September 2000 Call to Action News

CTA forging new links to Latino/Latina Catholics

Led by board member Jeanette Rodriguez and staff member Mauro Pineda, CTA this summer is celebrating new connections with those soon to become the majority of the U.S. Church: Latin American Catholics.

On June 19 in Chicago, U.S. Catholic magazine honored Jeanette Rodriguez-Holguin with its 2000 U.S. Catholic Award for furthering the cause of women in the church. Chair of the theology department at Seattle University and former president of the Academy of Catholic Hispanic Theologians of the U.S., Rodriguez is an Ecuadoran American whose books develop the grassroots theology of Latina women by listening to their faith experience and retelling their stories. Last year while traveling in Chile she made new connections for CTA with South American groups. She told the award audience at Sears Tower the church is beginning to listen to Latino people, not just because of their numbers, but "so that in our mutual exchange we might be open to transformation of self, church and society."

Meanwhile Mauro Pineda, CTA membership coordinator and of Mexican descent, gathered Chicago area Latin American leaders for a dialogue session May 25 at CTA, and brought even more of them together June 18 at Patty Crowley's apartment for a reception honoring Jeanette Rodriguez. The 25 guests included Sr. Dominga Zapata, who founded "Las Hermanas" nationally and directed Hispanic ministry in the Chicago archdiocese. Asked why so many Hispanics are leaving the church, Jeanette said it is really the other way around: the church has left the Latinos/as. Not returning is for them a form of resistance, but their faith is still strong.

Jeanette and Mauro were together again June 26-29 in San Antonio for a symposium at the Mexican American Cultural Center (MACC) on the 65th birthday of its founder, Fr. Virgilio Elizondo. Called the father of Hispanic theology, Elizondo has inspired a wide circle of theologians, including Rodriguez, who take seriously the phenomenon called mestizaje: the experience of immigrants when they mix their cultures with those of the countries to which they migrate. Peruvian Fr. Gustavo Gutierrez, founder of liberation theology, and French theologian Jacques Audinet, who has written

about the 100 million African and Asian immigrants who will pour into Europe in the next two decades, were among the speakers, along with Rodriguez and her co-presenter Orlando Espin. Mauro also met with Arturo Perez, the Chicago priest-author.

The apex of CTA's intercultural summer was "Encuentro 2000: Many Faces in God's House," a sprawling festival of the church's cultural diversity sponsored by the U.S. Catholic Conference that brought over 5,000 to Los Angeles July 6-9. Building on encuentros in 1972, 1975 and 1985 aimed at Hispanics, Encuentro 2000 brought Latinos together with all the other ethnic groups in the U.S. Church. Mauro represented CTA. The highpoint was a reconciliation service in which the Church at large listened to painful stories of discrimination suffered by Native Americans, African Americans, Hispanics and the disabled, and begged their forgiveness.

At a session, “Seeking At-one-ment,” led by Hispanic Bishop Jaime Soto of Los Angeles and African-American Bishop Terry Steib of Memphis, Mauro asked about ordination for married men and for women. Steib deflected the question with remarks about the priesthood of all believers, but Soto admitted the church should be open to the possibility of ordaining women and married men.

Mauro also caucused with Hispanics from the Chicago area and presented their report to over 1,000 at an assembly about Hispanic ministry. Among them were Dominga Zapata, and veteran church leaders Evaristo and Maria Rodriguez, who were Chicago delegates to the U.S. Bishops’ original Call To Action conference in 1976 in Detroit.

Rodriguez and another prominent Hispanic theologian, Fr. Gary Riebe-Estrella, will speak Nov. 4 at CTA Conference 2000

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Jeanette Rodriguez keeps telling the CTA board, and Mauro Pineda reminds CTA staff: European-American Catholics should not just “reach out” to Latinos — a term that can imply domination, but should be open to mutual enrichment.