Ethnic Parishes: Necessary or Divisive?

[YankeeRC]

In my parish the monastary I attend has English and Spanish Sunday Mass. Sometimes there is only one Mass in Spanish and I have to attend an English Mass elsewhere.
I think I could understand the Latin better than the Spansh so I’ve often thought Mass would be more universal in Latin.

As it stands, I never see Spanish parishoners at the English mass and vice versa. But I remember growing up with every kind accent imaginable on the parents of other kids in my parish who all spoke English.

 

[Stavros]

There’s a parish just north of downtown Dallas that is a very unique combination of ethnic parishes. Here’s some of their history according to the St. Peter the Apostle web site:

1905: Mary Jordan, an ex-slave and her husband, Valentine Jordan, observes the excellent instruction students receive from Ursuline Nuns. Although non-Catholics, they agree that it would be good to have a Catholic church and school in their community. Jordan meets with Bishop Edward Joseph Dunne and makes her request. At that time, construction of Sacred Heart Cathedral was complete. Bishop Dunne has the former procathedral structure rebuilt at the corner of Allen and Cochran (today, Woodall Rodgers) streets for St. Peter.

1905: Josephine Father John J. Ferdinand is the first pastor of St. Peter, which has a 1905 date on its cornerstone.

1907: Arrangements are made by the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, who provided $2,500, and Bishop Dunne for the erection of an industrial school for “colored people.”

1908: With financial aid from blessed Katherine Drexel, the first Catholic school for black children in the Diocese of Dallas was established.

**1910: **On September 4, the Sister Servants of the Holy Ghost and Mary Immaculate of San Antonio arrive in Dallas to teach at the school. The Sisters Institute, later renamed St. Peter’s Academy, was staffed by Holy Ghost nuns and Mary Catherine Muse, the first lay teacher of the school. Only three of the students are Catholic.

**1927: **Mary Jordan became a Catholic through baptism and profession of faith.

**1960: **A new highway, Woodall Rodgers Freeway, adjacent to St. Peter’s site, causes a displacement of the population.

1970: On July 27, the Josephites leave St. Peter and plans are made for a diocesan priest to be assigned. St. Peter’s Academy continues as a private school staffed by the Sisters of the Holy Spirit.

1986: The Diocese, with the agreement of parishioners of St. Peter the Apostle, designates Saint Peter as a place of worship for Polish Catholics. On February 2, the Polish community celebrates its first Mass in Polish. Pastoral care of Saint Peter Parish was entrusted to the priest from Society of Christ Fathers. Father Czesław Domaszewicz was named the first pastor of St. Peter from that congregation.

Basically, the school and parish were originally designated as the “colored people” parish for central Dallas. However, when a freeway was built in the 60’s, it separated the original parishoners from their parish. After two decades of struggles, the diocese designated it as a Polish parish. If you go to to the English services at this bilingual parish, you will find a large amount of African-Americans (as well as actual Africans), but if you go to the Polish services, you’ll find a chapel full of Polish immigrants. And yet the two communities work together to keep this small, but very spirit-filled parish alive.

 

[Stavros]

Also, I go to a Latin Mass, and while it is considered a “personal” parish, I don’t consider it an ethnic parish at all. We have people of all ages, colors, races, and even languages. The homilies are in English, however.

When I went to the Cathedral downtown for the longest time, I went to the Spanish daily mass at 7p. It was very similar to going to a Latin mass in that I didn’t understand the words being said on the altar, but I knew enough about the liturgy to know what to do and when. Plus, like at the Latin Mass, I would read the epistle and gospel in English as it was being read in Spanish during the Mass.

And no matter what the language, the purpose of my daily mass experiences (then and even now) is not for learning from the liturgy, but of adoring and thanking God, showing contrition for my sins, and petitioning for the love of God as I offer my love to Him. Sundays are great for community and amazing homilies from my priests, but I also treasure my simple and quiet daily masses, with time afterwards for communion with God that I’ve just received.

 

[achmafooma]

Well, the Mass is the Mass is the Mass…

BUT…I think there is value in geographically clustered Catholics worshiping and receiving the Sacraments together.

When I was a Methodist before coming home to the Catholic Church, it always struck me as counterproductive to have a “Korean” UMC church around the corner from another UMC church and have their congregations never interact. In the town where I graduated from high school, there were two UMC churches about a block apart from each other – one with a predominantly white congregation, one with a predominantly black congregation, and they barely knew each other existed.

It always seemed to me that there was no good reason for the Koreans, blacks, whites, and everybody else who was part of the UMC to separate themselves from one another. I wanted them to worship together and learn from each others’ respective cultural strengths and traditions.

Of course, for new immigrants here in the U.S. there are linguistic issues. I have no problem with that. But I would like to see ‘ethnic’ (i.e., foreign language) Masses celebrated in the same ‘standard’ U.S. Parishes so that our new immigrant brothers and sisters are made part of our existing community, not sequestered into their own separate one. That way we can learn from one another, and bolster each others’ faith. In my humble opinion, the Church should be fostering ethnic integration and brotherhood, not separation.

God bless you.

 

[laszlo]

It’s important that the ethnic parishes remain welcoming to people who are not of that ethnicity. I attended the Italian parish in our city for a few year (I played piano), and I am in no way, shape, or form Italian! But I always feel so welcome in that parish, and everyone is so friendly!

What the Italians sing or the masses? Gregorian, traditional Italian hymns in there is such, new hymns in Italian?

The Hungarians since the 1930’s when the Hungarian Church built in the Chicago area sing the same Hungarian hymns. These hymns made and make the mass Hungarian. The form is secondary.

 

[At_Trent]

They fill up the same need as the TLM. Meeting places for a minority.

Thought-provoking.

actually a drive-by slur

 

[TrueLight]

actually a drive-by slur

Couldn’t have put it better myself.

 

[ProVobis]

Same as if the only Mass offered was a Latin Mass and you don’t understand Latin… you go to Mass.

True, but it could be for different reasons. Latin isn’t a national language so it shouldn’t be an ethnical issue, for one thing. See this thread.

 

[laszlo]

actually a drive-by slur

Only for those who believe that they are better people by wanting and attending the TLM, and together with this deny the Church’s God given power to loose and bind.

In the feast of St Peter and Paul, when the Liturgy celebrates this power, your opinion seems to be out of order.

In the reality the attention what the ethnic groups receive would be satisfactory for the traditionalist too.

 

[Aramis]

That was my upbringing as well.

Bilingual and trilingual people seem to have fewer problems in this area. Those who insist everyone needs to know only English (and in their accents, of course) are going to encounter problems, and not only in their parishes.

All-vernacular-all-the-time liturgies are unsustainable in the long-run, no matter how you cut it. A common language which is immutable is needed. Christianized Latin has worked for over 1600 years; I don’t know why it can’t work for the next 1600 years.

Except that it DID NOT WORK. The East has a LONG tradition of Vernacular liturgies, going back to the mid 1st Millenium. By the 500’s, the Copts had liturgy in Coptic, the Byzantines were using Greek, the Romans Latin, the Syriacs using Aramaic & Greek.

By the Second Millenium, the Byzantines were using Greek & Church Slavonic… Church Slavonic unified the various slavic tongues - as a family, they’re more mutually intelligible than most other groups of equally old languages from a common stem, by having approximated that common stem.

Latin, further, is a poor language for expressing the truths of Trinitarian Theology… an issue which, fundamentally, has contributed to the most visible schism of the Church. Latin lacks the nuances needed to clearly express those truths.

 

[At_Trent]

Only for those who believe that they are better people by wanting and attending the TLM, and together with this deny the Church’s God given power to loose and bind.

In the feast of St Peter and Paul, when the Liturgy celebrates this power, your opinion seems to be out of order.

In the reality the attention what the ethnic groups receive would be satisfactory for the traditionalist too.

This thread has nothing to do with the TLM. Nothing at all lazlo.

Your comment is inappropriate and off topic. You are a master at flying under the radar and making these hateful comments with one reason in mind… You say just enough, stopping short of violating the forum rules on the EF vs the OF.

No comment on this thread warrants your swipe in the first paragraph of your post quoted above. Nor the intitial slur you posted. Your attempts to bait trads are a miserable failure because we are all on to you.

 

[laszlo]

This thread has nothing to do with the TLM. Nothing at all lazlo.

Your comment is inappropriate and off topic. You are a master at flying under the radar and making these hateful comments with one reason in mind… You say just enough, stopping short of violating the forum rules on the EF vs the OF.

No comment on this thread warrants your swipe in the first paragraph of your post quoted above. Nor the intitial slur you posted. Your attempts to bait trads are a miserable failure because we are all on to you.

1./ In the real word everything which exists has connections with other things.

2./ Either the ethnik groups and those who prefer the TLM are members of minority groups, and both prefer somewhat different celebrations of Mass.

I strictly believe that the church honor the expectations of different groups.

What is your problem? What rule did are violated? Please quote my sentece together the forum rule, what you think that I violated. The truth is always in details

 

[Zacdecat]

I had never heard of this…but I believe it to be more usual in the USA.

The Catholic Church used Latin for very good reasons…no ethnic divide necessary. Black, white and brindle all praying and worshiping together where I am.

 

[Phemie]

I had never heard of this…but I believe it to be more usual in the USA.

The Catholic Church used Latin for very good reasons…no ethnic divide necessary. Black, white and brindle all praying and worshiping together where I am.

But again, those ethnic parishes were established long before we had vernacular in the Mass. Even when Mass was in Latin, English speakers wanted English priests who could preach in English and deal with them in their own language and the French, Poles and Italians wanted the same thing.

 

[laszlo]

We are shall remember the Irish ethnikcparishes.

They came to this country, and they preserved their religion by getting together in their churches, educating their children in their ethnic parochial schools. They gave the majority of the US priests for over a hundred years.

They did not believed that they represent the truth, and everyone else is wrong, but they believed in their traditions. They did not wanted other to turn like they are, just keep whom they are.

Something similar happens today with at least some Spanish parishes. Their churches help their survival in an inimical world.

 

[ProVobis]

But again, those ethnic parishes were established long before we had vernacular in the Mass. Even when Mass was in Latin, English speakers wanted English priests who could preach in English and deal with them in their own language and the French, Poles and Italians wanted the same thing.

But even in such pre-Vatican II Polish communities, English-speaking Catholics would not feel excluded in such communities. Today this is not too likely in an all-Polish (Mass, sermon, outside conversations) community, whether it’s in Poland or the U.S. The all-vernacular definitely excludes those those who aren’t familiar with that vernacular. In fact, many see that as mean-spirited; I’ve heard Americans who travel abroad are disgusted when they can’t find an English Mass or anyone who doesn’t speak English, for that matter. My own nephew, for example.

 

[ConstantineTG]

They fill up the same need as the TLM. Meeting places for a minority.

The FSSP parish in our Archdiocese used to be a German ethnic parish.

 

[Phemie]

But even in such pre-Vatican II Polish communities, English-speaking Catholics would not feel excluded in such communities. Today this is not too likely in an all-Polish (Mass, sermon, outside conversations) community, whether it’s in Poland or the U.S. The all-vernacular definitely excludes those those who aren’t familiar with that vernacular. In fact, many see that as mean-spirited; I’ve heard Americans who travel abroad are disgusted when they can’t find an English Mass or anyone who doesn’t speak English, for that matter. My own nephew, for example.

And I’ve known someone to complain that there were too many Indians at the airport in New Delhi and they couldn’t find any food they liked in Singapore. It takes all kinds.

 

[ConstantineTG]

Could one make a parallel between East Catholics and Ethnic parishes? After all, East Catholics were allowed to keep their Masses in part due to local traditions and customs gained over the course of several years.

Well, if you really try hard you can. But really the East isn’t just an ethnic parish. Eastern Christians aren’t Roman Catholics with a culturally adopted Mass. The Divine Liturgy developed separately from the Roman Mass. Of course the culture played heavily on the development, Greeks vs. Romans. Its a completely different liturgical tradition with a completely different theology as opposed to ethnic parishes with is the same tradition and theology, but may carry other minor traditions unique to a certain culture.

I would love to have a Filipino RC parish. I miss a lot of our traditions that you will not find in North American parishes. But in places where there are a lot of Filipinos, if we were allowed to set up ethnic parishes, we can actually set up our own ethnic diocese. Go to any parish here in the Greater Vancouver area and you’d see that at least 1/3 of the parishioners are Filipinos. In some areas its more than 50%. And there are some parishes that are unofficially ethnic parishes already. We’ve taken over

 

[ProVobis]

And I’ve known someone to complain that there were too many Indians at the airport in New Delhi and they couldn’t find any food they liked in Singapore. It takes all kinds.

That’s why they smile when they see a McDonald’s logo.