business leaders and intellectuals to
the inculturation of the faith is essential.

(It seems a disgrace to me that in a large part of the intellectual
Catholic world in which the church's future in this country is
discussed no effort is made to include the contribution of Hispanic
intellectuals. This is another proof of the reduction of the Hispanic
presence to "folklore." In the great majority of times that I have
complained about this situation, my proposal has been ridiculed, at
times with clearly racist commentaries.

(Not long ago, for example, Spanish was not considered an adequate
foreign language for students in graduate theological studies, and
this is still the case in some educational centers. This is clearly
part of the influence of the "black legend" against Spanish culture.
Behind this prejudice lies anti-Catholicism, and it is our Catholic
origins that scare the elites of this country, who are scared by the
large number of our peoples in their midst. The current campaign
against immigrants from Latin America often hides this
anti-Catholicism behind economic concerns. I think that intellectuals
and other Hispanics who have achieved recognition in their fields
have an obligation to ensure that decisions in the field of
immigration are not inspired by the antiCatholicism typical of
American elites who fear--not the dogmas or doctrines of the Catholic
Church--but precisely the inculturation of the faith.)

Not all Hispanics are poor, no, but a great number still are. And it
is not only a matter of a lack of resources, but of a lack of
opportunities to better their life and that of Hispanic youth.
Moreover, poor or not, all of us constitute a people, a world
spiritually in conflict with the dominant culture. This gives all of
us the experience of those living at the margins of society in a
continuous struggle for our identity and dignity, the experience of
being excluded, the experience of the poor.

In our efforts to incarnate the preferential option for the poor in
our society, we are certainly united with many nonHispanics who
struggle for the same cause. Among these we must give special
recognition to our African-American sisters and brothers, who
certainly have been leaders and teachers of this struggle in the
United States. That is why we are so happy that our celebration here
this weekend has been supported by the National Conference of
Catholic Bishops' Committee for African-American Catholics, and here
with us are Bishop Curtis J. Guillory from Houston, its chairperson,
and Ms. Beverly Carroll, executive director of the secretariat.
Welcome! This is proof of the solidarity that must exist within the
world of the poor.

Let us not be paralyzed by those who insist on our differences and
divisions, be it with other marginalized people or among ourselves.
Of course there are differences in emphasis, customs and priorities!
Instead of separating us, these can contribute to a deeper
understanding of our common task. And speaking about differences
between us, Hispanics or Latinos (and the very discussion about these
two terms reflects these), our cultural variety demonstrates more
profoundly what unites us in a common identity, and this is precisely
that all of us are the fruits of the very same process of
inculturation of the Catholic faith.

All of us are daughters and sons of the dramatic encounter between
Spanish Catholicism, the spirituality of the Native Americans and the
profound African religiosity. It is true that many different cultures
emerged from this encounter, a variety of <mestizaje>, and that these
differences characterize also the Hispanic presence in the United
States. But these do not constitute a difference in identity, for in
the end, identity has its roots in the religious experience of the
sacred. In this we all have the same Father, the one revealed in
Jesus Christ, and the same mother, the Catholic Church. This is the
basis of our common identity.

From this common identity emerge those qualities, attitudes and
experiences that characterize all inculturation of the Catholic
faith. It is enough to recall the words of the pope about the culture
of death. It is a culture "contrary to solidarity," he says, with a
conception of society "based on efficiency."

The priority of solidarity over efficiency is one of the
characteristics of a culture generated by faith, since faith insists
on the priority of persons over things, ethics over technology and
spirit over matter. From the point of view of efficiency, what
matters is not the human person as such, but that person's capacity
to contribute to the material progress of society. The individual
without resources to make himself or herself known doesn't even
exist. The preferential option for the poor is above all the
affirmation of the value of the person, without any criterion of
importance. A culture characterized by the preferential option for
the poor is a culture that expresses the sense of the human person as
(in the words of Vatican II) the "only creature on earth created by
God for its own sake."[4] This truth is the basis of all Christian
morality, individual and social. That is why the preferential option
for the poor proves the inculturation of the faith.

In this convocation we will discuss the most important areas of
Hispanic pastoral work today. I suggest that you reflect on how in
each of these areas we can give witness to the preferential option
for the poor, to the priority of the human person, always from the
perspective of the faith and culture relation and not only as
immediate solutions to our current problems. The most important areas
of this pastoral service have already been identified by the national
pastoral plan, a fruit of the Encuentro process that emerged from the
experiences of our people.

This convocation doesn't pretend to change this process, but to
respond to the opportunity offered to us by the call to a new
evangelization. In our statement of commitment we shall let our
bishops know that we take this call seriously and that we are willing
to serve the entire church in the United States, giving witness to a
culture generated by faith. The national pastoral plan itself is the
result of this fact, and that is why it is urgent that its promises
be fulfilled.

Some will say that we cannot contribute anything until we ourselves
give proof of a life in accord with the Gospel. Beware of this
position. It is not our holiness that we offer as example! We are
sinners like anyone else. A new evangelization is also urgent in our
countries of origin. We recognize how far we are from being faithful
to the riches of our faith. But despite our infidelities and our
sins, we are the people who just last night sang proudly--without fear
of being called integralists or enemies of religious freedom, foreign
to pluralism, threats to democracy--the words which all of us.

from North and South, East and West of the United States, whether
citizens of this country for generations or newly arrived from the
varied regions and cultures of the immense continent beyond the Rio
Grande, all of us recognized and which we exclaimed with one voice:
"You will reign! This is the ardent cry of our faith. You will reign!
Oh blessed king! For you said: 'I will reign.' Let Jesus reign
forever; let his heart reign in our land, in our soil, because our
nation belongs to Mary." Yes, also here in this land, in this soil,
for also to Mary does this nation belong. May it be so.


ENDNOTES

1 John Paul II, <Redemptor Hominis>, 1.

2 Ibid., <Evangelium Vitae>, 11.

3 Ibid., 12.

4 <Gaudium et Spes>, 24.


Msgr. Albacete is a theologian at the John Paul II Institute for
Studies on Marriage and the Family in Washington, D.C. and a
consultor to the U.S. bishops' Committee on Hispanic Affairs. He gave
this address to the Hispanic Convocation '95 in San Antonio, Texas.

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