NEWS STORY: Catholic bishops respond to new Hispanic visibility

c. 1997 Religion News Service WASHINGTON _ Within the next 25 years, Hispanics are expected to become the U.S. Catholic Church’s largest ethnic component. With that in mind, the nation’s Roman Catholic bishops this week took two steps toward reaching out to and unifying Hispanic parishioners. First, the bishops voted to hold a fourth”Encuentro”_ Spanish […]

c. 1997 Religion News Service

WASHINGTON _ Within the next 25 years, Hispanics are expected to become the U.S. Catholic Church’s largest ethnic component. With that in mind, the nation’s Roman Catholic bishops this week took two steps toward reaching out to and unifying Hispanic parishioners.

First, the bishops voted to hold a fourth”Encuentro”_ Spanish for encounter or meeting _ in the year 2000, the first since 1985, that will bring together Catholic leaders for a national symposium designed to speed the integration of Hispanics into”the full life”of the U.S. church.


Then the bishops unveiled the first Spanish-language sacramentary _ the text for all Masses celebrated during the liturgical year _ written specifically for the American church.

Unlike the English-language sacramentary, there has been no single Spanish-language text in use in U.S. Catholic churches. Rather, individual parishes choose from among the more than one dozen foreign Spanish-language sacramentaries that vary according to nation of origin.”The (Hispanic) demographics are clear,”said Bishop Anthony M. Pilla of Cleveland, president of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB).”We want and need to respond to that reality.” The bishops’ actions came during their annual fall meeting here, which ended Wednesday (Nov. 12).

During the three-day session, the more than 250 bishops who attended also authorized a study of returning to”meatless Fridays”as a way for individual Catholics to protest the”culture of death”_ a reference to legalized abortion, physician-assisted suicide, drug abuse and violence in general _ that church leaders believe dominates contemporary America.

In 1966, following the end of the liberalizing Second Vatican Council, the American church ended its insistence that Catholics not eat meat on Fridays, while retaining the obligation for Ash Wednesday, Good Friday and Fridays during Lent. Until then, meatless Fridays had for centuries been standard Catholic practice _ an individual act of penance that linked the faithful with Jesus’ suffering on the cross.

The bishops’ Committee for Pro-Life Activities, which proposed the possible revival of meatless Fridays, originally suggested the study be completed in one year. But interest in the idea was so strong among the bishops they moved to have the report ready, if possible, in time for action at their June 1998 meeting.

The bishops also instructed Pilla to draft a statement restating their concern for the deprivations the ongoing economic sanctions against the government of Saddam Hussein have caused for ordinary civilians in Iraq.

They did so after first rejecting a call by Auxiliary Bishop Thomas J. Gumbleton of Detroit for the NCCB to issue a strong condemnation of U.S. and U.N. policies toward Iraq, which he said have led to the direct deaths by starvation or disease of some 600,000 Iraqi children.


Fueled in large part by immigration, the Hispanic presence within the American church has mushroomed in recent years. As recently as 1994, according to church figures, Hispanics accounted for nearly one-third of Catholic America, which today numbers more than 60 million. In the next quarter century, the church estimates Hispanics will account for more than half of all U.S. Catholics.

At the same time, church leaders have become increasingly concerned by the equally explosive growth in the number of historically Catholic Hispanics who have left the church for a variety of evangelical and Pentecostal Protestant groups.

Encuentros have become a periodic church device for rallying Hispanic leaders.”These Encuentros have given them an opportunity to pray and share and listen to one another,”said Bishop Gerald Barnes of San Bernardino, Calif., chairman of the bishops’ Committee on Hispanic Affairs.

Previous Encuentros were held in 1972, 1977 and 1985 _ the last leading to a church plan for ministering to Hispanics. Plans for the 2000 event _ as well as its location _ have yet to be set.

However, the Hispanic affairs committee’s report urging approval of the Encuentro listed aiding the Hispanic poor, involving Hispanic young people in the church and the need for more Hispanic priests as among the issues needing to be addressed.

If the Encuentros represent a burst of hierarchical energy around Hispanic concerns, the unveiling of the new Spanish-language sacramentary represented the side of the church’s bureaucracy that moves at a snail’s pace.


Fourteen years in the works, the sacramentary is unlikely to become available for parish use before 2000.

An attempt by the bishops to approve the document this week fell short because so many bishops had left the meeting by the time it came up for a vote that not enough were around to provide the official OK. A mail ballot will now have to be conducted prior to sending the more than 3,000-page text to the Vatican for review.

The new Spanish-language sacramentary is drawn primarily from those in use in Spain and Mexico, according to the Rev. James T. Moroney, executive director of the bishops’ Committee on the Liturgy. Mexicans account for the largest Hispanic subgroup within the U.S. church, followed by Puerto Ricans and Cubans.

However, Moroney noted, elements of sacramentaries from a variety of other Spanish-speaking lands also have been included in the new American text, including language relating to feast days celebrated in virtually every Spanish-speaking culture.”This will standardize Spanish-language Masses in the United States and avoid the sort of confusion that arises when you have Hispanics from more than one place in the same parish,”Moroney said.

The hope, he said, is that standardization will foster a greater sense of unity among the Hispanic subgroups separated by dialect and cultural variations _ and a greater sense of connection for all Hispanics with the larger U.S. church.

MJP END RNS

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