Sisters arrive from south to serve Hispanic communit

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In a strange land, but no strangers to God's love

Sisters arrive from south to serve Hispanic community

Rev. Pablo Straub, left, and Winona Bishop John Quinn speak before Sunday's church service at Cathedral of the Sacred Heart in Winona. Straub was here with seven nuns, who are from Mexico, Guatemala and Texas. Jake Rajewsky/Winona Daily News

They come out of holy obedience, their love of God and a desire to serve God's people in a strange land.

At Sunday Mass at the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart, Winona Bishop John Quinn welcomed seven sisters of the order of Mission Helpers of the Holy Savior to the Diocese of Winona and to the service of the Hispanic community within the diocese.

The sisters, from Mexico, Guatemala and Texas, will take up residence in a refurbished convent in Worthington, in far western Minnesota, but will work with Spanish-speaking people across the entire diocese.

Preaching on the parable of Lazarus and the rich man, Quinn drew a parallel between the attitude of the rich man to Lazarus begging at his door. Hispanic people tend to be invisible among us, he said, making them and their difficulties easy for us to ignore. The presence of the sisters will help all to see how we are being called to "care for the Lazarus in our midst."

The bishop presented the sisters with a processional crucifix to carry with them on their mission. "It is our gift, as God's people, to you," he said. "Wherever you go, bring Christ's love."

In turn, the sisters presented the bishop with a portrait of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the patroness of Mexico.

The Mission Helpers of the Holy Savior were founded in 1984 by the Rev. Pablo Straub, a Redemptorist priest, as an order of contemplative and missionary nuns. The order now numbers 64 sisters, and an order for men, founded 10 years later, has 22 vowed members.

Straub, who accompanied the sisters to Minnesota, said Bishop Quinn contacted him last August, asking him to send members of the order to work in the diocese. Straub accepted, he said, but it took a full year for visas for the six Mexican and Guatemalan sisters to be processed. The seventh, he said, was from "the Republic of Texas," so needed no visa.

Mother Marcelina de Jesus said she came because she "knew there were Spanish-speaking people here who are abandoned and in need of the Gospel.

"I exist to give people the living Gospel, so I want to go," she said.

Nineteen-year-old novice Sister Ana Rosa said she knew it was the "will of God" for her to come. "I am very happy to be here, not that I love the place, but that I obey the voice of God," she said.

A missionary, and for that matter every Christian, may be guided by this thought, Straub said: "Be what you are supposed to be. Do what you are supposed to do. Everything else will be taken care of by God."

The mission sisters traveled Sunday afternoon to Worthington and were welcomed there with a Spanish language Mass in the evening. Winona Daily News

Brick by Brick: The Hispanic Church is growing here

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Something like 25 out of the 217 parishes in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis have at least one Spanish language Mass on Sundays.

St. Stephen's parish in south Minneapolis near the Institute of Arts, is growing more than others. Under the leadership of its pastor, Fr. Joseph Williams, rather fluent in Spanish himself, has become a Spanish language dominant parish in the past several years to the point where they are having problems being able to seat all the attendees at the 9:00 Sunday morning Mass. There is another one at 6:00 p.m., too. In addition, there is a 4:45 bi-lingual Mass on Wednesdays and another at 7:00 p.m. on Thursdays.

More chairs have been added and it is anticipated that the parish, currently celebrating its 125th year, will survive the announcement of the archdiocesan restructuring plan on the weekend of October 16-17. Then more pews will be added along with improvements including a new sound system to the sanctuary. The Hispanic parishioners have already contributed $3,000 towards the cost of the new system.

Each Sunday morning about 150 of the Hispanic parishioners attend classes to improve their knowledge of the faith. And this coming weekend, 400 of them are expected to attend a retreat in the parish's old school building.

Today, most of the Twin Cities area's Mexican immigrants from a town in Mexico where a fiesta celebrating St. Michael the Archangel (San Miguel Arcangel) is one of the town's most important fiestas came to St. Stephen's for a special 1:00 p.m. Mass, featuring music, dancing and many baptisms. The church was gorgeously decorated with flowers for the event.

Wouldn't it be great if all our parishes had activities like that?

New Survey on Hispanic Youth in America

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The Pew Hispanic Center released a new survey Dec. 11, exploring the practices and attitudes of Hispanic youth in America.

Some of the findings are interesting for the Church, since many people have pointed out that the Catholic Church in America is becoming more and more Hispanic.

According to Pew, a majority of Hispanics — 60% — say they are Catholic. Among young Hispanics, 56% say they are Catholic, and among second- and third-generation young Hispanics, 49% identify themselves as Catholic.

“Between Two Worlds: How Young Latinos Come of Age in America” looks at values, social behaviors, family characteristics, economic well-being, educational attainment and labor force outcomes of Hispanics ages 16-25.

It is an age, the survey states, when young people “make choices that — for better and worse — set their path to adulthood.”

“For this particular ethnic group, it is also a time when they navigate the intricate, often porous borders between the two cultures they inhabit — American and Latin American,” the report says.

The survey was based on interviews with 2,012 Hispanics 16 years old and older, conducted Aug. 5-Sept. 16.

It points out that Hispanics are the largest and youngest minority group in the United States.

Pew finds that Hispanics 16 and older generally rate career success higher than they rate religion, having children, being married or being wealthy. In answer to the question, “How important is each to your personally,” 85% said ‘being successful in a career,” while 56% said “living a religious life.”

As in many categories, there are differences between foreign-born Hispanics and first-, second-, and third-generation Hispanics. Six-in ten foreign-born young Hispanics say living a religious life is very important, as opposed to 40% of third-generation Hispanics.

The survey also points out that Hispanics are very similar to the overall population of the U.S. in their frequency of attending religious services. Among youths, 36% of Hispanics ages 16-25 say they attend religious services weekly. Among young Hispanics, immigrants attend church services more regularly than do the native born, the survey finds. Church attendance falls off most steeply among third-generation Hispanics, it says. Nineteen percent of them say they never attend.

Pew hints at a connection between the main language of particular Hispanic groups and their religious practices and other attitudes. “Two-thirds (67%) of Spanish-dominant young Latinos say they are Catholic, while only 57% of bilingual and only 47% of English-dominant young Latinos say the same.”

On social issues, the survey finds that young Hispanics, like Hispanics in general, tend to be more conservative when it comes to abortion, same-sex “marriage” and unmarried women having children.

There are differences, though. Among young Hispanics, 65% of those born outside the U.S. say abortion should be illegal, while only 58% of second-generation young Latinos hold that view.

Language also seems to play a role in views on abortion: “More than seven-in-ten (71%) of young Hispanics who predominantly speak Spanish say they oppose abortion.”

Perhaps more troubling is the finding that Hispanic youth are “more tolerant of teen sex within a serious relationship or of teen sex that involves using” contraception. National Catholic Register

Catholic faith, sacraments focus of Hispanic Charismatic Congress in Sioux City

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The Hispanic Charismatic Congress brought people from across the Midwest together for a time of retreat and prayer.

The congress was held Aug. 29-30 at the Sioux City Convention Center. This was the fifth year a Hispanic Charismatic Congress was held in the Diocese of Sioux City.

The term “charismatic” refers to a Christian who believes in the outpouring of divine gifts from the Holy Spirit.
“What we are trying to do is bring people to God,” said Fernando Sanchez, president of the diocesan Hispanic charismatic committee and member of St. Rose of Lima Parish in Denison. “This is one of the ways to bring people to God and be involved in the church.”

Throughout the weekend there were more than 400 participants. Sanchez was glad that so many people attended. He said that the congress is one way to talk with the people and let them know all that the church has to offer.

“I can see in the people’s eyes that they are having a pretty good time, like I am,” said Sanchez. “There are a few Anglo people here. They don’t speak Spanish, but I can see in their eyes that they like to come to this also.”

While the congress was in Spanish, all were welcome to attend. Sanchez noted that he likes to plan events with the Anglo people.

“We are one in Jesus’ eyes,” he said. “We can see the Lord in everyone, no matter what race or where you come from.”

Catholic teaching
The congress included speakers who taught about the Catholic faith and the significance of the sacraments. The speakers included Father Michael from Texas, Juan Carlos from Colorado and Roberto Ramirez from Miami.

“They are pretty good speakers,” said Sanchez. “They talked about the seven sacraments of the Catholic Church. I can see the results in the people. They have been talking about it. They are so happy we are doing this.”

During the weekend, there were songs of praise and the opportunity for reconciliation and Eucharistic adoration, as well as Sunday Mass.

Father Paul Kelly, pastor at St. Rose of Lima in Denison, was there to hear confessions and celebrate Mass on Sunday. He estimated that about 100 of the attendees were from Denison.

The priest said that events such as these “really motivate the people to become more active in the faith, and to evangelize more.”

“Everyone I spoke with commented on how well they liked the themes of the retreat,” said Father Kelly. “Diocesan retreats such as this one help people connect with others from around the diocese, and it helps people realize that the church is much larger than the local parish, that people in every place love the Lord and are trying to serve him in the best way possible.”

The word love
Maria Argueta, a parishioner at Cathedral in Sioux City, attended the congress for the third time.

“After this event I have energy. I feel like I can give love and good words to people,” she said.

Since she has children attending Catholic schools in Sioux City including Briar Cliff University, Heelan High School and Holy Cross School, she said she liked learning more about the church to be able to share with them.

She works at Mercy Medical Center in Sioux City and said this is a way for her to gain strength to talk to patients when they are in pain.

“This weekend I learned about the word love,” said Argueta. “The word love means time. How much love do you have for your kids? How much time do you have for your kids? How much love do you have for God? How much time do you have for God?”

She enjoyed the community and being together with her friends that are from Sioux City and surrounding areas.

“We can talk and share conversations and enjoy families from different places,” said Argueta.

The Knights of Columbus regional director, Ken Kafton, donated $1,000 to offset costs of the Hispanic Charismatic Congress. The Catholic Globe

A Mexican Tradition Runs on Pageantry and Faith -- in Mexico and in Minnesota

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The Passion Play in Iztapalapa, Mexico, has a cast of thousands. The 50 or so main parts tend to remain within local families. The "Passion Play" in Minneapolis at St. Stephen's parish had a half dozen main parts. But they commemorated the same event: The Passion and Death of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

See Below

IZTAPALAPA, Mexico — It was midafternoon on Good Friday, and Diego Villagrán Villalobos, dressed as Jesus, was struggling in the heat to drag a heavy wooden cross up the hill where he would soon be crucified. The streets and the hillside were lined with people observing his progress, some of whom, as a demonstration of their own faith, followed him barefoot, wearing crowns of thorns or shouldering crosses themselves.

The weeklong play attracts more than two million people annually.

In recent times, the pageant has become a badge of cultural identity for “a people which, in the face of the rapid advance of modernization, battles to preserve its customs and traditions.”

In Aztec times, Iztapalapa was the site of a pyramid and temple where rites of penance and renewal were performed in the spring. Today, though, this working-class community on the outskirts of Mexico City is known for a weeklong Passion Play that has become one of the largest and most fervent in the world, attracting more than two million people annually.

“I’ve been doing this for 56 years, and back when I started, we had an audience of maybe 50 people, all of them from the neighborhood, for what was then a short and simple presentation,” said Anatolio Ávila Domínguez, 70, president of the committee that organizes the play. “Now everything is super changed, but we feel honored to have so many people visit us.”

Unlike many other Passion Plays staged in Latin America during Holy Week, the presentation here dates not to Spanish colonial times, but to 1843, when a deadly cholera epidemic that had devastated the local population came to an end. In gratitude, residents wrote and staged their own account of the Passion of Christ, beginning a tradition that withstood even the anti-clerical zeal of the Mexican Revolution and its aftermath.

The play has a cast of thousands, including those playing the Roman Praetorian Guard, but many of the 50 or so main parts tend to remain within local families, almost as heirlooms, a tendency that has generated some discontent as more people want to participate. Miguel Guerra, who is 55 and plays the high priest Caiaphas, said that he was the fifth generation of his family to be in the pageant and that he regarded it as his duty to uphold the “values inculcated in us by our parents and grandparents.”

The requirements of those who wish to play Jesus or Mary are especially strict. To assure a proper state of purity, tradition demands that neither be allowed to date, drink, smoke, or go to parties once they get the role. In recent years, two new restrictions have been added: no tattoos or piercings. Candidates must also show that they have sufficient economic means to pay for the resplendent costumes they wear.

Nevertheless, competition for the roles is intense, and those chosen approach their task with great seriousness. When Mr. Villagrán, an 18-year-old high school student, was chosen in January to play Jesus, he immediately embarked on an accelerated fitness program to prepare himself because he felt that “it was God and not the committee that picked me.”

He was already an athlete — he plays American football — which is one of the reasons he was chosen for a role that is so demanding. Whoever plays Jesus must be able to bear a ritual whipping in the square, then carry a cross weighing more than 200 pounds three miles, the remaining Stations of the Cross, and up a steep hill, where he has to endure a brief but real crucifixion in which he is bound to the cross for about 20 minutes.

“I run three and a half miles every day, I go to the gym,” rising at 5 a.m. daily, Mr. Villagrán said in an interview last week. “And spiritually, I’ve prepared myself as I have throughout my life. I go to Mass on Sunday, go to confession with regularity and have gone on retreats. I can see myself on the cross.”

The role of Judas demands a different kind of sacrifice. It is not just that he is the villain and, in the version presented here, ends up hanging himself out of remorse at having betrayed Jesus. There is also the reaction of one’s own neighbors to consider, especially when they get carried away and start pelting Judas with rotten fruit and other objects.

“The people who come to see the presentation shout ‘traitor’ at you,” explained Alfonso Reyes Jímenez, a taxi driver who has played Judas in recent years. “So far, I haven’t been the victim of physical aggression, but you’re always anxious and uneasy because people are really transformed.”

This year, the role went to Jaime Domínguez Cabello, 39, who operates a parking lot with his brothers. In the past, Mr. Domínguez has been an apostle, but he said he did not mind being the bad guy.

“There’s no Jesus without Judas,” he said. “Judas did his betrayal as part of carrying out a mission, and I have my mission, which is to play Judas. I do it out of faith in Him, out of devotion to Him, and to enable this presentation to be preserved.”

As Mr. Domínguez’s comments indicate, Iztapalapa’s Holy Week pageant is first and foremost a religious celebration. But in recent times it has also become a badge of cultural identity for, as an announcer put it on Thursday night just before the staging of the Last Supper at the main square, “a people which, in the face of the rapid advance of modernization, battles to preserve its customs and traditions.”

That does not mean, however, that contemporary influences are absent: for the past 20 years, the pageant has been broadcast by satellite all over the Spanish-speaking world, which has helped increase its popularity. In addition, some cast members now use lapel microphones and giant video screens are employed to show the play to onlookers who cannot get close enough to the action.

The Roman Catholic Church’s attitude toward the play has fluctuated over the years. In the past, there were complaints that the script, which draws not only on the Bible but also on Dante’s “Divine Comedy,” deviated too much from sacred texts. King Herod, for example, has a harem that performs a sensual belly dance.

But even though it is the local community, largely of indigenous descent, rather than the Church that controls the event, the hierarchy has come to view the pageant as an effective tool for anchoring Mexican Catholics in their religion in the face of a growing Protestant challenge. “Though at one point I contemplated changing religions,” said Javier Villalobos, treasurer of the organizing committee, “this has strengthened my faith.” New York Times

St. Stephen's in Minneapolis, an older inner city parish dating back 100 years or more, has become a parish of processions, too. Twelve months ago, 200 or so English speaking parishioners formally marched out of the church on Clinton Avenue near the Institute of Arts to a new home of their own choosing. Most of them were baptized as infants as Catholics and had been members of St. Stephen's for many years. Many of them grew up in the 1950s or earlier and learned about community organizing during the early years of the civil rights movement and the anti-Vietnam War movement. They brought that with them to St. Stephen's and created one of the finest social justice ministries to be found anywhere.

But that wasn't enough for them.

They needed to organize their own church, too, and saw no need for priests and bishops. So when the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis decided that they had gone too far, they were told that they could no longer substitute poetry for bible readings, lay ministers for Gospel readers, women for co-consecrators, or lay people for the leaders of the parish in place of the pastor, they objected.

And so they left. They found a building a few blocks away where assumedly they perform their own contemporary liturgies. Recently, they lost that space and found space in a protestant church where no doubt they feel even more comfortable.

Over the most recent years, like many inner city parishes, St. Stephen's had lost many of its native born American parishioners to the suburbs, to secularism, or to sloth. They weren't coming to Mass any longer. At the same time, thousands of Mexicans and other Hispanics have been coming to Minnesota and the Twin Cities, seeking a new life. Hundreds of them were content to remain as St. Esteban's parishioners (the first martyr) and remain as the core of the parish community after the schismatic protesters left last year.

There remains also a small fragment of the former English speaking community in St. Stephen's that is growing under its new pastor, Father Joseph Williams and his Deacon, Luis Rubi, both fluent in Spanish. Regular Masses are celebrated on Sundays separately, 9:00 for the Hispanic community and 11:00 (starting Easter Sunday) for the English speaking community. But major holidays are celebrated bi-lingually with special liturgical aids provided so that all might know what is being prayed.

I, the classic "church shopper", normally found in different parishes each weekend, left the parish where I had been nominally registered and contributed via checking account deposit, have joined St. Stephen's in the hope that I can be a small part of the rejuvenation of this bi-lingual parish. This is my first Holy Week experience and I would like to report on it.

There is no need to describe the interior improvements to the church building since Father Joseph took over. Just say that it is obviously a Catholic church again. Oh, you want evidence? Well, the tabernacle is back.

Palm Sunday was the first of the bi-lingual celebrations in which I participated. It was not appreciably different from most Catholic parishes except that we did process around the building with our palms.

The Holy Thursday service ended with a procession around the inside of the church with all ending up behind the altar in an empty space decorated as the Garden of Gesthemane. There, all knelt and prayed for a time. When the service was declared to be over, virtually all stayed for a least a half hour in silent prayer before leaving for their homes.

There were two Good Friday services. The 3:00 service ended with a Way of the Cross procession somewhat like that described in the NYT article above where a half dozen young Mexican parishioners costumed themselves as participants in the original Passion, and we processed throughout the neighborhood, with "Jesus" being symbolically flayed by actors portraying Roman soldiers. Bi-lingual lectors read the meditations for each of the fourteen stations.

We even passed close by that other spiritual temple, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, and ended at a neighborhood playground, where the actor portraying Jesus, just like was done in the Iztapalapa, Mexico procession, was tied to a crucifix and hung there for 15 minutes or so. He was then taken down and placed in the arms of his Holy Mother, played by a young parishioner and then placed on a folding table, enshrouded and carried two blocks back to St. Esteban's where he was placed on the floor in front of the altar. A time of silence and adoration ensued.

The evening service on Good Friday featured the procession for the Adoration of the Cross, and a Holy Communion Service. No Masses are permitted on Good Friday.

Unfortunately, I didn't attend the Holy Saturday service, but I fully expect that another procession was involved.

There are good things happening at St. Stephen's/Esteban's parish in South Minneapolis. Interestingly, the sisters of the local Missionaries of Charity convent (Mother Therese's order), chose to celebrate Holy Thursday with the parishioner's of St. Steven's/Estaban's. If you are looking for a home, you might want to give US a try.

A place of pilgrimage: Hundreds gather for Guadalupe Shrine Church dedication

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Pointy-headed cheesehead professor objects that shrine was not inspired by a progressive Catholic community committed to the overthrow of the hierarachy and abolishment of the Ten Commandments

A new chapter in the life of the Roman Catholic church in the Coulee Region [south of La Crosse] begins today, the first day the Shrine Church of Our Lady of Guadalupe is open to the public.

Nine years after Archbishop Raymond Burke, former bishop of the La Crosse Diocese, first announced plans for the shrine, he dedicated the church at a Mass on Thursday that lasted more than three hours.

Archbishop Raymond Burke, former bishop of the diocese of La Crosse, prays during the deposition of the relics portion of Thursday’s Mass of Dedication for the Shrine Church of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Now, with the centerpiece of the shrine complex complete, the success of the shrine lies largely in how the public, locally and around the world, receives the site Burke calls a place of pilgrimage.

“What happens here today with the dedication of this church is the reason for everything else that’s happened this week,” Burke said in a Thursday morning interview, referring to a week of events that began Monday and will last through Sunday.

To see photo galleries, videos, a timeline and an interactive tour of the shrine, click here.

On Wednesday, Burke had invited a gathering of people at the shrine to pray the shrine stays true to its mission, and warned them that the best in humans and the church is subject to attack from the “forces of evil.”

Hundreds of people gathered Thursday morning at the shrine’s Pilgrim Center, awaiting a procession up the half-mile meditation trail that leads to the Shrine Church.

At 12:35 p.m., altar boys dressed in blue, knights and ladies of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem — the women in black, the men in white — about 100 priests and 20 bishops and archbishops led the 20-minute procession to the church plaza.

After Mike Swinghamer, project architect for the shrine and co-owner of River Architects, handed over the design plans to Burke, Burke handed the key to the church to the first rector, who opened the doors.

About 450 people filled the church for the dedication Mass, with hundreds more gathered in the basement and around the Shrine grounds, listening to the Mass over loudspeakers and watching on television.

In his sermon, Burke described the church as a place of pilgrimage and told the story of St. Juan Diego’s visions of Our Lady of Guadalupe in 1531 in Mexico.

“The mother of God desired that a chapel be built, to which she would invite her children to come on pilgrimage,” he said.

But not all see the shrine the way most who gathered on Thursday do.

Corinne Dempsey, an associate professor of religious studies at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, said that for a church leader like Burke to initiate the building of a shrine of pilgrimage is backwards.

Such shrines come from the people, she said, not authorities.

“Pilgrimage sites do not start from the top down, but from the bottom up,” said Dempsey, who has taught a course on popular Catholicism and studied pilgrimages.

Other sites of pilgrimage, like the site where Our Lady of Fatima is said to have appeared in Portugal, grew from a groundswell of popular interest, and the official church later becomes aware of it, Dempsey said.

“Pilgrimage shrines historically have been places that began based on miracles that happen to people, not to popes,” she said. “I don’t know how well central Wisconsin is set up for that kind of thing either. These kinds of pilgrimage sites are not typically a mainstream American phenomenon.”

Many of those gathered for the dedication Mass see things differently.

Robert Moynihan, editor of Inside the Vatican magazine, said Burke represents the bottom flowing to the top of the church and then imposing the piety of the people.

“That’s why the progressives at the top are a little nervous,” he said. “They represent the pointy-headed intellectuals who have lost contact with the base.”

Burke has spurred controversy as archbishop of St. Louis for, among other things, saying he would deny the Eucharist to various abortion-rights proponents.

Earlier this month, he was appointed to lead the Vatican’s supreme court, and Moynihan said Rome is rewarding him for having the “courage of the heartland” and following his path, even when he has to go it alone.

“The strange thing about Burke is he connects up with the Mexican peasants,” Moynihan said. “Far from being the distant, pale, arrogant white church leader, he’s a person who resonates with the beating heart of the simple Catholic.”

At the dedication Mass, Burke sprinkled blessed water through the church and rubbed perfumed oil onto the altar.

Water and oil are elements also used in the baptism of a person into the Roman Catholic church.

Those in attendance included Bishop Jerome Listecki, head of the La Crosse Diocese, Cardinal Justin Rigali of Philadelphia, Francis Cardinal George of Chicago, and Bishop April Ulring Larson, head of the La Crosse Area Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

EWTN cameras were located throughout the church, and the Mass was broadcast by the Catholic television network.

While most in attendance were white, some Hispanic people attended, and Burke repeated parts of his homily in Spanish.

In his homily, Burke said Our Lady of Guadalupe continues to exercise her maternal care.

“Millions of infants in the womb have been destroyed through the legalized practice of procured abortion,” he said. “Our Lady of Guadalupe leads us to Christ who reveals to us ... the inviolable dignity of every human life, from the moment of its inception to the moment of natural death.”

An anti-abortion culture is part of the shrine’s milieu.

A devotional area to the unborn is still being completed near the church, and anti-abortion bumper stickers could be seen on cars in the parking lot Thursday.

David Schroeder, 24, a seminarian in the Milwaukee Archdiocese who was at the shrine Thursday, wore a shirt reading, “They have tiny hands and feet, but they need a voice ... Will you be it?”

He said he loves the shrine.

“Whenever I come here I always meet other people who are living their faith (like I do),” he said.

A small protest of 10 people from Pilgrims Covenant Church in Monroe, Wis., stood part of the morning just outside the shrine grounds, carrying signs that commanded Catholics to stop worshipping a pagan goddess.

“The things they’re saying about their lady of Guadalupe are completely unbiblical,” said the Rev. Ralph Ovadal, pastor of the 60-member church. “They give her attributes and power and authority that belong only to God.”

In his homily, Burke talked about Our Lady of Guadalupe as pointing the way to Christ.

“Returning to their homes, her pilgrims will be filled with new enthusiasm and new energy to live in Christ more perfectly,” he said.

No longer archbishop of St. Louis, Burke plans to move to Rome after mid-August, and said he plans to return to the shrine a couple times a year. La Crosse Tribune

The Changing Face of the Archdiocese

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El Ministerio Hispano/Latino / Hispanic Ministry
Arquidiócesis de/Archdiocese of St. Paul y Minneapolis

Las Parroquias en/Parishes in St. Paul:

Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe / Our Lady of Guadalupe, 401 Concord St.,
St. Paul (oeste) 55107 Tel: 651/ 228-0506 P./Fr. Kevin Kenney & Diácono Martín Jaques
Misa/Mass: domingo/Sun. 9 a.m. bilingue , 11 a.m. & 1 p.m. en español

Iglesia de St. James / St. Frances-St. James, 496 View St., 55102 Tel: 651/ 228-1169
P./ Fr. Miguel Betancourt, P/Fr. Alberto Curbelo & Eva Vargas, Misa/Mass: domingo/Sun., 11:30 a.m.

Sagrado Corazón / Sacred Heart, 840 E. 6^th Street, St. Paul (este), 55106 Tel: 651/ 776-2741 P./Fr. Eugene Michel, ofm & Prisciliano Maya
Misa/Mass: sábado/Sat. 5:30 p.m. and dom./Sun. 11 a.m.

Las Parroquias en /Parishes in Minneapolis:

Sagrado Corazón de Jesús - Incarnation, 3800 Pleasant Ave.S., Mpls 55408 Tel: 612/ 874-7169 P./Fr. Kevin McDonough (after 7/1/08) y Dcn. Carl Valdez
Misas/Mass: sábado/Sat., 6:30 p.m. y domingo/Sun., 11:15 a.m., 1 p.m. y 7 p.m.
Martes/Tues., miércoles/Wed., y jueves/Thurs, 6 p.m.

Iglesia de San Esteban / St. Stephen, 2211 Clinton Ave. S., Mpls (sur) 55404
P./Fr. Joseph Williams Misa/Mass: domingo/Sun., 9 a.m. & 6 p.m.

Santo Rosario / Holy Rosary, 2424 18^th Ave. S., Mpls (sur) 55404 Tel: 612/ 724-3651 P./Fr. José Santiago, OP & Hrna. Luisa Knipp,
Misa/Mass: domingo/Sun., 11:30 a.m. y 6 p.m.

Ss. Cirilo y Metódio / Ss. Cyril & Methodius, 1301 2^nd St. NE, Mpls (noreste) 55413 Tel: 612/ 379-9736 P./Fr. Edison Galarza
Misa/Mass: Domingo/Sun., 7:30 a.m. y 10:30 a.m.

Ascensión / Ascension 1723 Bryant Ave. N, Mpls (norte) 55411 Tel: 612/ 522-4354
P./Fr. Tim Norris Misa/Mass: domingo/Sun., 11:30 a.m.

Otras parroquias del area / Metro Area Parishes:

Asunción/Assumption (sede de Richfield, Bloomington y Eden Prairie)
305 E. 77^th Street, Richfield, 55423 Tel: 612/ 866-5019, Ext. 25; P./Fr. Tom Merrill, ofm conv.
Misa/Mass: domingo/Sun., 11 a.m. & 1 p.m.

St. John the Evangelist / San Juan Evangelista, 6 Interlachen Road, Hopkins, 55343 Tel: 952/ 935-5536 P./Fr. Jim Liekhus (after 6/20/08) & Diácono Juan Durán
Misa/Mass: domingo/Sun.: 2:30 p.m.

Los Ángeles de la Guardia / Guardian Angels, 218 W. 2^nd Street, Chaska, 55318 Tel: 952/ 227-4085 P./Fr. Paul Jarvis & Virginia Koehn Misa/Mass: domingo/Sun., 12 p.m.

San Marcos / St. Mark 350 Atwood St. S, Shakopee, MN 55379 Tel: 952-445-1229
P./Fr. Tim Norris (after 7/1/08) & Dcn. Juan Durán Misa/Mass: domingo/Sun., 5 p.m.

San Enrique / St. Henry, 1001 7^th Street E., Monticello, 55362 Tel: 763/ 295-2402
P./Fr. Timoteo Rudolphi Misa/Mass: sábado/Sat., 7 p.m.

St. John Neumann, 4030 Pilot Knob Road, Eagan, 55122 Tel: 651/ 454-2079
Maria Capouch Misa/Mass: sábado/Sat., 7 p.m.

Risen Savior, 1501 E. Co. Rd. 42, Burnsville, 55306 Tel: 952/ 431-5222
Carmen Dean Misa/Mass: domingo/Sun., 2 p.m.

Sta. Odilia / St. Odilia, 3495 Victoria St. N., Shoreview, 55126 Tel: 651/ 415-3313
P. James Adams, principal celebrant, Fernando La Hoz
Misa/Mass: domingo / Sun. 12:30 p.m.

San Alfonso / St. Alphonsus , 7025 Halifax Ave N, Brooklyn Center, 55429 Tel: 763/ 561-5100 P./Fr. Bill Bueche, C.Ss.R Misa/Mass: 12:30 p.m. domingo/Sun.

St. Stephen, 525 Jackson St., Anoka, MN 55303 P./Fr. John Floeder & Fernando La Hoz Tel. 763-712-7482 Misa/Mass: 6:30 p.m. sábado/Sat.

Divina Misericordia / Divine Mercy, 4 SW 2^nd Ave, Faribault, 55021 Tel: 507/ 334-2266, Ext. 16
P./Fr. Fernando Ortega (after 7/1/08) y Zulema Nieves Misa/Mass: domingo/Sun., 11:30 a.m. (en la Iglesia de Sagrado Corazón)

St. Mary, 165 N. Waterville Ave., Le Center, 56057 Tel: 507/ 357-4838
P./Fr. Chris Shofner Misa/Mass: domingo/Sun., 12:00 p.m.

Santo Domingo / St. Dominic, 116 Linden St. N, Northfield, 55057 Tel: 507/ 645-8816
P./Fr. Denny Dempsey Misa/Mass: domingo/Sun., 12:30 p.m.

St. Joseph, 426 W. 8^th St., Red Wing, 55066 Tel: 651-388-1133 or 651-291-7046 (metro area)
Misa/Mass: 2 nd Domingo de mes/Sun. of month, 5 p.m.

San Jorge / St. George, 133 N. Brown Rd., Long Lake, 55356 Tel: 952/473-1247
Fr. Ralph Huar Misa/Mass: 2x/mo. (1st and 3rd Sudays / domingos, 4:30 p.m.
Fr. Bill Bueche, C. Sr R and Fr. Patrick Foley, TOR, principle celebrants

Archdiocesan Hispanic Ministry / Ministerio Hispano Arquidiocesano



Anita (Anne) Attea, Coordinator for Hispanic Ministry
328 W Kellogg Blvd, St Paul, MN 55102 Tel: 651-290-1644

Estela Villagrán Manancero, Home Mission Coordinator
(Address is same as above ) Tel: 651-290-1639

Norberto (Rico) Sotelo, Pastoral Juvenil
(Address is same as above ) Tel: 651-357-6818

Zulma Arroyo, Chancery contact
226 Summit Avenue St. Paul, 55102 Tel: 651/ 291-4423


Twenty-three parishes, over ten percent of the total in the Archdiocese, are offering Spanish language Masses. Last year, the number was 14 parishes.

All Celebrate a Blossoming Hispanic Culture in Sioux Falls

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Father Justin Wachs became vicar of Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic parish two years ago, armed with a remembered phrase from a high school Spanish class in Aberdeen 17 years before: "I have a date with Anita at 8:30."

It was meager preparation, both for him and for the estimated 500 or so families who make up the parish, most of whom originally came from Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Panama, Nicaragua, Puerto Rico and Colombia.

"They were very patient and kind to me with my Spanish," he says.

A week ago, Wachs celebrated first communion Masses, alternating easily between Spanish and English with the readings and delivering his sermon twice, once in each language. Afterward, he posed for photos with the communicants: girls in dazzling white dresses and boys in suits.

The occasion offered a glimpse of the way the growing Hispanic community and a dominant South Dakota culture have worked through pronounced differences and blended.

Estimates by the Sioux Falls Race Relations Task Force peg the Sioux Falls Hispanic population at 5,500....Sioux Falls Public Schools enroll 1,079 Hispanic students. They are in every school in the district, make up 8 percent to 10 percent of the elementary school student body, 6 percent of the middle school population and 4 percent to 5 percent of the high school enrollment.

Today, that community will be featured in a Cinco de Mayo parade and festival in Sioux Falls.

Emily South, who owns Sign-A-Rama on East 10th Street, was at the 2006 St. Patrick's Day parade where she ran into Lorenzo Reta-Castillo, who first slipped into this country illegally at age 14, moved to Sioux Falls in 1996, became a citizen in 2001 and with his wife, Michelle, owns Nikki's La Mexicana, next door to Sign-A-Rama.

"We can do a parade," South told him.

Cinco de Mayo is a Mexican holiday. But in the Sioux Falls celebrations, South and Reta-Castillo got the equivalent of St. Patrick's Day, where everybody is Irish. Identification with their country of origin predominates among Sioux Falls' Spanish-speaking residents, say many involved with them. But in their enthusiasm for the Cinco de Mayo events, "The people I talk to are just happy to have a celebration with some kind of Latino food and music," says Sister Janet Horstman, a Presentation Sister who works with immigrants in Sioux Falls. [...snip] Argus Leader

Latinos and the Transformation of American Catholicism

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Hispanics are transforming the nation's religious landscape, especially the Catholic Church, not only because of their growing numbers but also because they are practicing a distinctive form of Christianity.

Religious expressions associated with the pentecostal and charismatic movements are a key attribute of worship for Hispanics in all the major religious traditions -- far more so than among non-Latinos. Moreover, the growth of the Hispanic population is leading to the emergence of Latino-oriented churches across the country.

To explore the complex nature of religion among Latinos, the Pew Hispanic Center and the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life collaborated on a series of public opinion surveys that totaled more than 4,600 interviews, constituting one of the largest data collection efforts conducted on this subject. The study examines religious beliefs and behaviors and their association with political thinking among Latinos of all faiths. It focuses special attention on Catholics, both those who retain their identification with the church and those who convert to evangelical churches.

About a third of all Catholics in the U.S. are now Latinos, and the study projects that the Latino share will continue climbing for decades. This demographic reality, combined with the distinctive characteristics of Latino Catholicism, ensures that Latinos will bring about important changes in the nation's largest religious institution.

Most significantly given their numbers, more than half of Hispanic Catholics identify themselves as charismatics, compared with only an eighth of non-Hispanic Catholics. While remaining committed to the church and its traditional teachings, many of these Latino Catholics have witnessed or experienced occurrences typical of spirit-filled or renewalist movements, including divine healing and direct revelations from God. Even many Latino Catholics who do not identify themselves as renewalists appear deeply influenced by spirit-filled forms of Christianity. [...snip] Pew Charitable Trust Hispanic Center Read the entire report and Executive Summary

Declining birthrates threaten a crisis of underpopulation.: The Solution? Tax Abortions and The Pill!

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What we now know is that, yes, there is a world population crisis, but it is quite the opposite to the one which the contraception-sterilisation-abortion lobby, the media and so many politicians have been talking about, often hysterically, since World War II; and in large measure it is precisely agencies such as UNFPA and IPPF who are responsible for this new and terrifying crisis, the real crisis, which threatens our world. That crisis is the threat of demographic implosion.

To achieve ‘zero growth’, that is, a static population that is neither growing nor declining, every woman should produce 2.1 children. In the Third World (e.g., Mali, where 1 child in 5 dies under 5 years) the replacement rate has to be higher.

Today, in developed countries the situation can be described as catastrophic. In Italy in 1998 the female fertility rate was a mere 1.19. The Wall Street Journal called the Italian crisis ‘apocalyptic’1. In Spain, the situation is even worse: the average is 1.18 children per woman. In the United Kingdom and France the rate is around 1.75. Not too bad? Better than Spain and Italy (not to mention Greece and Germany). Nonetheless the next generation will be 20 per cent down on the present one. Spain and Italy will be 40 per cent down2. But does ‘less worse’ mean ‘all right’?

The European Union as a whole has a 1.4 child/woman rate. Do we really think that the EU has a bright future?

Now look beyond Europe. Canada’s rate is 1.6 (Quebec’s much worse). Even the US has only 2.0 and this largely because of Hispanic immigration. And on the other side of the Pacific is Japan, ‘desperate for a baby-boom’, and China, where the law restricts each family to one child per woman - with enforced abortion and sterilisation and female infanticide resulting in a society which has some 120 boys for every 100 girls3. So much for women’s liberation. And what will this lead to - polyandry (women having several husbands), sex wars? [....snip] LifeIssues.net

One of the immediate effects of this "population implosion" is that when people entering the labor force today are ready to retire and draw on their Social Security Benefits, there will be none. Social Security is essentially a "pay as you go system." 40 years from now, there will be far fewer people entering the job market and paying into Social Security for their parents and grandparents. Social Security taxes might have to exceed the income tax rate, with no deductions.

One practical method of raising funds for the future would be to tax abortions, prescription contraceptives and condoms. Put the money in a special fund to pretend that it is the contribution of those that never had the opportunity to contribute to the social security system.

In Worthington, the Absence of Family Members is Felt

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Three weeks after a raid swept up Esperanza Ventura’s husband and 229 other workers at the Swift & Co. meatpacking plant, many Hispanic immigrants are grappling with the sudden absence of family members.

Ventura lost two in the raid by federal agents: her husband, Anselmo Perez Verduo, in federal custody in Georgia, and a sister, Maria Amelia Ventura, who is to be deported.

Ventura, 25, and her baby are living with another sister and the sister’s husband, who has proper documents and works at Swift.

The raid by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents netted 1,282 workers at six Swift plants around the country. Federal officials conducted the sweep after getting a tip about an identity-theft ring involving company workers.

Production hasn’t returned to normal at the Worthington plant, Swift officials said last week. Area pork producers have been hurt by market fluctuations. Some Main Street businesses, especially those that depend heavily on Hispanic customers, also are counting losses.

“My business is down, much down,” said Jesus De Leon, owner of El Azteca restaurant and grocery in Worthington.

“I see a lot of people moving away, a lot of apartments empty,” he said. “I’m scared. I have a lot of loans at the bank.”

The raid affected scores, perhaps hundreds, of families whose sole or primary breadwinner is suddenly gone.

Sister Karen Thein, of St. Mary’s Catholic Church, spent 15 years ministering to the poor in Guatemala and has worked closely with the burgeoning Hispanic population of Worthington, which, before the raid, made up close to a third of the city’s 12,000 people. [...Snip] La Crosse Tribune

Nuevo Catholics: Are we to become a Spanish Language Church? Or will there will be assimilation as in the past?

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Like the three services celebrated earlier in the morning and the four that will follow into the afternoon, the 10:45 a.m. Sunday Mass at St. Thomas the Apostle Church in the Pico-Union district of downtown Los Angeles is crammed to the rafters, even though the church holds nearly 1,000 parishioners. When I spoke on a recent Sunday to Msgr. Jarlath Cunnane, or Father Jay, as he is known by his congregation, he said: “If we had the space, I think another thousand people might well come to each Sunday Mass. We’re full, bursting at the seams, and so are most churches in the archdiocese.”

[...snip]

In many ways, this is the best of times to be a Catholic in Los Angeles. “In the 1980s, we were conscious of dioceses closing churches all over the Eastern United States,” Cunnane told me. We were sitting in his office in a low-slung new building across the street from the church, where the administrative work of the parish is done. “Our problem is the reverse: were it not for the shortage of priests, we would be expanding our ministry.”

This news comes as something of a surprise, given the fact that the last four decades have been such a catastrophe for American Catholicism. The statistics speak for themselves: In 1965, there were 49,000 seminarians; in 2002, there were 4,700. In 1965, there were 1,556 Catholic high schools; in 2002, there were 786. Mass attendance dropped from 74 percent of self-identified Catholics in 1958 to 25 percent in 2000. The number of priests has not fallen quite as drastically — 58,000 in 1965; 45,000 in 2002 — but the median age for priests today is 56, and 16 percent of them are from foreign countries.

And yet, to hear Cunnane tell it, things are different in Los Angeles. Indeed, what he was describing sounded like a throwback to the glory years of American Catholic devotion — the baby-boom era, when the native-born children and grandchildren of Irish, Polish and Italian immigrants filled an ever-expanding number of Catholic churches, often in places where there had been no Catholic diocese before, and they clamored for more priests to say Mass, hear confession, preside over baptisms and petition for more parochial schools.

In those days, young American Catholic males answered this call in steadily increasing numbers. To be a priest was to play a central role in the life of much of both urban and suburban America, spiritually and also in the everyday concerns of parishioners. The priestly hierarchy was overwhelmingly Irish then, and it remains so today. But that is where all similarity to the church of the 1960s ends. For if the priests are cut from much the same ethnic cloth as they were a generation ago, their parishioners are not: out of the eight Masses celebrated at St. Thomas every Sunday, seven are in Spanish, as are all three of the Masses on Saturday and two out of the three daily Masses. Parish business is routinely done bilingually, and priests like Cunnane probably spend more of their working lives speaking Spanish than they do English. New seminarians in the archdiocese of Los Angeles are required to be able to say Mass in Spanish (or another language of recent Catholic immigrants, like Tagalog or Vietnamese) as well as in English.

St. Thomas is in inner-city Los Angeles, but there is nothing anomalous about what takes place there. Throughout Southern California, from the San Gabriel Valley to downtown Los Angeles and from Orange County to East L.A., almost every parish church is in the same position, or at least inclining that way. As Fernando Guerra, a professor at Loyola Marymount University, has said, churches in Los Angeles now fall into two categories: they “are either Latino or in the process of becoming Latino.” Although the trend is not as extreme in other parts of the country, it is being reproduced almost everywhere in Catholic America to one degree or another. Take, for example, another St. Thomas the Apostle Church — the one in Smyrna, Ga. There, Masses in English still predominate during the week, but on Sundays there are four English services and three Spanish ones, despite the fact that large-scale Hispanic immigration to the state is a very recent phenomenon.

Nationally, Hispanics account for 39 percent of the Catholic population, or something over 25 million of the nation’s 65 million Roman Catholics; since 1960, they have accounted for 71 percent of new Catholics in the United States. The vast increase, both proportionally and in absolute numbers, is mostly because of the surge in immigration from Latin America, above all from Mexico, that has taken place over the course of the past three decades. Today, more than 40 percent of the Hispanics residing in the United States, legally and illegally, are foreign-born, and the fate of the American Catholic Church has become inextricably intertwined with the fate of these immigrants and their descendants. [...Snip] New York Times

Winona's Bishop Harrington Starts Relief Fund For His Dioceses' Swift Employees

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Winona Bishop Bernard Harrington has started a fund to help families separated after immigration agents arrested 230 workers at a Swift meat plant in Worthington, Minn., last week in what he called an “attempt to enforce the laws of a broken immigration system.” Harrington set aside $10,000 of the Catholic diocese’s funds and asked his followers to contribute and to work and pray for “meaningful immigration reform.”

About 200 families were affected, most in St. Mary’s parish in Worthington, said Suzanne Belongia, director of social action for the diocese. The diocese estimates there are also affected families in Albert Lea and Austin. “We’ve got many requests from people who need help,” she said. “The need is out there.”

Harrington said breadwinners have been detained, leaving families without resources and the money will help pay for food, heating bills and rent.

The raid also spread fear among Hispanics, Harrington said. “There are people living in darkness, afraid to go out.”

The raid netted a total of 1,282 workers in six plants across the country in what Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff called the largest-ever workplace crackdown on illegal immigration.

About 5 percent of the overall arrests resulted in identity theft charges or other criminal violations, such as re-entry after deportation — but none of those were in Minnesota. The rest of the detainees were held on suspected violations of immigration laws.

There are about 30,000 Hispanic members in the diocese, which spans southern Minnesota, Harrington said. In the last 8 years, the diocese has gone from offering two Spanish Masses to 15.

Three parishes in Worthington, Austin and Albert Lea are nearly half Hispanic, Harrington said.

Harrington said the country needs an immigration policy that protects the borders but also “welcomes all God’s children to work with dignity and to provide for a better life for their families within our borders.”

“We need a process in which (those already here) can enter into the mainstream,” he said.

Harrington said the church will need tens of thousands of dollars to care for the splintered families.

“Christmas will come and Christmas will go,” he said. “The needs of human life go on.” Winona Daily News


Tidings of comfort and joy

By the Daily News editorial board

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With Christmas parties, Christmas cookies, Christmas decorations and Christmas presents, it’s pretty easy to get self-centered in the next few days. It’s pretty easy to miss some in our area who are hurting — like those whose families have been split up because of a raid by U.S. immigration officials in Worthington.

The recent raids there have reverberated in communities like Albert Lea and Austin — not far from our area. Diocese of Winona Bishop Bernard Harrington hasn’t forgotten about them at a time when it would be easy to overlook their need. To help the families that have been separated — some in which parents have been taken from children — Harrington established a “Holy Family Relief Fund” through Catholic Charities. The diocese made the first payment of $10,000 and now is asking parishioners and businesses to contribute. And, the fund shouldn’t just be a call for the Catholic faithful, it should be an effort supported regardless of religious creed.

We praise the bishop for this forward-thinking effort. This type of action seems to strike at the heart of Christian theology and the commandment of Christ at the end of John’s Gospel, when Christ tells Peter, “Tend to my sheep.”

Harrington is indeed looking after his flock, providing not only for their spiritual needs, but for their day-to-day survival. Moreover, his leadership in the region is appreciated.

But his statement, issued Friday and printed on this page, shows more than just an immediate concern with the well-being of those displaced — it shows a broad concern with the social justice of the Worthington raids.

In a statement, Harrington said, “Many questions remain about the type of treatment these packing plant workers received and the appropriateness of the methods used during the raids… Families that have lost their breadwinner now face a winter of uncertainty with no idea how long detainees will be held.”

We should all have questions about the methods the U.S. government used. It is probably another example in an all-too-frequent line of events that show the dysfunction of our immigration policy. And, most of us should cringe just a little when we realize our families are not so far removed from being strangers in a strange land ourselves.

We join with Bishop Harrington as he calls for us to “remember the families … who have been fractured by this attempt to enforce the laws of a broken immigration system.”

Let that be part of our prayer this holiday season.


------------------

Interestingly, it appears that Swift & Company has been using the records of the Social Security Administration to assist them in determining whether or not its employees are eligible for work in the United States. But apparently the Immigration officials and those at the SSA don't seem to be on the same wave length.

It is also interesting that it took about 1,000 Immigration, Border Patrol and Customs officials to arrest the 1,300 illegal immigrants who were employed at various Swift & Company plants. Can you imagine what that cost to assemble an ad hoc group like that in areas where they don't live and provide them with needed facilities while waiting for all to be ready?

Of course there are probably more than 1,300 illegal immigrants crossing our borders each days where we do have "security." And maybe 20,000,000 are already here, and employed in other companies.

Washington, we have a problem and you don't know what to do about it and the poorest of the poor are the ones who get to pay for it.

Bishop Nickless impressed with 'vibrant faith' in Sioux City diocese

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The Rev. R. Walker Nickless, bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Sioux City, spoke to the Greater Sioux City Press Club over lunch on Friday. It was an informal conversation that ranged widely, from his enjoyment of gardening and yard work to the church's views on human sexuality.
Nickless, the oldest of 10 children, left his native Denver earlier this year and was installed on Jan. 20 as Sioux City's seventh bishop. Prior to that, he served in a number of roles, all in the Archdiocese of Denver, most recently as its vicar general.
Nickless laughed as he remembered his surprise at being named a bishop and at being assigned to Iowa, which he had never visited. "I got three or four packs of long underwear," he confessed, "but I haven't had to use them.
"He said he has visited nearly every school and every corner of the diocese and recently met with all 125 priests for the first time.
Nickless said he has been moved by the "vibrant faith, openness and goodness of the people here" and that he was excited to see the enthusiasm of 800 Catholic youth at a recent gathering in Le Mars. "That, to me, is a real sign of vitality and growth." At the same time, he said, special attention must be given to the elderly faithful.
He said raising up new priests is a real need and noted that the vocation must be suggested to boys who may be hearing the call, but aren't sure about it. The bishop said priests come from healthy Catholic families and that boys "need to see happy priests. We've had so much bad publicity."
[...snip]
Nickless was asked why services in Spanish are not offered regularly in other Sioux City churches, but only at the cathedral, where Hispanics are assigned and make up 41 percent of the congregation. He acknowledged that "people must pray in their own language" and called the Hispanic members "a great asset to the church." The biggest challenge, he said, is finding enough Spainish-speaking priests.
In general remarks, the bishop said he is open to new ideas, new ways of doing things and new faces around him. [...snip] Sioux City Journal

Assumption Parish in Richfield parish embraces Hispanic community

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[...] Five years ago, Audrey Stafford of Richfield's Assumption Parish said, “we were all white. We didn’t have any African-Americans and no Hispanics to speak of.”
Now Stafford and her husband appreciate the parish’s diversity. Many of the new Hispanic parishioners are young families, who she said bring new life, beautiful customs and strong devotion to the once-aging parish.
Like many parishes in the archdiocese, Assumption has become the spiritual home to a growing number of Hispanic Catholics moving to the Twin Cities area.
But what sets Assumption apart is its success at integrating the English-speaking and Spanish-speaking communities.
In 1994, when the traditionally German parish closed its school, the aging parish population started to decline. However, Assumption began to change dramatically in 2001, when former pastor Father Michael Tix added a Spanish Mass.
About 200 people attended the Spanish Mass in that first year. Over the last five years, that number has more than doubled. Now the parish has two weekend Masses in English and two in Spanish.
The influx of Hispanic parishioners “has been a real shot in the arm for this parish,” said the current pastor, Father Thomas Merrill, a Conventual Franciscan.
A great ‘coming together’
Recently, Assumption unveiled a million-dollar renovation of its 1954 church building and facilities. Both the Spanish-speaking and the English-speaking communities contributed time and money to the project.
Many Hispanic people supporting the renovations were using envelopes for the first time, said Father Merrill. “It showed a real sense of ownership.”
However, Father Merrill used different approaches for the project with members of the English-speaking and Spanish-speaking communities.
“With the Americans, I said we’ve been here for a long time and we want to continue to be proud of our church and continue to make it beautiful,” Father Merrill said. “And with the Hispanics, it’s more the idea that you’re recipients of a great tradition and now you’re going to have to take care of it. . . . The torch is being passed to you.” [....snip] Read the Rest in the Catholic Spirit

Día de los Muertos -- Day of the Dead

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Day of the Dead celebrations combine Roman Catholic and indigenous traditions to honor the cycle of life and death.

There's nothing morbid about Day of the Dead.

In Minnesota and anywhere those of Mexican heritage make their homes, Nov. 1 and 2 are devoted to the Día de los Muertos festival, a vibrant ode to mortality and memory that mixes Roman Catholic ritual with ancient Aztec customs and adds a dash of magical realism.
It's a time to honor -- colorfully and joyfully -- family members and friends who have died, as well as long-dead ancestors.

At Catholic churches that serve Minnesota's growing Hispanic population -- the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis now counts 150,000 Spanish-language Catholics in its fold -- altars will be festooned with flowers, food and ancestral photos next week, and prayers and remembrances will be lifted up. At Mexican bakeries and candy stores on Minneapolis' Lake Street and St. Paul's West Side, pan de muerto (bread of the dead), candy skulls and other merrily macabre delicacies will fly off the counters.

And at cemeteries, gravestones will become tables for food and candles, though that custom is far
less popular in Minnesota than in Mexico, where night winds are warmer and the bones of most ancestors lie buried.

Honor and healing

In the broader U.S. culture, Halloween, with its commercial mania and kitschy gothic customs, gets most of the press. But along with the increased influence of Hispanic culture, the Day of the Dead is being more widely observed every year. It's "a very big observation" for Hispanic Catholics, said Anne Attea, director of Hispanic ministry for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.

For Catholics, Nov. 1 is All Saints' Day, Nov. 2 All Souls' Day. The former, Attea said, "focuses on the communion of saints" and the latter has become linked to "the Latino tradition in which ancient religious traditions practiced by indigenous people and Christianity meet."

Western theology doesn't offer anything quite like Day of the Dead, "with its connection with ancestral spirits and honoring of the soul's long journey," Attea said. "We are grateful for this gift from the Latino community. It looks at death in what is perhaps a more natural way."

At Our Lady of Guadalupe in St. Paul, where the observance is called Día de los Difuntos, Nov. 1 will bring a daytime service to honor the saints and Nov. 2 a night mass to remember the dead, said Deacon Martin Jaques.

"We'll have a special altar covered with pictures of family members, food they liked to eat -- bananas, apples and candy -- and flowers," he said. "We remember them in prayer and honor them." Particularly for those who have lost loved ones in the past year, "it helps with healing," Jaques said. "It's a community thing -- everyone is focused on it, and that helps people who are grieving feel better, less alone."

Ray Gonzalez, a poet, fiction writer and professor of English at the University of Minnesota, grew up in El Paso, Texas, on the Mexican-U.S. border, where he was steeped in Mexican Catholic traditions. The home of his grandmother, who came from central Mexico, was decorated with calendar pictures of the Virgin Mary and saints, and Mexican knickknacks that paid homage both to Roman Catholicism and her Yaqui Indian heritage.

Gonzalez said Día de los Muertos observances at home, church and in cemeteries taught him that individuals and families are part of a broader history, both of a distinct people and of the human family. And it taught him that all -- rich and poor, mighty and humble -- are subject to the great leveler, death.

"You are a little boy, you bring food and flowers to the cemetery at night, and you're told that your great-grandmother and your grandfather are buried here or there, and all of a sudden you're learning about your ancestors," Gonzalez said. "Nowadays you can learn all about Day of the Dead and its traditions on the Internet, but that doesn't come close to observing it in a cemetery."

Native traditions, he said, "had such power that the early Catholic church was compelled to embrace and incorporate them."The Mexican Roman Catholic Church is heavy with ceremony and ritual, and maybe not as dogmatic as other forms of Catholicism," he said. It incorporates American Indian closeness to the Earth and natural cycles, as well as a belief in the soul's long journey "to a better state or world."

By celebrating that journey, Gonzalez said, Day of the Dead can help ease the fear of death. "Death is not represented by darkness or anything morbid, like you might find in some Western traditions," he said. "Part of the appeal is that it's one of the few times you can actually acknowledge the sense that there's a spirit world. You've got candles, rosaries, flowers, feasting, celebration. It's visually stunning, and it affects you deeply."

To be sure -- right down to the bones. Star Tribune

For a global perspective, look to the next pew

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If you want confirmation that the Twin Cities is becoming more diverse every day, go to church.Catholic churches now offer 23 Spanish Masses, compared with nine offered two decades ago.
[snip]
Without a doubt, the numbers of foreign-born residents are climbing. Statewide, this population has grown by about 22 percent in the past five years, with even larger increases in suburban counties such as Anoka, Dakota and Washington, according to new data released today from the Census Bureau's 2005 American Community Survey.

This increase continues a wave of immigration that began in the 1990s and is a large factor in the state's increasing diversity. Asians make up the greatest share of the foreign-born population, but the new data show a surge in the number of Africans coming here in the past five years.

Despite these changes, the Twin Cities remains the least diverse among the 20 largest metropolitan areas of the country. People who are white and non-Hispanic make up 82 percent of the metro population.
[snip]
In 1988, there were nine Catholic parishes that offered a Mass in Spanish in the 12-county metro area, and all but two of those were in St. Paul or Minneapolis proper, said Anne Attea, the coordinator for Hispanic ministry for the archdiocese. Today, 23 of the 223 parishes in the region offer a Spanish Mass.
[snip] Pioneer Press