http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/ne ... 150231.htm

Posted on Sat, Jul. 29, 2006


CATHOLIC CHURCH
Always reaching out to immigrants

By RONALDO M. CRUZ
rcruz@usccb.org

As political leaders are mired in debate over immigration reform, the U.S. Catholic Church is busy reaching out to embrace the cultural richness of its increasingly diverse flock.

While it didn't make front page news, more than 2,000 young Hispanic Catholics -- many of them new immigrants -- gathered recently for dialogue with bishops from the United States and Latin America who heard their calls for a more visible place in their church and country. Bishop Felipe Estévez, an auxiliary bishop in the Archdiocese of Miami, joined a delegation of 44 Miami Hispanic Catholic youth at this encuentro (gathering) held at the University of Notre Dame.

Cardinal Oscar Andrés Rodríguez Maradiaga of Tegucigalpa, Honduras, reminded us that ''in the face of every immigrant, there is a history'' and denounced ugly stereotypes about those in search of a better life in the United States.

Our nation's values

At a time when some political leaders believe that building more walls and rounding up ''illegal aliens'' is the solution to our nation's complex migration issues, the Catholic Church stands in solidarity with the strangers among us.

Our church has a long history of reaching out to immigrants. The U.S. bishops established an immigration department with a presence at Ellis Island in 1920. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Migration and Refugee Services office has coordinated the resettlement of more than 800,000 refugees. Bishops have urged Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform that upholds human dignity and reflects our nation's values of fairness, opportunity and compassion.

This national encuentro put a face on the demographics shaping our historically immigrant faith. Long a refuge for Irish, Italian and Germans, our multicultural church is today enriched by young mexicanos, salvadoreños, and hondureños. Latinos make up 41 percent of all Catholics under the age of

30 and 44 percent of Catholics

under the age of 10. In the near

future, the majority of U.S. Catholics will be Hispanic.

The 18-to-30-year-olds who attended the meeting came from 129 dioceses across the country. The gathering marked the culmination of local encuentros convened over the past year in cities such as Miami, San Antonio, Chicago, Los Angeles, Atlanta and Milwaukee. More than 50,000 Hispanic youth were engaged in a grass-

roots process to find out how the Catholic Church can better serve them.

Out of the shadows, these young adults relished the opportunity to speak out on immigration, faith, education and racism. The hierarchy of the church listened to articulate young leaders who asked for more bilingual priests, social programs that help keep them in school and away from gangs, and parishes that welcome them as integral parts of faith communities. Twenty U.S. bishops, and a delegation of bishops representing the Latin American Episcopal Conference, participated. The meeting lived up to its name, ``Weaving the Future Together.''

Crossing borders

The Catholic Church has not always done a good job reaching Hispanic immigrants. For years it was wrongly assumed that programs designed for native English speakers would also work for Hispanics. In too many parishes, Hispanic ministry still lacks the financial, physical and human resources needed to thrive. During the next year, staff of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops will take the priorities that these young adults identified and draft a major report to the nation's bishops on ways the church can better respond to young Hispanic Catholics. We will work with organizations such as the National Catholic Network de Pastoral Juvenil Hispana, which sponsored the Notre Dame encuentro, to build on the momentum of this historic meeting.

We move forward as a pilgrim church that crosses borders, speaks with hope and has faith in a future whose diverse accents, cultures and traditions are gifts from God to be celebrated.

Ronaldo M. Cruz is executive director of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Secretariat for Hispanic Affairs.