BOB ABERNETHY (Anchor): We have a story today about a remarkable man in California.  He is a Catholic priest from Ireland who has ministered for 37 years to both African Americans and Latinos in the Watts section of Los Angeles. Saul Gonzalez reports.

SAUL GONZALEZ (Contributing Correspondent): The Los Angeles neighborhood of Watts has long been synonymous with inner-city desperation and despair. It’s the neighborhood that exploded in urban unrest, after all, in 1965, and then again during LA’s 1992 riots.

Today, Watts is still home to some of the meanest streets in the city, but they’re streets walked regularly by Father Peter Banks, a Catholic priest who, dressed in his robes, rope belt, and straw hat, looks like a fish very much out of water.

Born and raised in rural Ireland, Banks arrived as a young priest in Watts in 1973, assigned to the Saint Lawrence of Brindisi Church.

FATHER PETER BANKS: My picture of America before I came was Hollywood, Disneyland, and the beach. So I got into the car, we drove up Century and we crossed Vermont, and I began to realize this is a very different world. It was all black, and the very first Sunday I stood up on the altar and I said what am I doing here? How will I ever understand the people? Will they understand me?

GONZALEZ: In the decades since, though, this Irish priest and the people of Watts have come to know each other very well, and Father Banks has become a beloved figure both in his church and the wider community. Father Banks says his taking an active role in the day-to-day life of the community has been key to being accepted by the residents of Watts.

(Speaking to Father Banks): How important is it for you to do what we are doing now, to get out and to walk the streets?

FATHER BANKS: Oh, I feel part of the flesh and blood and soul of Watts.

GONZALEZ: As he walks through the community, Banks meets and ministers to the casualties of drugs, poverty, and violence in Watts. One of them goes by the name “Red Man.”

FATHER BANKS: Now, he never minds me saying this, but this man was shot thirteen times and survived.

RED MAN: I love this man. Really, he is the only white man who can walk Watts with no gun, just walking by faith, and walk here and know everybody. Everybody knows Father Peter. He is the true father of Watts. He is a real servant of God.

GONZALEZ: Red Man and a friend then ask Father Banks to lead them in an impromptu street corner prayer.

Central to the story of Watts and Father Banks’s church is the incredible demographic shift that has occurred in this community in recent years. Once synonymous with the African-American community, Watts is increasingly Latino. With that change has come tension.

FATHER BANKS: They call it the black and brown conflict. How do we get black and brown to come together?

GONZALEZ: That conflict sometimes expresses itself in violence, but often its face is a soft, unofficial form of segregation. Latinos largely stick to themselves, African Americans as well.

(Speaking to African American girl): You wouldn’t go out of your way to hang out with Hispanic kids?

AFRICAN-AMERICAN GIRL: Definitely no, I really wouldn’t because, I know it might sound racist, but if I see a Mexican girl or a Latino girl I’m just, like, not hanging out with her because she is just not my people. I know that’s wrong, but that’s just, like, the way it is in our society and our community.

GONZALEZ: It’s such feelings that Father Banks has tried to battle in Watts, making both African Americans and Latinos feel welcome in his congregation and breaking down walls of mutual suspicion and hostility. He’s done that by learning Spanish, slowly integrating some church services, and developing sensitivity to the problems of both Latinos and African Americans.

GONZALEZ: Father Banks says being Irish can actually be an advantage in his work in Watts.

FATHER BANKS: I feel it is. One time I was talking to the black kids, that’s when I came first, and they were saying something about the whites, and I held up my arm and said, “Look at me,” and this little girl said to me, “Father Peter, you aren’t white, you’re Irish.”

I can relate very much to the black in the sense of the Irish being persecuted. It used to say in the States, I think, “No black or Irish need apply.” So I feel I do identify a lot with the African-American people and their pain and their suffering. I’m able to relate to the Latinos and say I am an immigrant, and I tell the Latino people, I say, I am an immigrant, too. I came here and, I said, I am far away from my own land. I know what you go through, too.

GONZALEZ: Members of Father Banks’s congregation say they appreciate his efforts to build bridges of understanding between African Americans and Latinos.

MARIAN ANTUCHA (Latino parishioner speaking in Spanish with English translation): He helps all the people, African Americans, Latinos, the entire community. To us, Father Peter doesn’t recognize borders. He’s a person who helps everybody, and that’s why we’re here.

AFRICAN-AMERICAN PARISHIONER: If PR and public relationships, communications was a gift from God, poof, he got it ten times, you know, because he can get out there and talk to different people, and they just feel his love, and he will tell them to come here, and then they feel the love. It’s just a relationship that blossoms.

GONZALEZ: As he’s gotten older, Banks says he’s increasingly focused his ministry on the education and safety of Watts’ youngest, at the elementary and middle school operated by his church.

FATHER BANKS: They know more about pain than I do in my lifetime, and they are only six, seven, eight, nine years old. You saw them this morning there, dying for affection. If I don’t feel optimistic and I feel tired, I come over to the school. I get energy from the school, energy from these children.

Hope is to be able to sing in the middle of the darkness, and I think that’s what hope is for me. I can still sing in the middle of the darkness.

GONZALEZ: However, after serving the spiritual and material needs of this community for much of his adult life, Father Peter Banks will soon depart Watts. He’s been asked to take a job as a church recruiter in a rural area of California. Although he says he feels duty-bound to fill this position, Banks acknowledges he feels conflicted about leaving this community.

FATHER BANKS: That’s an emotional issue for me. It’s going to be a big struggle to leave here. It’s going to be—I’m at peace with God. That’s all I can say. I am at peace with God. I feel it is God’s will that I continue his work, and we need priests for the church and brothers and…

GONZALEZ: But it hurts?

FATHER BANKS: Oh, it hurts deeply. I have put so much of my life in here. I have invested so much in children. It is the biggest change of my life. I feel I am leaving home twice. I left Ireland 37 years ago, and I feel like I am leaving home again, too. But I’ve come to terms with it, and I know that I am doing it for a higher cause, a higher power.

GONZALEZ: The people whose lives Father Banks has touched in Watts hope his example will inspire others to continue his work of cultivating peace and understanding in a community that so needs them.

For Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly, I’m Saul Gonzalez in Los Angeles.

DEBORAH POTTER, guest anchor: As we mentioned earlier, another presidential nominee is in the spotlight this week, Sonia Sotomayor. The news of her nomination to the Supreme Court has dominated headlines, along with the California Supreme Court’s decision to uphold a ban on same-sex marriages. Joining us now to discuss those stories are Dan Gilgoff, senior writer at U.S. News & World Report, and Tod Lindberg, research fellow at the Hoover Institution. Welcome to both of you. Dan, you’ve described the nominee’s record on abortion as “inscrutable.” What do we know about her record on that particular issue?

DAN GILGOFF (Senior Writer, U.S. News & World Report): Not much. She’s ruled on a handful of cases related to abortion, but none of them directly related to Roe v. Wade. The one case that some in the pro-life community are citing as a hopeful sign for their cause is that she ruled against plaintiffs who are seeking to overturn the Mexico City policy, which bans federal funds from going to family-planning providers abroad that either endorse or promote abortion. Other than that she seems to be, you know, a black box on this issue, which is kind of fitting, because David Souter, the justice who she’s replacing, was also promised to be a conservative when George H.W. Bush appointed him to the Court in 1990, then of course voted to uphold Roe v. Wade a couple of years later. And so what’s happening this week is that some abortion rights groups are getting rather nervous. That’s kind of unexpected.

Dan Gilgoff

POTTER: Well, Tod, is this actually good news for conservatives who may have been concerned that the president would nominate a true liberal to the Court?

TOD LINDBERG (Research Fellow, Hoover Institution, Washington, DC): Well, I think that it’s still very much up in the air. It’s hard to see at this point. We all know that people who are hoping to be nominated to the Supreme Court are very cautious about what they say in their private lives and in their public writings, apart from what they are doing on the bench with regard to the abortion issue. I know people who aspire to be judges who would tell you, “I would absolutely never discuss that with you” for that precise reason. You want to be opaque, because if you have a position, I mean a discernable position, then you put yourself at substantially greater political risk. It’s kind of kabuki drama in its own way, but it’s one that we’ve been playing in Washington for a long time.

POTTER: And yet Hispanic voters traditionally are sort of much more anti-abortion than the rest of, say, the Democratic electorate. Is that — does that give you any clues, that fact that she’s Hispanic?

Mr. LINDBERG: You know, you’re talking about making a conclusion based on statistical evidence, polling, etc. and applying it to a particular person. It’s just not going to work for us. We’re not going to be able to know that. The test will be once she’s confirmed, and I think everybody assumes that she will be, when the cases arrive.

POTTER: Dan, what do we know about her record on issues of religious freedom, separation of church and state — other issues that really matter to voters of faith groups?

Mr. GILGOFF: Well, we know that she has a record of siding with those who are alleging violations of their religious liberty. And I think that’s been another bright spot for conservatives. It’s interesting in that conservatives came out roundly against her as soon as her nomination was announced this week, and at the same time, I mean, in the analysis that they were releasing before Obama made his choice, she kind of received the warmest treatment. And I think some of that was because of her rulings over the religious liberty cases.

Mr. LINDBERG: I think you’d also have to draw the distinction between the conservative commentary crowd and actually the members of the Senate, who have taken a very cautious view of this. I mean they promised, the Republicans promised full scrutiny, full assessment, but certainly no one has leapt out to be an opposition figure. Certainly no one has said this nominee is unacceptable where it really matters, which is in the Senate.

POTTER: So the presumption at this point is that she will be confirmed?

Tod Lindberg

Mr. LINDBERG: I think the presumption is exactly that, in the absence of some unknown, unexpected revelation or disclosure.

POTTER: And that would leave us with six justices out of the nine being Catholics for the very first time. Is that important? Does that have significance?

Mr. GILGOFF: I think that it really speaks to the diversity ideologically of the Catholic community in this country. I mean, you talk as though, or people talk as though there’s a Catholic voting bloc, for instance. But Catholics really have voted for every winning president going back to Richard Nixon, and so it’s hard to see them — you know, they’re conservative Catholics and liberal Catholics — as a distinct bloc. But so far on the Court they’ve supplied the conservative side — the [five] Catholics are voting with the conservatives on the Court. So what I think this will do is kind of reflect more broadly the Catholic diversity that exists in the country on the Court. I also think it tells us something important about the administration politically in that they’ve taken the Catholic community very seriously. This is really a nod — Sotomayor — to the new Latino complexion of the United States. I mean, the Catholic Church is losing, you know, four Catholics for every person that’s signing up for the Church, and if it wasn’t for this huge infusion of immigration, the Church would have a real problem on its hands, and I think they’re really acknowledging that in this pick.

Mr. LINDBERG: I think the conclusion that we have to draw from this six-out-of-nine thing is that Catholic is always a plus in terms of your political calculation of who you are going to put on the Court.

POTTER: Now, let’s talk a little bit about the ruling in California that upheld a ban on same-sex marriage there.The Republicans, I gather, put out some talking points this week on Sotomayor, and one of their talking points was that she could impose a federal right to same-sex marriage. Does that have the chance of holding water, that argument, or no?

Mr. GILGOFF: I don’t think so, and I also think that the timing of this is actually very serendipitous for the White House. There was even some speculation that the White House expedited the announcement of Sotomayor to get ahead of the California Supreme Court ruling, because had the California Supreme Court struck down Proposition 8 you would have had this conservative uproar, largely directed at the Court, saying this is really the threat. The threat is that there will be Court-imposed same-sex marriage.

POTTER: Activist judges?

Mr. GILGOFF: Exactly. And so I think that the California Supreme Court ruling was really a lucky break for the Obama Administration in getting, you know, in sort of clearing a path for Sotomayor.

POTTER: What do you make of the next steps for the opponents of same-sex marriage? What do they do now? Where is their next step?

Mr. LINDBERG: Well, you know, I think there will be a continuation of initiative kind of processes. It is also interesting to look at what, you know, the next steps for the proponents are going to be. I think there’s a pretty strong indication that they do not want this matter, really, in the federal courts at this point. They would rather spend some time building up a case both politically and in terms of kind of the state court rulings that they’re able to obtain with the hope that California is more of an outlier than an indication of the trend, and take that then eventually into the federal courts. So I think, you know, conservatives will be looking to try to win in state courts where possible to show, however strongly, you know, the emotions run on this issue, that there is a principled case for defense of marriage as between a man and a woman, and that that is where most of the American people are.

POTTER: Are the statutes in the 29 states that have already banned same-sex marriage basically safe, because you’d have to go after them through some kind of referendum process, which is really hard to do?

Mr. LINDBERG: Well, safe is — no. I mean, I think if there’s ever a majority on the Supreme Court that wants to change the law on this then those statutes are precisely not safe, and I think that everybody’s aware of that and what the stakes are. But, you know, what I don’t see is a quick resolution of this issue. I think it’s one that unfolds over possibly ten years or maybe longer.

POTTER: Alright, thank you both very much. Thank you to Tod and thank you to Dan for joining us for that conversation.

JUDY VALENTE: Many Catholics have never seen anything like this in their local parish — an Aztec dance honoring the mother of Jesus. It is part of the observance of the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the Virgin Mary, said to have appeared before the Mexican peasant Juan Diego in the 16th century. This feast day, highly important to Hispanic Catholics, is only vaguely known to much of Catholic America. But it may be a glimpse into the future of the U.S. church.

Friar GILBERTO CAVAZOS GONZALEZ (Catholic Theological Union, Chicago): The largest Catholic population in the United States is Latino. The youngest Catholic population in the United States is Latino. The fastest growing population in the United States is Latino.

VALENTE: The distinctive forms of worship and devotion among Hispanic Catholics are practiced not by immigrants alone, but by American-born, English-speaking Hispanics as well. The intensity of their religious expression, and their growing numbers, are changing the face of the U.S. Catholic church. Estimates vary, but the percentage of American Catholics who are Hispanic is anywhere from one-third to 40 percent, and because some Hispanics don’t register in their parishes — the undocumented, for example — some say the figure may be as high as 50 percent. What do Hispanics bring to the American church?

Friar CAVAZOS GONZALEZ: Certainly the recognition of the presence of God in day-to-day life, in what we call the “quotidiano” — the everyday, day-in routine, humdrum of life.

VALENTE: This is the home of Martin and Victoria Enciso, Mexican immigrants who belong to Good Shepherd parish on Chicago’s West Side.

Victoria Enciso

VICTORIA ENCISO (Congregant, Good Shepherd Catholic Church, Chicago): From the moment you wake up, you kneel like a camel, and I wake up like a camel. You know how a camel wakes up, with both knees? I wake up praying.

VALENTE (to Ms. Enciso): So you wake up in the morning and you immediately get down on your knees and pray?

Ms. ENCISO: And I bless my blanket that I have and the house that I have, because if you don’t then what do you have?

VALENTE: The devotional life of Hispanic Catholics takes some dramatic forms. On a frigid December night people from Good Shepherd walk through the streets of Chicago, a procession in honor of the Virgin of Guadalupe. At five o’clock the next morning, their church is packed for the mananitas, an hour of singing praise to the Virgin.

Father MARCO ANTONIO MERCADO (Pastor, Good Shepherd Catholic Church, Chicago): The first thing we want Our Lady to listen to in the morning is the music from her beloved sons and daughters. So that’s the meaning of the mananitas.

VALENTE: Latino Catholics do not attend Mass any more frequently than other Catholics, but there is a fervency to their worship, and essential to that worship is the Spanish language.

Friar CAVAZOS GONZALEZ: It took me a while before I realized that God understands English, and I think that people like to pray in the language that they’re comfortable in. I think that people like to pray in the language of their heart.

El Día de los Muertos

VALENTE: Processions abound. In November, El Día de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead, honors family members who have passed on. Just before Christmas, the posada depicts the struggle of Mary and Joseph to find lodging for the night. And on Good Friday, Via Crucis, the Way of the Cross, re-enacts the crucifixion of Christ, sometimes graphically.

Fr. MERCADO: Many of the things that we do is they are not part of the official liturgy of the church. But we do it. Why? Because in the history of the church, especially in Latin America, many times they didn’t have the priests or they didn’t have enough priests –

VALENTE: — which is why so much devotion takes place in the home. Enrique Gonzalez has been in this country 20 years, but tradition persists.

ENRIQUE GONZALEZ: We were always taught that church is part of our home, that we go to church together to pray in unity, but that we also have to be at home and pray by ourselves.

VALENTE: The living room in his small apartment has an altar to deceased family members.

Mr. GONZALEZ: This is my grandmother and this is my grandfather, and both of them are together. They’re having their communion. These were people that took care of me, that took care of my family, that were part of my family.

VALENTE: At church, Martin and Victoria say the rosary with their four children. Martin feels that Hispanics bring a joyfulness to worship and family values to the church. No one in either of their families has ever been divorced. At home, Victoria has a collection of angels and a prayer she learned from her grandmother.

Ms. ENCISO: The angels are always around us.

VALENTE (to Ms. Enciso): What were the words of the prayer?

Ms. ENCISO: “Sweet angel, my sweet angel, pray with me. Pray for me in the morning and in the evening always. Don’t ever leave me alone.”

VALENTE: This neighborhood had long been Polish-American, but by the 1990s it was changing. The old parishioners were leaving Good Shepherd. In fact, Father Marco was brought in just to close it down. But since his arrival, Sunday attendance has more than tripled and is overwhelmingly Hispanic.

Fr. MERCADO: We started to open the doors to the really Hispanic community, which means all the traditions of the Hispanic community.

VALENTE: Those traditions include the quinceanera, sometimes called the blessing of the 15th birthday. Here, a young girl renews her baptismal promises to live out her life according to the teachings of Christ. And in a tradition of his own, Fr. Marco often invites children to the altar during Mass.

Father Marco Antonio Mercado

Fr. MERCADO: I explain to them we’re going to bless the bread and the wine, and it’s going to become the body and blood of Jesus. So for you to know exactly the moment when this is going to happen, I want you to raise your hands when I raise the host.

Ms. ENCISO: All churches follow the same Gospel, but you don’t feel them. But when our pastor walks out there and he preaches the same words, you feel his energy. He comes down to us. He’s there with us. I mean, he knows who he’s talking to.

VALENTE: And yet there is a certain ambivalence toward the clergy, springing from the history of Mexico, which was both evangelized — and conquered — by Christians, and where Catholic priests were once repressed by the government.

Friar CAVAZOS GONZALEZ: I come from a very anti-clerical family. You know, my grandmother told me she loved me despite the fact that I had become a priest.

VALENTE: But among struggling Latino immigrants, the role of the priest is crucial.

Fr. MERCADO: In Hispanic culture, the priest is everything. We are the priest, we are doctors, we are lawyers, we are counselors. We’re everything.

VALENTE: American priests are already overworked. Others have been recruited from Mexico, but the shortage of clergy in Latin America is even more severe than it is in the U.S.

Cardinal FRANCIS GEORGE (Archdiocese of Chicago): Yo soy el buen pastor, dice el senor. I am the good pastor.

VALENTE: Chicago’s cardinal and several of its bishops speak Spanish, but nationwide only six percent of Catholic clergy can speak the language.

Friar CAVAZOS GONZALEZ: In 20 years time, if I could dream, you know, I’d like to see 50, over 50 percent of the U.S. Catholic bishops being Latino.

“In Hispanic culture, the priest is everything.”

VALENTE: What concerns the hierarchy right now is that many Latinos are being lured away to the passionate and emotional services in evangelical and Pentecostal churches. Some Latinos who want to remain Catholic also want the Mass to change.

MARTIN ENCISO (Congregant, Good Shepherd Parish, Chicago): We’re going to see a lot more life in church. I think life that’s been missing, because I mean a lot of people, at least a lot of people I knew growing up, said, “Oh yeah, I went to church. We just sat there. We kneeled, prayed.” Church is more than that. You need to feel alive when you go to church. This is the word of God.

VALENTE: There is little doubt about the growing political influence of the Hispanic clergy, especially in the now high-profile issue of immigration.

Friar CAVAZOS GONZALEZ: We expect that the hierarchy of the Church is going to advocate for the poor, for the marginalized, for the outcast, and right now a lot of the poor, the marginalized and the outcast are us.

VALENTE (to Fr. Cavazos Gonzalez): Is there some aspect of what the Hispanics bring to the Catholic Church in America that might be perceived as negative?

Friar Cavazos Gonzalez

Friar CAVAZOS GONZALEZ: We are accused of being machistas, for example, of being male-dominated, and to a certain extent we are. And yet at the same time, we’re a very matriarchal society or matriarchal culture. Do those things, do those two realities enter into conflict with each other? Yes, they do.

VALENTE: Hispanics will not easily abandon their culture and their practices. How well their culture can meld with that of other U.S. Catholics will be a challenge to the parish priest.

Fr. MERCADO: In many of the churches where the priest is able to integrate both communities and both communities can learn from each other has been a great success.

Friar CAVAZOS GONZALEZ: We’re awakening the U.S. Catholic Church to the realization that it is one part of a church that is so much larger than itself.

VALENTE: Some traditional American parishes have begun to adopt Hispanic practices, though few, if any, would go so far as to re-enact the apparition of the Virgin of Guadalupe to the peasant Juan Diego, which was done recently at Good Shepherd. As for the U.S. church –

Friar CAVAZOS GONZALEZ: I don’t think we’ll ever have a Latino face. I’d like to think that we will have a culturally diverse face.

VALENTE: Culturally diverse, he says, but also, he hopes, united.

For RELIGION & ETHICS NEWSWEEKLY, this is Judy Valente in Chicago.

Father Marco Antonio Mercado

Q: Help us to understand some of the events in the liturgy celebrating the Virgin of Guadalupe, and if you could explain las mañanitas, the Mexican birthday morning song.

A: Well, the mañanitas is very strong tradition, and every time it’s a birthday or it’s a big celebration for someone that you love, we give a serenade, you know, to bring the mariachi or the music to the window for the person that we love in order to sing. The meaning is we want them to hear something beautiful on the first moment, the first second of the day of the celebration. Could be the birthday, the anniversary, or whatever. So that’s why people wait until midnight to go to the house of the beloved one and to sing to the person. It’s the same meaning [in the church]. We want Our Lady the first thing to listen in the morning is the music from her beloved sons and daughters. So that’s the meaning of the mañanitas. It’s a very strong part of the Hispanic tradition, mostly Mexican tradition.

Q: What do some of the words mean?

A: The mañanitas means “in the morning.” And the meaning of the words is how beautiful is the morning that we came here to celebrate with you. It’s so beautiful the day that you were born. And the day that you were born was the same day that all the flowers in the world they were born. And because your day is so special, even the angels and St. Peter and St. Paul, they came to sing to you. And I would like to bring you a star, I want to bring you the sun, I want to bring you the moon, but I couldn’t bring them to you. So I’m here singing to you and wishing you the best thing today on your birthday. Mostly what we celebrate is the day of your saint, because in the Hispanic tradition, mostly when you were born you received the name of the saint of the day. So when the music was composed, that was the same thing — to say you’re celebrating your birthday is the same thing to say you are celebrating your saint.

Q: We saw you bring the children up around the altar. What were you saying to them, and what were the children doing when they raised their hands?

A: I love to do that all the time, to bring the kids so they can participate in the liturgy, in the Eucharist. What I do every time is I explain to them and say, okay, what we have here is just bread or is the body of Christ.

So they answer — half of them say it’s just bread, some say it is the body of Christ. And then I explain to them, I say, well, this is just bread. It’s not yet the body of Christ. We’re going to pray together, we’re going to bless the bread and the wine, and it’s going to become the body and blood of Jesus. So for you to know exactly the moment when this is going to happen, I want you to raise your hands when I raise the chalice and the cup. So you will know and people will know that now we have the presence of Jesus in the bread and the wine. And that’s why I talked to them and explained to them the liturgy and make them help me. I said you’ve got to help me to celebrate mass because mass — we all of us, we celebrate the Eucharist. We celebrate the mass. It’s not only myself, it’s everyone here, including yourselves helping me to do this. And that’s why I ask them to raise their hands and I have this dialogue with them. They like it a lot because it makes them feel part of the celebration and to participate, and it’s something different. It looks nice from the altar to the people. They listen to me and at the same time they say hi to mom and dad who are in front in the pews. So it’s nice.

Q: What is the meaning of the quinceañera?

A: The quinceañera is a very interesting meaning because traditionally it goes back to the Aztecs. In the time of the Aztecs and the Indians, before the Spaniards came, that was a very special celebration where one of the young ladies between 13, 14 years old, probably the best in the village, was presented to the gods as offertory, as an offering to the gods. And in return, the gods blessed the village, would allow prosperity in all the ways, and so that was a very important ceremony. So the girl was chosen among all the girls in the town, so the family was very blessed, so the girl was offered to the god, was sacrificed, presented to the gods. And [it] also was a time of celebration for the entire village because the gods accepted the girl. When the Spaniards came and the Catholic priests came, they saw it. Then of course they didn’t want the human sacrifices. So they changed it, and instead of presenting the girl to the gods, they said, okay, we’re going to offer a mass of thanksgiving in the church for the girl. And they said, well, now we’re going to ask God to bless the girl and bless all the girls so they can have a lot of kids. So God is going to bless us with a lot of kids so we can have a lot of people to work in the land, we can have a lot of priests and nuns and things like that. So that was how it started the celebration of the quinceañera. Somewhere in the 1700s, 1800s, the people from Mexico, especially rich people, they wanted to do something different. So they got a tradition from especially France, where the king had a special ceremony to present the princess in society. And that was also a time when they said the princess is ready to get married. And they had a very beautiful party in the palace where all the young guys of the rich guys went to accompany the princess and also the girls, the friends of the princess. So the people from Mexico, they got that part and they put it together with the traditional quinceañera, the mass of thanksgiving. And so now we have the mass and the big party that looks like a wedding, because the girl comes in a special dress.

The girl is going to come with what we call chambelanes and damas, which is the something between seven and 12, 13 boys, teenagers that are going to accompany [her], and also between seven and 12 girls that are going to accompany the quinceañera … This is a very important moment for the family. This is very into the roots of the Mexican community, Mexican tradition. So the girl is going to be presented to the church. She’s going to have the damas, she’s going to have the chambelanes, she’s going to have a lot of sponsors that we can padrinos. And the Eucharist, mostly, is going to be thanksgiving ceremony for the girl. The girl is going to be right in the middle of the church because the entire ceremony is focused on her and thanksgiving to God for her life and also to present her to God as her youth and her life and everything. Quinceañera means 15 years. Why 15? Came from nowhere. I mean, it’s more like a tradition. Something in between what the Aztecs were celebrating and something what the French people did. So then came the tradition of quinceañera. Now, little by little, we’re moving and celebrating quinceañeros. That means boys celebrating their 15 years birthday, and the reason is to celebrate life. In the quinceañera, you will see the sponsors and the chambalanes and the damas accompany the quinceañera. The priest is going to ask all the sponsors to come forward and to present to the quinceañera the Bible that represents the word of God, the candle representing her baptism, and also she’s going to receive some symbols that came from the French tradition, and that’s the ring, the bracelets, and a medal of Our Lady of Guadalupe. In the French tradition, that was the first time the princess received the jewelry from the king and the queen. So that’s not really part of the liturgy, but it’s part of the tradition of the quinceañera. Then the mass pretty much is just a regular mass of thanksgiving with the quinceañera right in the middle of the church. And at the end of the ceremony, the priest is going to bless the quinceañera, is going to bless all the objects that they have, and the quinceañera is going to go out along with the chambalanes and the damas and the sponsors and the parents and everyone else and get ready to go to the hall to the party to continue with the celebration of the quinceañera. Originally the idea was she was entering into womanhood. Now it’s more like she came to give thanks to God, and now she goes back to the world, she goes back to regular life, but now with God’s blessing and with this new attitude of having renewed her vows that the parents made in baptism to promise that she will believe in God, she will be faithful, she will follow the gospel of Jesus and things like that. And now she’s taken it for herself, and now she’s taking all these with her to the regular life.

Q: What was Good Shepherd Church like before you came here?

A: Originally this parish was Polish in 1907 when it was founded. By the year 2000, the church was almost dead, because the doors were not quite open to the Hispanic community. I mean, they had Spanish masses and things like that, but they didn’t have all the services like quinceañera, presentations, masses for everything, for the anniversary of the death, for the anniversary of the wedding and things like that, and so many other things that Hispanics really want from the church, and they are very used to get from the church, especially Mexican and Latin American. So because of that, people were leaving. Many {went] to other parishes, in the best scenario, and some of them were leaving probably to other denominations, other churches. We started to open the doors to the really Hispanic community, which means all the traditions of the Hispanic community, including the celebration of the Lady Guadalupe, the celebration of quinceañera, the weddings in the Mexican style, which is a little bit different. Opened the doors for them to request special masses for the dead, for anniversaries, to present the little kids when they are born, when they are three years old, when they are 40 days old — all these many, many traditions that we have in the Hispanic culture. And so people were coming back to church, and we went from 900 people attending mass on Sundays to about 2800 people attending mass now on Sundays, from only four services to six services because now people feel that this is their church, this is their home, and this is the place where they can celebrate their faith. Not only celebrate the mass, but they can celebrate their faith.

Q: What is distinct about Hispanic spirituality and the beliefs and practices they are bringing into the American church?

A: Well mostly it’s the Hispanic faith is based in celebrations. We celebrate the faith. It’s not only the Eucharist, it’s not only the liturgy, but it’s everything surrounding it. And actually many of the things that we do are not part of the official liturgy of the church, but we do it. Why? Because in the history of the church, especially in Latin America, many times they didn’t have the priests or they didn’t have enough priests. So they have just lay people, some good people taking care of the community, and that’s how they kept alive the faith, praying the rosary, celebrating the saints, celebrating every single thing in the community. Getting together for novenas, for posadas, for so many different things that now they are part of the tradition of the faith of the people, and you cannot separate them. You cannot separate and say, okay, this is the official liturgy of the church, which is fine, but then we have a lot of stuff that goes along. It gets connected with the liturgy of the church.

Q: You have spoken of “popular religiosity.” What are those practices, and what does that mean?

A: Religiosia popular — popular religiosity is mostly everything that people do in their homes and in their private lives, like bringing the church to their homes, having altars in their homes, in the living room, in the special place in the house. They have an altar with the Lady Guadalupe, the saints, usually Saint Jude, Saint Anthony. So that’s going to be the main place and that’s the place where family gets together to pray the rosary, or just to ask for a blessing from mom and dad or whatever. It’s a place where they celebrate the ones who are dead, and they put the pictures, and they light the candles for them. Actually, it’s like an extension, a branch of the church at home, and it’s a very important part of the community. The rosaries, the novenas, the special prayers — we have so many prayers that not even myself as a priest, I can’t know all of them, so that people know them and people pray them and the people celebrate them. And, once again, it is because Mexico being so Catholic, being mostly Catholic and with not enough priests to cover all the areas, especially in the farms, so people — they have to celebrate their faith somehow. So how they did it at home — using grandma, grandpa, mom and dad. They became like the priest of the house, and they preside at the services.

Q: Hispanic Catholics come to church for a lot of different things that Americans don’t go to church for.

A: Well, one of the things that is getting loose in the American culture, American Catholicism, is confessions. It’s the contact of the priest with the person. In the Hispanic culture, the priest is everything. We are the priest, we are doctors, we are lawyers, we are counselors, we’re everything. So if the family wants to know something about anything, the first person that they are going to look advice from is the priest. And that’s why it’s beautiful, because people come to church looking for the priest, for that contact with that advice. So that’s a very rich part of the Hispanic Catholicism, which sometimes it’s difficult for the American priests to understand. Then it’s the celebration. We like to celebrate everything, and everything that we celebrate got to have a blessing. You’ve got to be connected with the church; you’ve got to be connected with that. That is a birthday, it’s an anniversary, even anniversary of the death, anniversary of your wedding, or could be the newborn to take the priest to give the first blessing to the kid, the first place where you’ve got to take your kid — that got be the church. So if it is a boy, you’ve got to get a special blessing. If it’s a girl, got to be a special blessing. If you have — whatever you have, you always connect it with God and with the church. That’s why everything that they do, they want to do it with a mass.

Q: But isn’t there a certain ambivalence, too, toward the clergy and this history of the abuelitas and the mothers and the fathers taking over the teaching of the religion?

A: Yeah, but it is because there were not enough priests, so what happened is the priests used to go only probably once a month to that village. And that day and that weekend the priest gave some information to the elderly of the village, and then they were in charge of celebrating everything until the priest came back. Actually, this is something that we used to say in Spanish. When something is not very often, we say, well, it happens only when the priest comes, only when the bishop comes, and it’s because that was probably once a month or probably once a year.

Q: What would you say are the most profound ways Hispanics are changing the American church?

A: Well, first they are bringing back all the traditions that were made lost, like the holy hour, adoration of the blessed sacrament, celebration of the saints, celebrations of Our Lady, and celebrations of our Lord. All these things that can get lost in American church, now it’s coming back because of the Hispanic culture, and also because of the Polish culture that they celebrate a lot of those things. But mostly because of the Hispanics asking the church to do this again. And that’s why you can see now this procession for Lady Guadalupe. We have processions for the blessed sacraments, we have processions for almost everything — for Good Friday, [and] Holy Week is full with so many traditions.

Q: What about emphasis on family, on other values?

A: As I said before, everything that we do in the Hispanic culture has to be blessed by the priests or by the church, which means that also the church and the priest got to kind of say it is okay what you are doing, which means you’ve got to live according with the teaching of the church — having a strong family, living together, praying together, spending time together. So family is so important in the Hispanic culture and especially because we considered this as a gift from God and something that we have to follow. So that’s also a good thing that we are bringing back to the American culture. And you can see in the church, you can see a lot of kids, a lot of young people, a lot of couples and families, because that’s a tradition. Everybody comes to church, and they come as a family, and even if they don’t come as a family, you see a lot of young people just coming by themselves, because they’ve got to come to church.

Q: How about social issues? How have Hispanics influenced the church on economic issues, immigration issues?

A: Well, this is very important issue because the church was not ready to receive the Hispanic community in the United States. So the church is still trying to find the ways to deal not only with the new demands religion-wise of the Hispanic community, but also the social needs of the community, because unlike the Irish community, the Polish community, the Italian community, the Hispanics — they didn’t bring their priests, so they bring that by themselves, and now they ask for the church to welcome them. And the church wanted to welcome them, but the church didn’t know how to do it. So some of the reason how they didn’t know how to welcome them, how to help them, that was to know some of their issues. And some of the issues [are] social justice, immigration, domestic violence and, once again, the Hispanic people are going to always look for the church for answers, for guidance, for help. So what is happening now is the church is trying to, I don’t know, to understand this reality and to get ready, inviting priests like myself here in Chicago, but we were born in Mexico, and inviting us to help them how to deal with these issues. Right now, we have the Priests for Justice working for immigration reform and teaching the future church in the United States about this issue that they just don’t know, because that was not part of their history or their tradition when the first communities came. Immigration was very different. So it’s an education issue for the church, and still it’s a very present issue of the church.

Q: Do you think Hispanics are still marginalized in the American Catholic Church?

A: I think yes. Not because the church wants, but as I said, the church was not ready, and still in many places not ready to welcome the Hispanic community. So of course that makes, is a reason for marginalize — not taking care of the Hispanic community. And many times it’s because they don’t know how to do it. And I was telling you, the Hispanic community, they look for the priests and they look for the church for everything. And many of the priests and many of the bishops and many of the dioceses, they don’t know how to deal with that. I mean, the priests, they are not ready; they didn’t have the information to deal with all these issues. They said, “I’m a priest, I’m not a counselor.” So for the Hispanics, you’ve got to be a priest, you’ve got to be a counselor, you’ve got to be a lawyer, you’ve got to be a doctor. They are going to look for you for everything. And so this has been a challenge for the priests and for the church itself in the United States.

Q: What do you think the Catholic Church in America will look like in ten years?

A: Well, right now it looks more Hispanic, because 40 percent of the — at least in Chicago, 40 percent of the Catholics in Chicago are Hispanics. In the United States, we are about 30 percent of Catholics. In ten years probably we’re going to be 60 percent of Catholics and probably 80 percent of active Catholics in the United States, because there are a lot of Catholics not practicing their faith, and one of the characteristics of the Hispanic community is spirituality. So they come to church and they always look for the church for everything. And it’s a challenge. It is a big challenge for the church because, as I said, the church was not ready and we are losing a lot of Hispanics, because the things that the Catholic Church is not doing many other churches and many other denominations are doing.

Q: What is it that the Catholic Church is not doing that it needs to do?

A: Welcoming them, adopting their services to the Hispanic community, like having bilingual people, because this is very interesting issue. Even when you have first, second, third generation that probably are more fluent in English than in Spanish, every time that they have to worship God or prayer, they prefer to do it in Spanish. We have the teenagers, the confirmation classes — 160 kids. The classes are in English. The kids feel more comfortable in English, they read better in English, English is mostly their first language. But if you ask them if they want to go to mass in English, they say, “No, we want to go to mass in Spanish.” Why? Not even they know why exactly they want to pray in Spanish. It’s something that is in the roots, maybe, because they learned that from grandma or grandpa or whatever. But it’s something very big, and that’s not going to change in the next 10 or 20 years.

Q: I’m curious if you see a difference in the spirituality between the first-generation immigrants and the second- and third-generation, the kids and the grandchildren of people who have been here?

A: Yes. It is another big challenge for the church because, once again, the church was not ready to welcome the new immigrants. So now the church is catching up with the new immigrants. We are trying to open services for them, and there are so many that they pack the churches, they pack the services, and they take all the time of the priests. So right now we are not putting a lot of time and a lot of effort in the needs of the new generations, and especially how to accompany them, because they are born here in the United States and they are getting all the good things of the American culture, and also some of the bad things. But also they have all the background of the Hispanic community and they speak Spanish at home, but it’s a new reality. It’s Mexican Americans; it’s something that we need to deal with. And as I said, they like to worship in Spanish, but they want to talk in English. So it is a new challenge for the church how to accommodate them to this new reality and how to help them to really identify themselves as Mexican American Catholics in this new situation in the United States. So we’re working very hard with especially teenagers, because they are the ones who are suffering the most, and it’s getting difficult, and that’s why you can see some of the effects of all this conflict in accommodating the native culture to the new culture. And one of those things are the gang problem that we have on the streets, the very high percentage of teenagers getting pregnant, the kids dropping high school, or even in grammar school. It’s one of the consequences of all this integration that is happening. And the church is struggling in, I don’t know, in catching up with them.

Q: Finally, how do you think the large presence of Hispanics and the practices they bring will affect the American Catholic Church?

A: Well, I think in a positive way. Many of the churches where the priest is able to integrate both communities and both communities can learn from each other has been a great success, because the American culture, the American Catholicism — they really want all this practice, because it’s part of our Catholic tradition. What happened — I don’t know what happened somewhere in history in the ’60s and the ’50s that many of these beautiful things got lost. But that’s part of the Catholic tradition. It’s not only of the Hispanic tradition; it’s part of the Catholic tradition. So the American Catholicism is very happy in bringing back all those practices — processions and images in church, things like that, that now Hispanics are bringing along with them. So when you’re able to communicate this message to both cultures and, for example, for us Catholics to learn from the Catholic Americans about being on time for services, being very well organized in all the services, and things like that, it’s beautiful for us, and we can use it. And so you can have a beautiful combination of both. We have beautiful communities, beautiful parishes where we have two or three or four different cultures working together in only one faith, the Catholic faith, the Catholic tradition, the call that we receive to be only one family.

Friar Gilberto Cavazos Gonzalez

Q: How would you characterize the Hispanic Catholic community in Chicago?

A: Large and growing. It’s been here for a long time. Apparently, the first Hispanic community came in the 1920s already. A number of the migrations came with Latinos, or Mexican Americans and Puerto Ricans and others following the migration patterns as far as migrant work, near the Chicago area. And eventually, after a few summers of coming up, staying up here, in the ’80s it got a large influx from Central America, because of the political turmoil that was going on in Central America. Before that there was a large influx of Puerto Ricans, and originally Mexican Americans and Mexicans. But it’s very diverse, and when we talk about “Hispanic” or “serving the Hispanic church,” many times we have to ask, which one? You know, are we dealing with Puerto Ricans? Are we dealing with Mexicans? Are we dealing with Mexican Americans? Are we dealing with, you know, first generation? Are we dealing with a generation and a half? Are we dealing with the second generation and other generations? I believe that if people came in the ’20s, you could already have fifth and sixth generation Hispanics in Chicago.

Q: What about the numbers? What are they now, and where do you see them going in the next 20 years?

A: I know that — numbers I’m not very good at. I do know that in the last census, the Hispanic population in Chicago was on par with the African American population in Chicago. It might have even actually been like .01 percent more. And the projection at that time in 2000 was that in the next ten years the Hispanic population was going to be growing by about 53 percent. We’re already in year seven of the next ten-year projection. [In the church] I don’t think we will be the dominant group. We will still be a minority, unfortunately. You know, the majority number-wise doesn’t always make you the majority politically or as far as ecclesial power is concerned.

Q: Why would that be?

A: Historically there’s a lot of reasons for it. When the United States conquered the southwest and took Texas and California and all of those, you know, whether they bought it or took it, whatever, it doesn’t matter, and they took possession of the land, the U.S. church moves in and finds a Hispanic church that has been present in the area, you know, for way over 100 years, that had already been present in America since the 1500s. And it was a church that was established with a much more medieval mindset, a mindset of the presence of God everywhere, the presence of God in the cotidiano or the day-to-day routine of life. And the U.S. church that’s moving in is an Enlightenment church that is more rational. The Hispanic church that was present was more emotional. The church of the 1500s saw the natives as human beings with souls to be saved. The church of the 1700s and 1800s wasn’t too sure. And so they came in and basically said, well, if we’re not sure if the native, you know, or the half breed or the mestizo has a soul, should we be ordaining them? And so they closed down the seminaries. That was over 150 years ago. But as we know with church history, what you do in one century will have repercussions into the next few centuries. So we’re still feeling that. It wasn’t until the 1950s that Hispanics were welcomed into U.S. seminaries. Patricio Flores, the former archbishop of San Antonio, was one of the first ones. He was also the first Hispanic bishop. But then when you look at the numbers percentage-wise, we are almost 50 percent of the U.S. Catholic Church, and our clergy is under six percent Hispanic. Our religious as well. Our bishops even less. I believe there’s only like 14 or 15 Hispanic bishops in the United States, so representation is not there.

Q: Let’s talk a little bit about Hispanic worship. What are the most fundamental ways Hispanic Catholics are changing the American church?

A: Well, I think fundamentally what we have to offer the U.S. Catholic church is certainly the recognition of the presence of God in day-to-day life, in what we call the cotidiano, the everyday, day-in, routine, humdrum of life, and that somehow God is present in all of that. That’s one thing. Devotional life is another thing that we have to offer. It’s interesting to me to go to different websites of different parishes where there are not that many Latinos, and yet they’re doing, you know, celebrating Our Lady of Guadalupe, celebrating the, you know, the posadas, the Christmas novena, living stations of the cross, which are all traditionally coming out of Latin America. And, you know, we’re contributing to the church by and through Latin America. Strangely enough, Latinos in general have a deep desire to understand the sacred scripture, and sometimes some people think that, you know, those who are into devotional practices aren’t really into reading the scripture and vice versa. And yet since the 1960s and the ’70s, especially with the charismatic movement and the birth of the, you know, home-base communities in Latin America that have then moved into the United States, there’s this desire and this longing to really tap into what are the gospels saying? Not what are they saying as far as hermeneutics and historical criticism and, you know — that’s all nice stuff, but what are they saying for my life? What are they saying for the day-to-day, you know, or the cotidiano of our nation, of our church, of our community? That’s one thing I think that we are beginning to see in different U.S. parishes, is that some of the models of how to do scripture study for daily practice that are coming out of Mexico are making an impact in the U.S. church as well.

Q: How is it different from how US Americans in general worship and practice their faith?

A: I think basically it is different in that we were — neglected is a harsh word, but in many ways we were neglected by the U.S. Catholic church for over 100 years, relegated to the back pews, etc., and as a result we have had to nurture our own faith, our own religion, our own church, and those who have nurtured it [are] primarily women: our mothers, our abuelitas or our grandmothers, our tias — our aunts. Sometimes also the abuelos, the grandfather, or a male wisdom figure as well. And so as a result, we have a high respect for the clergy, but we know that we can live without them. We know that we can be church, you know, with or without the clergy and that somehow we have endured as church oftentimes without the clergy. Probably in a church that is facing a great priest shortage, this is a good message. This is something that we need to hear, that, you know, the Hispanics are known for our love and respect of the clergy, and often because we never really had them around, and yet at the same time we also know from our experience that, you know, it’s wonderful to have a priest and it’s wonderful to have Mass. But if we have to, we figure out other ways of worship in order to remain Catholic.

Q: Is that what you’ve meant in the past about the ambivalence toward clergy in the Hispanic community?

A: Yeah. I come from a, believe it or not, I come from a very anticlerical family. My grandmother told me she loved me despite the fact that I had become a priest, you know, and for many, many different reasons Mexicans have historically, you know, both loved and hated the clergy or the hierarchical church. Our Catholic religion was founded by the European church and by the European missionaries and the European hierarchies, particularly the Spanish and the Portuguese, and so we owe a great debt of gratitude to that church. At the same time that we were being evangelized by dedicated men and women religious, we were also being conquered and violated by Christian soldiers, and so already there is that ambivalence that was built into the way we were evangelized. At least we weren’t being killed off like the Native Americans with the Protestant churches. But it was still a violent evangelization. The father of our country or the George Washington of Mexico is a priest. He was a diocesan priest. A lot of the first generals in the Mexican revolution were priests, and so, again, the church is there at the forefront of our liberation. As time goes on, then the church becomes part and parcel of the government and part and parcel of the problem, and so you get, then, you know, in the early 1900s, more revolutions for equality and liberation and justice, and one of the entities that had suffered for it was the church, partially because the hierarchy was part of the problem, and partially because there was persecution.

Q: You mentioned the role of women in passing on the faith. What do you think the role of women would be in a majority Hispanic Catholic church in America?

A: That’s a hard question. From my experience when I was in the parish, I know that I could always count on the women lay ministers. If I needed help with, you know, running the baptismal classes, if I needed help with, you know, running wake services, I could always count on the women lay ministers. Is that servitude? Is that, you know, a priest taking advantage of the women? You know, I suppose some people would say yes — and some people would say no. Is that, you know, the priest or the pastor having women participate in the general ministry of the church? Again, some people would say yes, some people would say no. But that was the reality, and I think that’s the reality in a lot of our parishes — that our pastors pretty much know there are a lot of women lay ministers that we can count on, hopefully in a spirit of, you know, working together or, you know, what we call en con junto — everybody doing their part for putting together this ensemble of ministers. At the same time, the slew of women ministers in our churches, then, has had the effect of somehow pushing away the men, you know, or the non-ordained male. And so in Hispanic culture, in Latin America in general, you know, the feeling is the church is the domain of women and priests and for the most part [they] can’t figure out what the priest is doing there to begin with, because the church, you know — religion is women’s domain. Some men will not feel the need to participate in church because that’s women’s work. Other men will simply feel relegated or pushed out because the women are in control of the ministry, which is strange to say in the United States, because I know that there is justly a woman’s movement in the church that says, you know, women, for the most part, are not allowed in church hierarchy. And, again, that goes back to the whole question of just because you’re the majority doesn’t mean that you are the dominant factor. You know, there are a lot of women religious and a lot of women lay ministers, but when you come right down to who’s in control it is, you know, ordained men.

Q: Has anyone reacted negatively in the U.S. Catholic Church to the Hispanic influence and impact?

A: There’s negative, and there’s negative. We’re too Christian to show our bias openly, and so we do it, you know, in hidden ways or in subtle ways. I would hope that people who go to mass, you know, on a regular basis, who consider themselves good Christians wouldn’t openly reject anybody coming through the doors of the church. So I don’t think there is much of an open rejection of the Hispanics in the church. And yet at the same time I have heard — men and women who are in positions of power in different dioceses around the United States talk about well, you know, when we raise the question of, you know, should young men and young women training for church ministry be learning Spanish, for example. I’ve gotten the response from different people that will say the next generation isn’t going to speak Spanish, so why should I bother learning it? That’s a subtle form of rejection. The choosing, for example, of foreign-born Latinos for positions of power in the church, be it bishops or be it the head of a certain office, when you could just as easily choose a native-born Latino is also another form of rejection. You know, it’s easier to deal with the foreign-born Latino oftentimes than it is with the native-born Latino for a variety of reasons. That you would relegate the Spanish mass to certain times of the day which are the off-times, you know, not the peak hours, is another way of rejection. These are subtle ways of rejecting or keeping the Latino church at bay rather than using — I know of churches that rather than allowing the Latinos to have mass in the church, because we bring children to mass, we get relegated to the basement or the gym. So I don’t think that anybody would openly reject the Latino in the U.S. church, but there are ways in which — I don’t think it’s outright rejection. It’s just lack of hospitality.

Q: Why is it so difficult to integrate the Hispanic community with the Anglo community or the African American community on a parish level?  Often you do see the separate mass, and Hispanics will want the separate mass in Spanish.

A: I don’t think that “separate” means “not a part of.” I believe that you can have a mass in English. You can have a mass in Spanish. You can have a bilingual mass. I don’t know of any Catholic church in the United States where all the parishioners come to the same mass on Sunday, unless it’s a very, very small church, and so you will always have a number of masses offered on a given Sunday. That doesn’t mean that the people at the 10:00 mass never talk to the people at the 12:00 mass or that they’re not the same parish.

Q: But so often that happens.

A: I love to pray in Spanish, you know. It took me a while before I realized that God understands English, and I think that people like to pray in the language that they’re comfortable in. I think that people like to pray in the language of their heart. I know I preach better in Spanish than I do in English, and I pray better. When I’m praying over people, you know, I can feel the prayer better in Spanish than I can in English, again, because Spanish is the language of my heart. Does it mean that because I prefer to pray in Spanish I’m not a part of my community? I don’t think so. It means I’m a part of my community, and it means that, hey, every once in a while I need a fix. I need to pray in my own language, in my own tongue. I think that in the U.S., it’s not just — I mean Hispanics probably are the ones who are showing the reality of the U.S. church to the U.S. church itself. A lot of times what happens is you get so used to your own reality that it’s not until you are faced with the significant other, you know, that all of a sudden you realize things about yourself. I always knew I was Mexican American — didn’t really realize it until I came to the Midwest where all of a sudden I’m in a culture that’s completely different than my own. I think that when Hispanics are moving into these parishes, the U.S. church is beginning to realize that, hey, there is no such thing as a U.S. culture or Anglo culture. All of our parishes are culturally diverse. There is a diversity in generational cultures. There is a diversity in economic cultures. All of a sudden we are being faced with, you know, what some people like to call multicultural churches, or I prefer culturally diverse churches, where there’s all sort of cultures going on within the same church, and yet somehow we’re called to get along with each other and not to have one culture dominate another culture.

Q: Is there some aspect of what Hispanics bring to the Catholic Church in America that might be perceived as negative?

A: No. I mean I would imagine that there are some people who would perceive different cultural nuances as negative. I don’t think there is a Catholic culture, you know. I don’t think Latinos are more Catholic than U.S. Americans. I don’t think Italians are more Catholic than the rest of the world — you know, or Polish, or whatever. I believe every culture has the seeds of the gospel, and every culture has things that the gospel needs to challenge. We are accused of being male-dominated, and to a certain extent we are. And yet at the same time we’re a very matriarchal society, or matriarchal culture. Do those things — do those two realities enter into conflict with each other? Yes, they do. Do those two realities need to challenge each other? Yes, they do. There are many Hispanic men who are here alone because they’re here to — you know, like my father came here to work for money to send back home to take care of the wife and the children. That’s unfortunately a part of the immigrant culture, whether it’s Hispanic, or German, or Polish, or whatever other people are migrating here for a better life. A lot of times the men come here and leave the family at home in order to send money home. Is that a problem? Yes, that’s a problem. It’s a problem here, and it’s a problem back home. And so sometimes the problems are not necessarily cultural problems. The problems are economic problems. The problems are social problems. The problems are caused a lot of times by bad governments in Latin America, a lot of times by U.S. enterprise interfering in Latin America and other parts of the world.

Q: I’d like to ask you about Hispanics and the social changes they are bringing to the church, changing positions of the church, and whether or not you think they are more socially conservative than Americans in general?

A: The Roman Catholic Church in general has been, since the late 1800s, the leading Christian community as far as social change and social documents. Many of the other Christian communities look to us to sort of lead the way on social issues and social concerns. The Latin American church took Vatican II very seriously.

Q: I mean specifically Hispanics in America.

A: Right, well, I guess I’m setting the stage that that’s where we come from as Hispanics in this country. We come from the church of the 20th century that, you know, pushed for lay apostolic movements that were centered around social issues and social concerns. We come here believing that the church is no longer a church that sides with the rich, but rather a church that has a preferential option for the poor. We believe that firmly, and so because we believe that firmly, we expect that the hierarchy of the church is going to advocate for the poor, for the marginalized, for the outcast. And right now a lot of the poor, the marginalized, and the outcast are us, are the Hispanics, especially the Hispanic immigrants. So, one, we expect it. We expect it from our clergy. We expect it from our bishops. We expect it from each other. So I believe that the Hispanic presence in the U.S. Catholic Church is challenging the U.S. Catholic Church to be more faithful to what we as a church universal say that we believe, and that is social justice. You know, if we want peace, we have to work for justice, to quote Paul VI.

Q: Do you think Hispanics have influenced the church’s position on immigration, on economic issues?

A: I think so. I would like to think that the hierarchy writes it documents because it looks at the people around them and deals with the people around them. I don’t think that the bishops are going to make statements on immigration without somehow consulting the Hispanic community, which is right now at the forefront of immigration issues in the United States. The economic issues are very, very complex, and I’m not really all that familiar with them. I am more concerned right now with immigration.

Q: What about the face of the Catholic Church in 20 years? How do you see things shaping up?

A: In 20 years? It’s a long time, and it’s not a long time, is it? The largest Catholic population in the United States is Latino. The youngest Catholic population in the United States is Latino. The fastest growing population in the United States is Latino. In 20 years time if I could dream, you know, I’d like to see over 50 percent of the U.S. Catholic bishops being Latino, 50 percent of the religious and the clergy being Latino. Some of them may be even married, you never know, or women.

Q: How likely is that?

A: How likely is that? Well, the spirit works in many, many different ways. The face of the clergy and the face of the church has changed a lot in 2000 years. You know, we used to have a Jewish face, then we had a Greek face, and we’ve had a Roman face for a long time. I don’t think we’ll ever have a Latino face. I’d like to think that we will have a culturally diverse face, and that in 20 years time there will be a growth of Latino membership in the hierarchical structures of the church, and of African American and Asian American. I’d like to see a church that is increasingly culturally diverse, and yet united.

Q: How concerned are you about the exodus of Latinos to evangelical churches?

A: The theologian in me is not that concerned, because the spirit needs to do what the spirit needs to do. The Mexican American [in me] is pretty concerned. We were founded by the Holy Spirit, you know, 2000 years ago. When we came to America 500 years ago, the friars that came all came as, you know, spiritual men who really believed and pushed the power of the Holy Spirit. The charismatic movement has opened us again to the movement of the Holy Spirit, and ultimately we need to go where the spirit takes us. And if the U.S. hierarchy is not going to meet our needs and the Pentecostal churches are willing to, then that’s where we need to go. I would like to think that the hierarchy of the church loves us and wants us to remain Catholic. But they have to be more hospitable to us.

Q: Would it mean having more services that reflect the Hispanic culture? Growing a group of Hispanic American priests?

A: I think it means conversation and dialogue. There are a number of wonderful non-Hispanic men and women religious and lay ministers and priests who have served our church well, and the one thing that they have in common is they like to ask questions, and they actually listen and wait for answers. It’d be great to have all sorts of Latinos in religious life and in the priesthood, but that is going to take time. And in the meantime, the ministers who are going to serve us are going to be non-Latinos, and I think that they need to be men and women of conversation and dialogue, and we don’t always get that. But that’s what we need.

Q: What do you think are the most profound changes happening in the Catholic Church for Hispanics?
A: When I was growing up, we took it for granted if you were Hispanic or Latino, you were Catholic. If you were not, you were Protestant. It wasn’t until I went to high school that I realized that there was an Anglo-Catholic church and that they made the sign of the cross. They didn’t kiss their fingers like we do, but they made the sign of the cross, and they went to confession, and it was shocking. It was eye opening. I would like to think that somewhere on the other side of the country at the same time that I was learning that there were, you know, Anglo Catholics, that there was an Anglo Catholic learning that there were Latino Catholics, and that it was shocking and it was eye opening, and yet enriching. I think that the most profound change that we are making in the U.S. Catholic Church today is that we are awakening the U.S. Catholic Church to the realization that it is one part of a church that is so much larger than itself, and a church that is culturally diverse, and that that’s shocking, and it’s eye opening, and it’s enriching, and I do believe, you know, I mean, I hear it here. I hear it from the lay ministers who are coming to school here and who are asking questions about, you know, how to better serve the Hispanic. And one of the things that they’re realizing in our courses and in our classes and in our conversations is that the U.S. church is so much bigger than their own little parishes. And for them and for myself that’s exciting news, because it does really, really open us up to a worldwide universal church, which is the church that we really belong to. And sometimes we forget. We get so caught up in our own local concerns.

LUCKY SEVERSON: He seems to know everyone here in Piedras Negras, Mexico even though Chad Foster is actually the mayor of the town across the border — Eagle Pass, Texas. He crosses the bridge connecting the two towns and two countries, sometimes several times a day.

Mayor CHAD FOSTER (Eagle Pass): Eagle Pass and Piedras Negras have grown up together, you know. I’ve got as many friends in Piedras if not more than I have in Eagle Pass, and we really are two countries, but we’ve historically been one community.

SEVERSON: It’s the future that worries the mayor, especially if the Department of Homeland Security, DHS, is allowed to build a wall that would, in the mayor’s view, divide the two towns. DHS has filed dozens of suits against Texas individuals and communities, including Eagle Pass, to force them to give up land for the wall.

(to Mayor Foster): And this is where the wall would go?

Mayor FOSTER: Absolutely, this is the alignment.

SEVERSON: And what would the golf course become?

Mayor FOSTER: In essence, we’re ceding our golf course to Mexico. We’re fencing it out.

Father James Loiacono

SEVERSON: The wall would cut through the Eagle Pass golf course and a city park, which may be the greenest piece of land in the whole county. It would also eliminate a planned development along the Rio Grande River. It’s not only the idea of the government confiscating their land that troubles the people of Eagle Pass. It’s the wall itself. They’re afraid of what it will do and won’t do, and what it symbolizes.

Father JAMES LOIACONO (Pastor, Our Lady of Refuge Catholic Church): Think of the Berlin Wall. What did that say about the government of East Germany?

SEVERSON: Father James Loiacono, pastor of Our Lady of Refuge, says every symbol speaks about the people who propose it.

Fr. LOIACONO: What are we saying about ourselves when we propose a wall? How can we put a wall between Eagle Pass and Piedras Negras when we’re the same family?

Mayor FOSTER: It’s separating families. I guess that’s the best description. I mean, it’s as if I were to put a wall up between my house and my brother’s house.

SEVERSON: The mayor says 95 percent of the people of Eagle Pass oppose the wall, but there are some who favor it, like Charles “Dob” Cunningham.

CHARLES CUNNINGHAM (Resident, Eagle Pass): There’s someone, looks like on horseback, coming across. See, he’s up to no good. Oh, I’ve been robbed many, many times, as anybody on the border has been robbed.

Charles Cunningham

SEVERSON: Cunningham owns more than a mile of land along the Rio Grande. He retired after more than 40 years with the border patrol, most recently as director of the Eagle Pass Port of Entry. He says there has been a lull in the number of illegal crossings, thanks in part to air and ground patrols and the ever-present surveillance cameras.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM: You see, this tower has two cameras, and the camera that should be looking at him is broke.

SEVERSON: Cunningham says when the cameras that overlap the border work, they help catch “illegals.” But the $65,000 cameras with night vision don’t always work. It’s one reason he favors a wall, or fence, along some parts of the Texas border, but says Congress and Homeland Security are mistaken if they think the wall will solve immigration problems.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM: Yeah, they’re stuck way up there in Washington, and a lot of them don’t have a grasp of the actuality of what’s happening.

Mayor FOSTER: It’s not securing the border. It’s conveying a false sense of security to the interior citizens of the United States. In border patrol’s estimation, it’ll take two to four minutes to breach the border fence or border wall.

SEVERSON: Father James has offered a sanctuary to many undocumented aliens going or coming across the border. He says it’s his sacred duty as a Christian.

Fr. LOIACONO: Exodus 20:19, it says “You shall not molest or bother the resident alien in your land, for you once were aliens in a strange land.” And all through the Old Testament and the New Testament this is an imperative — not just a suggestion. It’s an imperative.

SEVERSON: Albert Ellis got so upset with Father James for aiding illegal immigrants he walked out of church.

ALBERT ELLIS: And one day I went into his office and I told him, I said, you know, you shouldn’t be helping these people. I said if I help them I go to jail, you know.

House of Pilgrimage

SEVERSON: Ellis is a former border patrol agent who favors a wall but says it won’t stop illegal entry.

Mr. ELLIS: I think we could have spent some of that money for the walls on detentions camps, you know. Just be able to put them in jail awhile, maybe they’ll slow down some, you know.

SEVERSON: This is the House of Pilgrimage in Piedras Negras. It’s affiliated with the Catholic Church and has offered sanctuary to about 35,000 illegal immigrants since it was founded in the early 1990s, according to the director, Magdalena Galan.

MAGDALENA GALAN (Director, House of Pilgrimage, Piedras Negras): I’ve seen them cry. I’ve seen people that they have to leave their families, and they cry over that because they leave them with somebody else to take care of their children while they come to try to feed them over here in the United States — get money to feed them.

SEVERSON: And most of these men here, are they from Mexico? El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua.

Most of the men in this room came from south of Mexico. Some looked for jobs here before discovering that jobs and wages in Mexico were no better than in their own countries. Some have walked 20 days to get to Piedras Negras. They plan to sneak across the border into the U.S. in the coming days.

(to men at the House of Pilgrimage): I don’t want to leave home. I wouldn’t want to leave my family and go to another country. They’re willing to risk a lot to do that. Why?

Most men here had the same answer: When they can get a job in their country, they can earn about 50 cents an hour — not enough to feed a family.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM: It’s a terrible situation. We have personally given money to illegals who have come by our house. We’ve fed them. We’ve clothed them. We have a great empathy for them. We feel sorry for them. If I was in their shoes, I’d be here the next morning.

SEVERSON: Cunningham says the first thing that needs to happen is for Mexico to fix its economy so people won’t feel the need to leave the country.

Father James says he understands why many Americans are angry and frustrated and that there will never be a completely fair and just solution. He says his views are guided by scripture and tradition — that it is not only the moral duty of a father to care for his family, it’s a human right, and one Americans should recognize.

Magdalena Galan

Fr. LOIACONO: A man who is starving to death and whose family is starving to death and can’t find work takes bread out of the supermarket. He didn’t steal. It’s necessary for life, and so out of charity and justice we have to recognize that he is not a thief.

Mr. CUNNINGHAM: I’m well aware of these religious people, and I think I’m a religious person. But the churches aren’t paying taxes, and they’re not being affected by the vast movements of people and the drugs and the sociopaths and these criminals that come across.

Mayor FOSTER: I live within a quarter of a mile of the river. We’re not afraid. There’s never in the history of the world been a known terrorist to come out of Mexico. The only terrorist that we know of came out of Canada, and they came across ports of entry. They did not come between the ports.

(driving in truck, watching border agent): He’s looking to see if he can find any footprints coming across this.

SEVERSON: The number of agents working along the border has increased dramatically. In Mayor Foster’s view, all the agents and cameras and border patrols won’t fix the problem without fixing U.S. immigration policy first.

Mayor FOSTER: Well, if you have a kitchen sink that has a busted pipe, rather than fix the pipe we’re sending in more mops. Well, let’s fix the pipe, which is immigration reform.

SEVERSON: Albert Ellis thinks that the best fix is to enforce the laws that are already on the books.

Mr. ELLIS: This is a country of laws, you know, and if we don’t enforce them we’re going to end up like Mexico.

SEVERSON: In Father James’s church there is a statue of Christ that was found floating in the Rio Grande River. For Father James and his parishioners, it has become a sacred artifact.

Father LOIACONO: I gave it the name The Undocumented Christ because we don’t know where this Christ figure came from, and so it’s undocumented. But it also came wet, because it came in the river. It came homeless to us, and to me it’s Christ identifying as undocumented.

SEVERSON: Father James thinks The Undocumented Christ is more than just a symbol.

Father LOIACONO: And I think in a real sense perhaps we could see this as God’s message to our nation. How shall we treat those who come to our border, and what does the wall really mean? What is it saying? Jesus, stay out?

SEVERSON: Congress, Homeland Security, and many Americans have a different view. They think the wall sends a powerful message, one they approve of: Illegal immigrants stay out.

For RELIGION & ETHICS NEWSWEEKLY, I’m Lucky Severson in Eagle Pass, Texas.

BOB ABERNETHY, anchor: Now a report on the divisions over immigration. With Congress unable to agree on immigration law reform, many local governments are trying to act on their own to discourage illegal immigrants from settling in their towns. Some say that’s just protecting their communities, but others call it racism. A federal court has ruled that an anti-immigrant ordinance in Hazleton, Pennsylvania is unconstitutional, but that decision is being appealed, and until it’s settled other local governments are acting. One place in which opinion has been sharply polarized is Northern Virginia, as Lucky Severson reports.

Chris Pannell

CHRIS PANNELL (Resident, Manassas, Virginia, speaking during meeting of the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors): I have to tell you this is one of the happiest days in my life.

LUCKY SEVERSON: Chris Pannell is a fourth-generation resident of Manassas, Virginia and she is happy, to say the least, that the county Board of Supervisors approved a tough new measure to crack down on illegal immigrants.

Ms. PANNELL: I’ve certainly prayed about this matter for many, many years. It’s just devastating. It’s heartbreaking, too.

SEVERSON: She is referring to the negative impact she thinks the influx of immigrants has had on her community, especially illegal immigrants.

Ms. PANNELL: I feel that all of these things — the crowding of our schools, the trash, overcrowding in the house — all together are just changing quality of life for us, and I can’t put a price tag on the quality of life that’s lost here.

BRUCE E. TULLOCH (Loudoun County Board of Supervisors, speaking during meeting): We want everyone to enjoy the American dream, but the American dream must be earned. It cannot be stolen.

SEVERSON: Local and state governments have approved hundreds of tough new immigration resolutions since Congress failed to pass national legislation. But some religious leaders, like Father Robert Menard, say they are deeply troubled by the tone of the debate — that it goes against the precepts of all the major faiths. Father Menard is also disturbed about what is not being discussed.

Father ROBERT MENARD (St. Francis of Assisi Parish, Triangle, Virginia): I think one of the great sins is the silence that is echoing around this topic. The whole discussion seems to be around the question of law. No one’s talking about the values to care for those who are being oppressed — to treat the alien in the land with respect and dignity.

Father Robert Menard

JOHN STIRRUP (Supervisor, Gainesville District, Prince William County, Virginia): In terms of where we are seeing a lot of the complaints about illegal immigration.

SEVERSON: Supervisor John Stirrup says the outcry he hears from constituents has everything to do with the law. He introduced the Prince William County resolution, in his words, “to stop the bleeding.”

Mr. STIRRUP: We have literally millions of illegal aliens crossing into — crossing our border every year with no stem to the flow.

SEVERSON: John Stirrup’s resolution is said to be one of the strictest of its kind in the country.

Mr. STIRRUP: Many folks have raised the question is this going to be a door-to-door search or are people going to be stopped on the street and asked for their papers? And that’s the furthest thing from the truth.

SEVERSON: The resolution is being studied to determine if it’s constitutional, but as it stands now the new law says anyone who is seeking public services can be questioned about their immigration status. If they’re without proper ID, they can be deported. The same is true with a minor traffic violation.

Mr. STIRRUP: An officer stops you for an infraction of the law, whether it’s a violation of federal, state or local law, and the officer has probable cause to believe that you are here illegally, he may ask you that question. And if the answer’s affirmative, then he may detain you.

Fr. MENARD: It’s causing concern and, in some cases, real fear.

SEVERSON: Father Robert Menard says the anti-immigrant fervor is creating a culture of fear on both sides.

Fr. MENARD: People fear to go across their street, or to knock on the door and to get to know their neighbor, whether they are from one culture of another. And so the suspicion builds.

SEVERSON: There was a palpable fear at this labor center in Herndon, Virginia. Dozens of Hispanics, mostly undocumented, show up here every morning to find a job where they can earn $80 to $100 a day.

Abel has been in this country five years trying to support the five children he couldn’t support in El Salvador. He says the jobs are drying up because employers are afraid.

Jaime’s visa has expired. He says it’s very hard to be away from his six kids, but he could barely feed them when he was in Peru. He thinks Americans are decent people who don’t understand his situation.

Edwin Andrade, a local church pastor, says the controversy has left Hispanics under a cloud of suspicion, judged guilty by association, by the color of their skin — even those here legally.

(to Pastor Andrade): Does it concern you that people would look at you and say you could be an illegal?

EDWIN ANDRADE (Pastor, Nueva Rivera Presbyterian Church, Sterling, Virginia): Yeah. Does it concern me? Yeah, to a degree. It has happened. It happens all the time.

SEVERSON: Edwin and other church volunteers sponsor a lunch for the migrant workers and offer some comforting words the workers rarely hear.

Pastor ANDRADE: We want for you to have a place. We want you to have a place that you feel you are welcome in; that you don’t have to look over your shoulder.

SEVERSON: Jose and his wife are here illegally. Their child was born here. Jose says he came from El Salvador to escape poverty — that he does jobs most legal residents wouldn’t do. He has a message for Americans.

JOSE (through translator): I would like them to know that there is no Hispanics here who has come to hurt you.

Ms. PANNELL: I hear of crimes being committed around here. You know, I’ve heard of several people who have taken their trash out getting robbed at knifepoint.

Mr. STIRRUP: I think what people are concerned about is the lawlessness that has come with illegal immigration in the area, and it starts with those homes that are grossly overpopulated.

Ms. PANNELL: And there’s usually 10 or 15 cars at night there.

SEVERSON: Chris Pannell took us on a tour of her neighborhood.

Ms. PANNELL: When you see 20 people on a porch like, for example, like back there at a time, it’s pretty telling that’s probably not your typical family.

SEVERSON: You say you have more rats in the neighborhood?

Ms. PANNELL: Yeah, we’ve never seen rats in the neighborhood until recent months when the trash has gotten up really tall.

Fr. MENARD: I think it’s important that we name the sin that is part of every community and every tradition. I’m speaking specifically of racism.

Ms. PANNELL: It’s not about race at all. It’s very simple. It’s about legal versus illegal.

SEVERSON: One thing that riles critics of illegal immigrants is that they send such a large amount of their earnings back home, reportedly as much as $45 billion last year.

Pastor ANDRADE: The fact is that a lot of people who are undocumented do pay taxes, because the IRS provides a temporary tax number which they can contribute to the system.

OMAR (through translator): When I came to this country, I started paying taxes right away. I have always paid my taxes.

SEVERSON: Omar and Jesaina have been in the U.S. seven years. They have a young son and another child on the way.

(to Omar): If it gets too bad, will you go back to Honduras?

OMAR (through translator): Eventually we would return, but our intention is to fight to stay here because we have made an important part of our life here. .

SEVERSON: One reason so many immigrants have moved to Northern Virginia is because of the explosive growth of new construction. Contractors are often desperate for workers.

(to Mr. Stirrup): What do you do with employers who employ illegals?

Mr. STIRRUP: Well, that was not part of our resolution. We anticipate resolutions beyond what we’re doing now.

SEVERSON: Until recently, Omar had a full-time job which he lost when his employer became afraid that he might be visited by immigration authorities. These days, Omar can barely find day work.

OMAR (through translator): I feel that it is a great injustice to be treated as we are being treated, because we come here to work hard. We give a lot back to this country.

JESAINA (through translator): This law makes life very difficult for us. I cannot return to my country. I don’t want to return to my country, because life is very hard there.

PANNELL: I’m still compassionate. But they’ve broke the law, and I still believe those people need to go back home.

SEVERSON: Father Menard says among Christian, Jewish, and Islamic traditions civil law has always been subservient to values and judgment.

Fr. MENARD: If your family is struggling to survive, then to steal a piece of bread is okay. It’s not only okay it’s something that you’re required to do by your moral responsibility to provide for your family.

SEVERSON: Jose says he had heard about the American dream before he came here.

(to Jose): Do you think you will find it?

JOSE (through translator): Maybe some day, somewhere, somehow. But I don’t think in this country, because in this country they don’t want us.

SEVERSON: The county recently closed down its day-work center, so it’s even less likely that Jose and many others will find the American dream in this country as long they’re here illegally.

For RELIGION & ETHICS NEWSWEEKLY, I’m Lucky Severson in Herndon, Virginia.

ABERNETHY: All those on camera in that story gave us permission to use their pictures.

BOB ABERNETHY, anchor: Religion continues to be a key factor in American politics, especially during election season, and we will be looking at that over the next several weeks. Today, the vigorous political organizing inside Latino churches. Hispanics are now the largest minority in America. Most Latinos are Democrats, but in recent elections, more and more have voted Republican. However, the debates over immigration reform could change that. Many Hispanics favor more liberal immigration policies than most Republicans have supported. But as Kim Lawton reports, it’s not yet clear how that will affect Hispanic voting.

Reverend Claudio Diaz

KIM LAWTON: Sunday morning at a Hispanic megachurch in Laredo, Texas. Latino evangelicals are praying for comprehensive immigration reform and for the political clout to make it happen.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN (at prayer rally): If we just pray only and leave this place just doing that, amen, it’s not going to make the greatest difference, because in this country that God has given us, the United States of America, the way to make our voice heard is at the ballot box, amen.

LAWTON: In Chicago, Latino Catholics are also praying for immigration reform, and they’re registering new voters outside the church after Mass. Community leaders say the national debates about immigration are mobilizing Hispanics to get involved politically as never before.

Reverend CLAUDIO DIAZ (Archdiocese of Chicago): They want to be part of that process that somehow will determine their lives and their future. So it’s been like a jolt of energy to really have a group of people, you know, be updated, get informed, be organized.

Professor EDWIN HERNANDEZ (Research Fellow, Center for the Study of Latino Religion, University of Notre Dame): Latinos are a sleeping giant that has been awakened as a result of these discussions, no doubt about that.

LAWTON: There are more than 42 million Hispanics in America, but most have not been politically active. In 2004, less than half of all eligible Latino voters actually went to the polls. Experts say an energized and still rapidly growing Hispanic voting bloc could have a huge national impact.

Prof. HERNANDEZ: Both political parties are understanding that, are hearing and listening carefully because their political futures, to a large extent, will depend upon how these alignments ultimately are figured out.

LAWTON: Edwin Hernandez is a research fellow at Notre Dame’s Center for the Study of Latino Religion. He says much of the new political activism is centered in Hispanic churches.

Prof. HERNANDEZ: The church is one of those institutions that is owned and operated by the Latino community, and so it is also the place where cultural values are transmitted and preserved and enhanced. The more you participate actively in a particular community of faith, the more you’re likely to absorb and internalize those values and translate that into the public life.

LAWTON: The majority of American Hispanics are Catholic, although evangelical Protestants have been making big inroads. Both Latino Catholic and Protestant churches have framed immigration reform as a moral imperative.

Rev. DIAZ: From the Old Testament we have teachings on, you know, be good to the foreigner, be good to those who are not in your circle. And that teaching has certainly passed to Jesus Christ in the New Testament. The theology is that foreigners are brothers and sisters through the Lord Jesus Christ. That reality cannot be denied and needs to be addressed.

LAWTON: The Catholic Church played a major role in organizing immigration protests in Washington, D.C. and across the country. Now, church leaders are pushing Latino voter registration and education. Father Marco Mercado helped found a group called Priests for Justice for Immigrants.

Reverend MARCO MERCADO (Good Shepherd Catholic Church): We cannot tell people to vote for this party or vote for this guy. But we can tell them you’ve got to go and vote. You’ve got to exercise the right that you have, and this is a moral obligation.

LAWTON: Hispanic Protestants are also mobilizing. In Laredo, Texas, an Assemblies of God Church called Iglesia Cristiana Misericordia is on the frontlines of the immigration battles — literally. It is five miles from the border with Mexico.

Reverend Marco Mercado

Reverend GILBERTO VELEZ (Pastor, Iglesia Cristiana Misericordia): Most of our church is composed of immigrants. Do I have illegal immigrants? I don’t know. I don’t know.

LAWTON: Pastor Gilberto Velez says he doesn’t check the ID cards of the more than 2,000 people who attend his church every Sunday. If he knows they’re illegal, he counsels them to return home. But his church also provides them humanitarian aid. He says his congregation members now realize political decisions often affect their ability to fulfill their mission.

Rev. VELEZ: We’re motivating them and educating them. You know, you want some rights, you need to vote.

LAWTON: In late September, Iglesia Cristiana Misericordia hosted a National Immigration Prayer Rally. The rally was sponsored by a coalition of evangelicals called the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference.

Reverend SAMUEL RODRIGUEZ (National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, speaking at rally): Immigration reform is not a conservative or a liberal issue. It’s not a Republican or a Democratic issue. We are involved, the church, because we have a spiritual and a Christian obligation to speak up for those that cannot speak up for themselves.

LAWTON: Conference president Samuel Rodriguez is a key leader in the Hispanic faith-based effort to influence public policy. He and other Latino Protestant pastors have partnered with Democratic politicians on immigration reform, but he has also worked with Republican leaders to support traditional marriage.

Rev. RODRIGUEZ: Both parties understand the power of the Hispanic voting bloc. The largest minority group in America, 42-43 million Hispanics, become the deal breakers of national elections.

LAWTON: Professor Hernandez says Hispanics don’t fit neatly into political categories.

Prof. HERNANDEZ: Conservative on family values, conservative on issues of abortion. On the other hand, there are issues related to education, housing, the job, the economy and issues that have to do with the bread and butter issues of how can we move up the economic ladder that Latinos align themselves in those other issues in a more progressive, liberal side.

LAWTON: Traditionally, Latinos, like other minority groups, tended to vote more with the Democratic Party. But that’s been changing. In 2004, the largest number ever — 40 percent of Latinos — voted Republican in a presidential election. Analysts credit Latino evangelicals for much of that. Hispanic Protestants are one of the fastest growing segments of the Latino electorate. They make up about one-third of all Hispanic voters, and they gave strong support to George W. Bush in the last presidential election. Fifty-six percent of Latino Protestants voted for Bush in 2004, up from 44 percent in 2000.

Rev. RODRIGUEZ: The honeymoon period is over.

LAWTON: Reverend Rodriguez says many Latino evangelicals are now reconsidering their support for Republicans. He says they were troubled by some of the Republican rhetoric during recent congressional immigration debates and they wonder what the party truly stands for.

Rev. RODRIGUEZ: Is it compassionate conservatism, or is it a xenophobic, sort of anti-immigrant, anti-Latino party? That’s a question that has to be answered. I don’t necessarily see Hispanics jumping the bandwagon and overwhelmingly voting Democratic. I do see them holding back and not participating in the voting, in the electoral process, and not going to the ballot box, waiting, all right. Let’s find out really who speaks on behalf of Republicans in America.

LAWTON: At the same time, Rodriguez argues that many Hispanic Christians are uncomfortable with Democratic support for abortion rights and same-sex marriage.

Rev. RODRIGUEZ: I think the Democratic Party has an opportunity of engaging many Hispanic voters. To do so, they would need to move a lot more towards the middle.

LAWTON: I asked him which issues he thinks Hispanic evangelicals will base their votes on this fall.

Rev. RODRIGUEZ: Immigration is right up there. However, they’re looking at life, they’re looking at the continuity and respect to an institution that has been around since the beginning. You know, if they had to pick one or the other, it’s probably going to be life and marriage over immigration. Not that immigration is not important. It’s going to be a tough call.

Prof. HERNANDEZ: It’s a tough issue to know what would trump the other, and I think only time will tell. But at the very core issue the immigration debate is about who we are, and when you put my family, my grandmother, my children — I’m going to protect them, and I’m going to seek their well being at the expense of any other issue.

LAWTON: However things shake down politically, experts agree the mobilization over immigration is creating unprecedented new alliances between various ethnic groups within the Hispanic world and between Catholics and Protestants.

Rev. DIAZ: I think it will leave a mark, and we’re making history.

Prof. HERNANDEZ: Pentecostal pastors, priests, lay Catholic leaders have come together and joined forces to say we as a community may be divided by faith and other areas, but on this issue we’re coming together, because we need to take a stand about the dignity of who Latinos are.

LAWTON: Those alliances are poised to reshape American politics for generations to come. I’m Kim Lawton in Laredo, Texas.

Hispanics, of course, are more numerous than ever before in the country, but beyond that, some key large states — California, Texas, New York, Illinois, Florida — have large numbers of electoral votes, so the Latino vote has become increasingly important with each passing election. And the trend of Latino importance for federal, national, state elections will only continue to grow as time passes in this country.

Latinos have traditionally been far more Democratic than Republican, although there are some changes that have been afoot for quite some time now. There are regional and ethnic differences. Cubans tend to vote more Republican than Democratic, largely because one of their major issues is what’s going on in their homeland and how U.S. policy affects things in Cuba. Others in Texas have been wooed by George Bush’s gubernatorial campaigns — not in large numbers, but there are those who support his stances on morality issues. That brings them more in line with what the Republican Party holds, and of course many Latinos are very concerned about the immigration issue and will tend to judge the candidate based on their perception of how that candidate will react with regard to immigration.

Like any other group, with upward mobility some Latinos start to vote more with the Republican Party and to align themselves more with its policies and perceptions. Latinos I think are falsely sometimes seen as only a newly arrived group of poor immigrants. This is simply not the case. Some have been here for many generations; a growing number are going to college; a growing number are rising to the middle class and above. This is not the vast majority, but a number that’s larger than is commonly thought, and with this upward mobility, there is more and more voting in the Republican Party.

The Hispanic vote is not a single unified bloc. It tends to still be very strongly in the Democratic Party, but because of Cubans who vote along their national interests on the island, because of upward mobility, because of some residents with Republican stands on moral issues, there are a number of reasons why Republicans are gaining a somewhat more important percentage of the Latino vote.

It’s become almost necessary now for any national candidate to have some part of their stump speech that they can give in the Spanish language and a certain speech or appeal they can make to Hispanic voters. We’re well past the day when candidates are no longer noticing the Latino vote. They’re very much on the radar screen of anyone who has aspirations for national office.

One of the most important national trends in efforts for social reform is faith-based community organizing. It’s estimated that approximately 2 million Americans today are involved in faith-based community organizing groups. By this I mean churches [and] organizations of churches that don’t tell their people how to vote, that aren’t partisan in their politics, that don’t support a particular candidate or party, but that help raise the issues that are important to people in their local areas. Hispanics participate at a very large rate in these faith-based community organizations. What these organizations often do at election time is invite candidates to come and respond to issues that are vitally important to these organizations. Then they invite their members to vote their own conscience, but to be aware of how the candidates responded to their queries about specific issues. These candidate nights have become very important in shaping the political consciousness of Latinos and other members of these faith-based community organizations.

Another important element of faith-based community organizations is voter registration. They’ve registered literally millions of voters. They’ve encouraged people, sometimes immigrants who have not yet become citizens or who were citizens who were not yet registered, to become active in the political process. They teach them that this is an important part of being an American, and it’s important for their future and the future of their children. The encouragement of civic participation is another great way of promoting and fostering the vote that faith-based community organizations have engaged in.

The Catholic Bishops’ pastoral letter or statement, “Faithful Citizenship,” is widely known by pastors and team leaders, and I think in preaching, in the teachings and the classes offered by community organizers, this statement is being filtered down to grassroots voters on a number of levels, including among Latinos, and I think it will very much be one more encouragement for them to get involved and participate in the political process.

Latinos, particularly immigrants who come to this country, often find they’re in a world that’s very unfamiliar to them. The Church therefore has a tremendous degree of credibility. They look to the Church for advice on how to live in a new and different environment. So when the Church encourages civic participation by voter registration, by becoming concerned and knowledgeable about the issues, by voting responsibly, this carries tremendous weight with Hispanics — to get them to see that this is part of what it means to be a citizen and a resident of the United States of America.

The issues that are most important to Latinos are diverse, of course. Cubans will tend to be more concerned with national policies toward Cuba. Many recently arrived and second-generation Latinos are much more concerned about immigration and immigration reform, the laws of immigration and how immigrants are treated. Others are concerned with poverty issues. Education is a big issue across a lot of fronts for Latinos. And, of course, moral issues also come into play in certain quarters as well, and many people find them to be the most important issues that will determine their vote.

Although it’s difficult to make broad generalizations, Latinos tend to be more supportive of programs that help the poor, that help the working class, that might be more progressive in terms of social reform. On the other hand, they tend to be much more family-oriented in terms of sexual and moral issues, more conservative on the issues of abortion and gay marriage. In my experience of Latinos, they tend to be far more concerned in their voting patterns with the issues that affect their families, day-to-day living in their own family lives such as education, immigration, welfare, job training, concern for youth, and so on. Those tend to be the more important issues on which they base their vote.

I think Latinos can be influenced by anyone who approaches them with their own language, with their own cultural style, who shows an interest in valuing them as persons whose thoughts, whose views, whose vote matters. Many candidates and many interest groups have picked up on this, of course, and I think any group who tries to make a legitimate appeal — that appeals to the head, that appeals to the heart, that appeals to what’s at the core of Hispanic cultures and values — such a group would have an opportunity to have an impact on Hispanic voters.

Latinos, like all Catholics, are influenced not so much by what’s going on in the national press. But they are certainly influenced by what their pastors say to them on Sunday morning. To the extent that the current disagreements and arguments are influencing pastors and the way they preach, the way people at the local level receive teaching on how their faith and their conscience should be formed as Catholics in terms of their voting, I think Latino Catholics are as apt as anyone else to be influenced by individual pastors and what they’re teaching in the local churches.

The Hispanic Churches in American Public Life study, which is about to be published, did extensive work on the 2000 presidential election. Surprisingly, it showed that contrary to what many sociologists believed, Latino Protestants even in the evangelical Pentecostal churches still retained quite a strong allegiance to the Democratic Party, even though their denominations tend not to. This is one of the most surprising findings of this national study. How this will turn out in the current election is going to be very fascinating to watch. But the presumption that a Latino who becomes Pentecostal or evangelical will vote in accordance with the way the Christian Right has tended to vote has been shown to be not entirely true, although it does tend to lean them toward the Republican voting choice. Many Latinos still live in inner cities even when they become Pentecostals, and indeed, Pentecostals and evangelicals have a great urban ministry. I think the tendency to vote with the Democratic Party still remains strong because they are looking for political leaders who will address those core urban poverty and struggling, working-class family issues that are so much a part of their own lives.

Latin America has a long history of church and state being much more closely aligned than we’re used to in the United States. In general, a Latino immigrant who comes here comes with a certain wariness of a politician who seems too closely aligned with a church body. On the other hand, Latinos want to know that their leaders are people of faith, that they are people of values. I suspect for both presidential candidates, an appeal to Latino voters, if they’re listening to their advisors who know Latino culture, might tend to focus even more than usual on their faith, their values. While Latinos don’t want to see too close of an alliance between church and state, they do want to know the person they’re voting for is a person they can trust. And to them a person they can trust means a person who has a deeply based faith in God, which guides their life.

One of the most important, if not the most important organization to register Latino voters in the Southwest is the Southwest Voter Registration and Education Project, which is now about 30 years old. It was founded by Willie Velasquez, and it has registered at last count more than 2 million Latino voters and taught them civic participation in the Southwest. These kinds of organizations, while independent, sometimes work through churches, sometimes through civic groups, but they always work not for one party or the other but to get people registered, and to get Latino people to vote and to participate. These kinds of ongoing grassroots efforts across the Southwest and now across the nation are an important element in the rising number of Latino voters and Latino influence in presidential and other elections in the United States.

BOB ABERNETHY, anchor: Today, the last of our special election series on voting blocs: Hispanic voters. Analysts agree Latinos will play a key role on Tuesday (Nov. 2). In 2003, Latinos surpassed African Americans as the nation’s largest minority group. It’s a community that is still developing politically, and religion is an important part of that development. Ninety-three percent of all Latinos in the U.S. identify themselves as Christians, the majority of them Roman Catholic. Kim Lawton has our report about the faith-based influences on Hispanic voters.

KIM LAWTON: In the battleground state of New Mexico, new recruits are being enlisted after Sunday Mass. A community group called VIVA — the Voters Initiative for Voices in Action –has come to St. Ann Catholic Church in Deming to register new voters. It’s a nonpartisan project targeting Latinos.

SANTIAGO JUAREZ (Voters Initiative for Voices in Action): What we’re trying to do is reach a community and reach communities that have not been engaged.

LAWTON: Santiago Juarez and his colleague Paco Vallejos are both Roman Catholics. They partnered with the Diocese of Las Cruces to encourage parishioners in this largely Hispanic area to see voting as part of their moral responsibility as citizens.

PACO VALLEJOS (During Mass): The Catholic Church is not saying which candidate it endorses — it doesn’t. Which party it endorses — it doesn’t. It’s simply saying to us to do your work. Change the world. Use your conscience.

Mr. JUAREZ: There’s a line in the Our Father, you know, “Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven.” Well, there’s one way we exercise “thy will … on Earth,” and that is we get involved in the political process.

LAWTON: Hispanics are now the largest minority group in the country, but their political strength is still largely untapped. Experts say faith-based groups are having a key influence as Latinos develop their political muscle.

Professor TIMOTHY MATOVINA (University of Notre Dame, Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism): They look to the Church for advice on how to live in a new and different environment. And so when the Church encourages civic participation by voter registration, by becoming concerned and knowledgeable about the issues, by voting responsibly, this carries tremendous weight with Hispanics.

LAWTON: There are roughly 40 million Latinos in the U.S. right now, and almost 40 percent of them are under the age of 18. Between 8 and 10 million Latinos are registered to vote this year. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the Hispanic population is expected to triple over the next 50 years. That’s a lot of votes up for grabs.

There is great ethnic and economic diversity within the Hispanic community, and that is reflected in politics as well. In 2000, about two thirds of Latinos voted for Al Gore. But the Democrats don’t have a lock on the community.

Professor Timothy Matovina directs Notre Dame’s Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism. He has written widely about Latinos.

Prof. MATOVINA: The Hispanic vote is not a single unified bloc. It tends to still be very strongly in the Democratic Party, but because of Cubans, who vote along their interests, their national interests on the island, because of upward mobility, because of some resonance with Republican stands on moral issues, there are a number of reasons why Republicans are gaining a somewhat more important percentage of the Latino vote.

LAWTON: Santiago Juarez is a longtime community organizer. He says Latinos prioritize a variety of issues.

Mr. JUAREZ: There’s not a question that we’re concerned about immigration, but like I said, we’re also concerned about health care. We’re also concerned about Social Security. We’re also concerned about good jobs. We’re also concerned about education.

LAWTON: But Hispanic voters do not fit easily in traditional political categories. The community leans liberal on economic issues, but conservative on social issues like abortion and gay marriage.

The evangelical ministry, Focus on the Family, has launched a new campaign urging Hispanics to begin voting on those social issues.

YURI MANTILLA (On Radio): Vote por sus valores. Vote for your values. I mean, there is nothing more important in your life than to be consistent with your moral values.

LAWTON: Yuri Mantilla is leading the campaign.

Mr. MANTILLA: We know for sure that the majority of Hispanics are pro-life and pro-family. The issue of abortion, the issue of stem cell research, the issue of homosexual marriage are issues that are going to affect our children, our grandchildren, the future of our nation.

LAWTON: He says the issue of gay marriage in particular is galvanizing Latinos.

Mr. MANTILLA: You need to understand that the Hispanic culture is so pro-family that to tell Hispanics that marriage is not the union between a man and a woman, forget it. You immigrated to this country, now marriage is going to be the union between a man and a man and a woman and a woman? That’s absolutely unacceptable to Hispanics.

LAWTON: Mantilla found a receptive audience at the “America for Jesus” rally in Washington, D.C., which was organized by leaders of the growing Latino Protestant movement.

Mr. MANTILLA (During Rally): We ask, Lord Jesus, that you will give us godly leadership, that we will see more Christians in government.

LAWTON: But others wonder how effective the campaign will be among Latinos.

Prof. MATOVINA: They tend to be far more concerned in their voting patterns with the issues that affect their families, day-to-day living in their own family lives, such as education, immigration, welfare, job training, concern for youth, and so on. And so I think they tend to be — they are more important issues on which they base their vote.

LAWTON: Others worry an emphasis on abortion and gay marriage could put conflicting pressures on Hispanics and discourage some from voting at all.

Mr. JUAREZ: The issues around gay marriage, the issues around abortion are not designed to say, “Go vote about it.” They’re designed to say, “You know what? That’s one you can’t win, so stay at home.”

LAWTON: The candidates have been actively courting Hispanic support. Many of those efforts clearly acknowledge the deep spirituality among Latinos. George Bush’s Spanish-language Web site emphasizes compassion and the faith-based initiative.

And weeks before he began talking about religion on the campaign trail, John Kerry released a Spanish-language TV ad that said, “Faith is the foundation of our culture. We need a leader guided by this value.”

Prof. MATOVINA: While Latinos don’t want to kind of see too close of an alliance with church and state, I think they do want to know the person they’re voting for is a person they can trust. And to them, a person they can trust means a person who has a deep-based faith in God, which guides their life.

LAWTON: In this tight race, Latinos say they are discovering their potential political power.

Mr. MANTILLA: The Hispanic vote is going to be the swing vote. It’s going to be the vote that decides who the next President of the United States will be. But imagine in the next 10 years, in the next 15 years. The influence of the Hispanic community is going to grow even more. That’s why it will be impossible for any political party, for any candidate, to win elections without considering the Hispanic vote.

LAWTON: I’m Kim Lawton reporting.