From Gomer to Gomez: grief and joy in Hispanic ministry

National Catholic Reporter, July 29, 2005 by Kenneth G. Davis

Toward the end of her recent three-month investigation of the reaction of the Catholic church in the United States to its growing Latino population, French journalist Laurence Monroe interviewed me. She told me many people simply refuse to admit that a third of the church in the United States is Hispanic. Others admit the demographic data but react with resentment or even antagonism. Very few people seem to be able to respond with that welcoming phrase: "Hispanics are not a problem to be solved, but a blessing to be embraced."

I instantly recalled On Death and Dying by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross. What Ms. Monroe was describing were stages of grief. She reports on people who are facing the death of something dear to them and who often react with denial, anger, bargaining and depression before they can ever get to acceptance.

For some time I have written about the urgency of attracting and graduating Hispanic leaders for church ministry. Without in any way diminishing that indispensable need, however, I am beginning to believe that there are two other related issues of importance.

More than Mayberry

I come from a Southern city a lot like the television town of Mayberry. It was full of warm, country people who were friendly and neighborly. But Mayberry had no African-Americans. No people of the First Nations. No one, in fact, who wasn't white and Protestant. And there were no poor people. Even Otis, the lovable alcoholic, maintained a middle-class lifestyle.

I love the television program as I love my hometown, but Mayberry is changing. The Gomezes have moved next door to Gomer. And their children go to the same school as Opie. And then priests like me even throw open the door of the last safe haven, the parish church! The church where Mayberry folk were baptized and buried; the church with the stained glass windows bearing family names; the church of southern fried chicken and iced tea is suddenly supposed to welcome tamales and tortillas.

So the first issue I am contemplating is that many non-Hispanic Catholics, perhaps especially in the South, grieve over something dear to them that seems to be disappearing. The parish they have known all their lives, a Catholic Mayberry, is dying. And the natural reaction of humans to death is denial, anger, bargaining and depression before they can ever get to acceptance.

A great error of priests is to expect Catholics to instantly act like Christians. By that I mean that we pastors might be more patient with our parishioners if we expected humanity rather than heroism. We can call people to heroism, but I'm not sure it is reasonable to expect it at precisely the moment we demand it.

Too often we just force an issue, often a wonderfully Christian issue like hospitality to Hispanics, and then when people react as humans we get frustrated because they aren't living up to our expectation. Of course, I am not saying that we should do less for Hispanics--we need to do a great deal more! But we are pastors of the whole community, and in order to usher in the resurrection that good Hispanic ministry represents, we must minister to those grieving the death of something dear.

Lay ministry and Mayberry

This brings me to my second observation. Priests in the United States are better prepared than ever to do Hispanic ministry. There still is much to be done, but about half of our country's seminarians are studying Spanish, a wonderfully hopeful statistic.

In the United States, especially after the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), we have been blessed with a growing number of degreed, professional lay ecclesial ministers. That too is a wonderfully hopeful statistic. However, only a very few of them are Hispanic, and far too few of the non-Hispanic lay ecclesial ministers have ever studied Spanish or had the experience or training for cross-cultural ministry.

Like priests, lay ecclesial-ministers will serve a church that is one-third Hispanic. Like priests, they will serve a church whose young population is 40 percent Hispanic. Coupled with continued and increasing immigration, that fact means that they will serve a church soon to be majority Hispanic. Catholic Mayberry is quickly becoming more like the Gomezes than the Gomers.

For those prepared for that eventuality (many seminarians), that is a blessing. But for those who are not so prepared (most non-Hispanic lay ecclesial ministers), that may be a stumbling block. We may be creating a situation where the pastor of a parish may gladly welcome Latinos and Latinas, but where the indispensable professional lay staff of that same parish not only themselves react to that prospect with grief but also lack the training or experience to help lay leaders and other parishioners through grief to renewed belief.

I do not mean to blame individual lay students of theology and ministry. Unlike seminarians, they seldom have their degrees bankrolled, much less have the money to pursue a Spanish language immersion in another country. In fact, most go into debt in order to study for ministry. Even if their job and their finances permitted them to go abroad and study Spanish, many have spouses and children who would make such an immersion experience difficult or impossible. Finally there are few financial incentives for students of lay ministry to master a second language or study the influence of culture.