Back to Exponent Menu Printer Friendly Page   LOCAL FEATURES Friday, September 08, 2006 Hispanics changing the face of Catholicism in Yo. Diocese By Lou Jacquet The face of Catholicism in the Diocese of Youngstown is becoming more and more Hispanic. With the arrival of each new group of immigrants, lifelong Catholics within the six counties of the diocese will have to make adjustments to some new realities. Few people understand that changing reality better than Benedictine Sister Teresa Ann Wolf, coordinator of Pastoral Care for Migrants and Refugees for the Tri-Diocesan Mobile Migrant Ministry. She currently runs Centro San Jose, a center to welcome and help new immigrants, located at 1515 N. Market in Canton. In her work, she meets newcomers every day who need and want the help of the Catholic Church. In a recent interview with the Catholic Exponent, Sister Teresa Ann was asked to assess the current situation in the diocese regarding ministry to Hispanics. She said progress has been made, but Catholics in the pews are only at the beginning of a long road of adjustment to the new realities. “I think the adjustment is slow,” she said. “The pastors and staffs with whom I work are aware and want to do something. The priests in parishes where immigrants are settling are open and welcoming and interested. I see progress being made. But language remains a huge hurdle. If you work with Hispanics, you really should know some Spanish. Most people realize that. But priests especially say they have little time to do Spanish language study, although a few work hard at it.” She cited Father Thomas Bishop, who goes to the Mexican American Cultural Center in Texas to continue his language study, and Msgr. Lew Gaetano, chaplain at Walsh University, as among those who have made a genuine effort to learn the language. Beyond the language question, she said, Catholics in the pews are worried about what might be termed “cultural competence.” That is, they do not want to welcome newcomers in an insensitive way, but they know little about Hispanics and their customs. “We are all caught up in our own cultural biases,” Sister Teresa Ann stressed. “You hear people say, ‘Why can’t they do things the right way?’ which means ‘our way.’ That is a constant challenge.” If the Church fails to welcome new immigrants, she suggested, they will drift to other denominations, which are much more aggressive in welcoming newcomers. She said: “People in other denominations make the effort to welcome and to learn Spanish, speak it well, sing in Spanish, and integrate these people into their worship communities. Catholics have to do a better job of doing that.” Sister Teresa Ann acknowledges that welcoming Hispanics to the diocese presents some real challenges for Catholics here, especially because many immigrants wish to live “below the radar.” “It’s very easy to ignore the presence of Hispanic people and recent immigrants because, by and large, they are an invisible group,” she told the Exponent. “They don’t want to be seen; they do not want attention drawn to themselves. I see them in stores but many times they don’t come to our churches because they look for places where religious services are in the Spanish language. Most of our diocesan parishes have nobody on staff that even speaks Spanish to welcome people or to tell them when Mass will be, or anything like that.” However, several diocesan parishes are in the vanguard of seeking to serve Hispanics. Canton St. Anthony Parish has a Spanish Mass every Sunday at 1 p.m.; Alliance St. Joseph has started a Spanish Mass once a month, as has Salem St. Paul. Ashtabula Mother of Sorrows celebrates a Mass in Spanish, too. Sister Teresa Ann said there has been a large influx of immigrants, especially Mexicans, in the Youngstown area, where a grant from the Koch Foundation has enabled the creation of the Mahoning County Spanish Outreach. “Through this grant we are able to hire some outreach workers for a few hours a week to try and make contact with the Hispanic community,” she explained. “These workers visit them, talk with them, see what their needs are, find out where they go to pray and where Spanish services could help them.” She said the workers also help Hispanics meet other needs. “When Hispanics and other new immigrants first come here, they have to take care of basic survival needs first: finding a job, finding a place to live, accessing food and clothing, getting their children into school, accessing healthcare. So those are the first needs we take care of as pastoral people.” Once those basic needs are met, Sister Teresa Ann and others can help new immigrants find a Mass in Spanish, learn where a baby can be baptized, line up a First Communion or a marriage. Later on, Hispanics want to enrich their faith lives with prayer groups, Bible studies and other activities. Canton St. Anthony, for example, conducts an annual pilgrimage to the shrine in Windsor, Ohio, in Ashtabula County. “That is an activity where they can go together,” she noted. “They feel safe. For many immigrants, it is not even safe to travel because of racial profiling and also because of document issues. Especially right now, it’s a very negative environment, socially and legally.” Some prepare for danger; the nun said she talked with a family the other day who told her they have 600 pesos (about 10 pesos to the dollar) hidden in their house so that, if they are deported immediately, they will have that much to take with them. According to Sister Teresa Ann, it is important to clarify precisely what one means by the term “Hispanic.” While the majority of Hispanics in the Diocese of Youngstown are Mexicans, in some areas Guatemalans are the most numerous immigrants. Further confusing the issue, there are several different language and tribal groups from Guatemala alone, speaking different languages. There are also Hondurans, Nicaraguans, Colombians, Peruvians, Salvadorans, Argentinians, Mexican/Americans and more, all living within the six counties of the diocese. Asked what she would tell diocesan Catholics about the immigration issue if she could speak personally with each one, Sister Teresa Ann said she would tell them, “don’t be afraid. Welcome these newcomers and help them, because it is a basic fact that the future of the Church in the United States will be Hispanic, since Hispanics will be the majority by 2020.” “If we don’t welcome them and empower them to be the leaders of the Church, so that they can take their place and take ownership, they will just drift away,” she stressed. “Then the Catholic Church in this country will become a very weakened, crippled old institution.” But the nun said she understands why people are wary of what is happening here. “We are all afraid of change,” she acknowledged. “Nobody likes change. It’s like when a new baby comes along in a family. The schedule changes. Everything changes. If the dominant group has the attitude that ‘they have to change and learn and adjust to us’ – which really means ‘these people have to learn English tomorrow’ – their reaction is very short-sighted and just will not work.” What persons who hold such an attitude fail to realize, she added, is that newcomers are already undertaking tremendous changes. They are adjusting to a new culture and a “new way of being Church” in a parish setting unlike what they have experienced in their own countries. The immigrants are adjusting to a new language and new jobs. “The dominant group also needs to make adjustments so that a bridge of communication can be built,” Sister Teresa Ann asserted. “It’s OK for them to learn some Spanish so they can meet the newcomers on the bridge. It’s OK to learn some hymns in Spanish. We need to remember that no one becomes fluent in a new language overnight. It takes time and understanding to overcome one’s fears and prejudices. We need to realize that God does understand Spanish.” Two excellent ways to “build that bridge,” she offered, are to sing together and to share food together. Doing so should not be difficult, she feels, “because everyone likes Mexican food, and salsa has become more popular than ketchup in the U.S. Sharing food is a non-threatening way to get to know one another across cultures. Music is another way, as the congregation learns a little bit of Spanish.” Sister Teresa Ann recommends that parishes not currently involved in welcoming Hispanics and other immigrants to their pews take small steps, which she sees as “better than taking no steps at all.” She will help parishes learn “pastoral Spanish” if as few as 10 persons are willing to take the classes, she noted. Walsh University also offers a course in Pastoral Spanish. Called to serve Hispanics How does a woman Religious whose motherhouse is in Watertown, South Dakota, end up ministering to Hispanic immigrants in several cities? As a young Benedictine nun, Sister Teresa Ann was teaching at a Catholic school on a reservation in North Dakota, a role she enjoyed. While there, she became interested in other cultures and began to appreciate them. She realized that, if she did not move from the school where she was teaching, she would probably be there for several more decades. So she asked if she could be transferred to another reservation. Soon she found herself on an Indian reservation in southwestern Arizona in the 1970s, doing pastoral work for seven villages. “I was on the road a great deal, doing that work, and frequently came across Mexican men walking through the desert, looking for work on the farms south of Phoenix.” Even though crossing the desert then did not involve the intense scrutiny that it does now, she found herself concerned about the men and, even though it was illegal, giving them rides. “That,” she said with laughter, “is when I began my life of crime.” Almost all of those she worked with in the missions had the same attitude about helping those in need, she noted. “I started thinking about what the economic policies were that would force hard-working people to leave their families to cross the desert, hoping to find work in the United States, where they were frequently abused even then. I knew that Mexicans were frequently being robbed and killed, yet they kept coming. I wondered what policies of the United States were making this issue worse.” When she was finished in Arizona, she asked to go to Guatemala, where she went to language school and worked with indigenous people. Later, she worked in Peru, doing pastoral work in the mountains with the poor. When she returned to the United States, she wanted to retain her language skills, so looked for ministry with Hispanics. For 10 years, she served as director of Hispanic Ministry for the Diocese of Crookston, Minn., then spent three more years in the same role for the diocese of Madison, Wisc. “I wish I didn’t have to be so far from my monastery and my family,” she told the Catholic Exponent. “That’s the only thing I don’t like about Ohio. But my order tells me they are happy that I am involved in this ministry to represent them.” Three years ago, she was hired by the Tri-Diocesan Mobile Migrant Ministry. A fourth year is planned under current funding In addition to her work with Centro San Jose in Canton, a resource and hospitality center where she offers pastoral services to newcomers, she works in developing bilingual liturgical pastoral resources for parishes. “Basically,” she said, “I go to the parishes, rather than people coming here. If a pastor or a parish council or a school wants to talk with me or ask my advice, I will attend those meetings.” She also works in jail and prison ministry. She visits about 1,000 prisoners weekly at Northeast Ohio Correctional Center in Hubbard, which she said is filled with detainees who will be deported once their sentences are completed. (Father John Dailey recently began celebrating Mass there for the prisoners.) Sister Teresa Ann also visits the federal prison in Elkton for a bilingual Mass and Bible study and will soon start Spanish classes at the Trumbull Correctional Institution. Demolishing language stereotypes Perhaps the most-often-heard cliché among Americans who discuss the immigrant issue is “Why can’t they just learn English?” But here is something many Americans do not know: not a few Hispanic immigrants coming to these shores need to learn Spanish first, then learn English, before they can begin to feel comfortable in American society. In her work with newcomers, Sister Teresa Ann finds that for some immigrants from countries like Guatemala, Spanish is a second language, learned in school and used for business. Their first language is their indigenous language. When they come to America, the English they must learn is their third language. However, many young Hispanic women who come to the United States from some immigrant groups have never learned Spanish because they have never been to school. “So they not only have the culture shock of coming to a new country,” Sister Teresa Ann noted, “but they are isolated because they cannot communicate with persons who work with immigrants, if they have not yet learned Spanish.” Some of these new Hispanic immigrants must attend Spanish classes in order to be able to communicate with the larger Hispanic community before they can then learn English to be assimilated into American society, the nun explained. For other groups such as Puerto Ricans, who are American citizens, language is not an issue in ministering to their needs, she adds. And for some Hispanic immigrants who have been in the United States for two or three generations, language is not a problem because many do not even speak Spanish anymore. “Their issues are not the same as those of recent immigrants,” she said. Diocesan ministry to Hispanics often serves those who have been here for some time, she notes; her individual work, in contrast, involves newcomers alone, including refugees and migrants.   Back to Exponent Menu Printer Friendly Page   Other Articles of 2006   Czech Republic priest visits diocese, shares story of Church there   Canton parishes help New Orleans parish to recover from Katrina   Death of Bp. Benedict C. Franzetta, ordination of Fr. Conoboy top news in ’06   Canton St. Paul kicks off 100th anniversary year   HighSchool Football   Peace advocate/priest’s message: ‘America is very sick’   Ecumenical Television Channel releases Christmas program slate   Guy has a birthday: A father’s Christmas reflection at ‘HoHo time’   National survey results mirror local need in Diocese of Youngstown   Stop! In the name of God, stop!   Ulster Project’s ‘Brother Iggy’ visits diocese, shares insights   See the saints as companions for the sick and disabled, author urges   Capital Campaign making a lasting impact on Diocesan Church   ‘Voice of Hope’ speaker: Charities gives help, hope to millions   New fund created to support counseling for abuse survivors   Rootstown St. Peter community to dedicate new church Nov. 26   Hispanic presence in Ashtabula County grows, challenges status quo   10th Red Mass, dinner honors legal professionals   Diocesan Youth Convention draws hundreds with ‘brick’ theme   16 Lay Leaders of Prayer to be commissioned in North Jackson   Pauline priest, now RFR co-chair, serves Institute in retirement   Into the swamp: My use of video on the Internet   Youngstown St. Casimir celebrates 100th with Mass, dinner   Catholic Charities redefines a ‘typical day’ as new needs surface   86 couples honored in wedding anniversaries service   Randolph/Suffield St. Joseph Parish marks 175 years   St. Thomas Aquinas to honor third HOF class Nov. 11   Ursuline auction set for Oct. 28   New column to focus on liturgy and its importance in our lives   Hungarian Revolution   Remembering 1956: 50 years later, freedom fighters recall Hungarian Revolution   Diocesan Youth Convention scheduled for Nov. 12 at Mooney   Yo. 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