Latinos Revitalize US Catholic Population

[josephdavid]

And here’s another article by Mary Ann Kreitzer (Les Femmes):

lesfemmes-thetruth.blogspot.com/2009/11/bellarmine-just-keeps-uncovering-more.html

Here in S WI, we are experiencing an influx of Latinos. You should see the numbers at the Spanish Mass (1 Sunday per month). Where are they the other Sundays? Don’t they know it’s a mortal sin to miss Mass?

Our parish rec’d $$ from the diocese for outreach to Latinos. There is 1 family who attends the “regular” Masses & has gotten involved. I’m Caucasian - I made an effort to notice & smile at the Latinos who came to our parish picnic, but they pretty much keep to themselves – don’t smile back or say “hi” much. I hope this will change.

Meanwhile, our small school is struggling.

How can one reach out to people who do not (by and large) want to participate. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.

Also, I do not like the rise of Alinsky-groups. PICO is one large one, mostly in the western part of the US. DART is another. Many are under the Gamaliel Foundation, which is based in Chicago. I (and others) believe they are targeting the Latino population, drawing them in with a veneer of spirituality (some of the groups’ names are acronyms from names from scripture). They say they are not political, but a little research into what exactly they support shows they are an arm of liberal Democrats. I fear they will be able to garner a lot of support from this population.

Our parishes are being divided by this politicization, just at a time when we need to be practicing Authentic Catholic Social Justice and revitalizing and deepening what it means to be CATHOLIC. These Alinsky-groups are funded in large part by multi-billionaire George Soros, who also provides funding for ACORN, Catholics for a Free Choice (pro-abortion), Democratic Party, EMILY’s List (pro-abortion), NARAL Pro-Choice America, Planned Parenthood, and many others.

The dissident group Call to Action is also behind Alinsky groups. I hope everyone reading this will do a little research & see if their parish is involved in one. For more info on how to do this, PM me, and I’ll be happy to share some web sites.

Viva Christo Rey!

Mimi

I grew up in Southern Wisconsin and much of my family including my mother still live there. When growing up we were the only Latino family in the area at the time and recieved much prejudice and in some cases racism. I find that this area is still slowly accepting Latinos there or at least being tolerant and trying to understand the culture.

Remember there are far more White people missing Mass than Latinos (if you consider the population) No race or culture is innocent of that.

Lastly the Catholic Church is being politicized by the left and the right. Not just the left.

 

[aspawloski4th]

I grew up in Southern Wisconsin and much of my family including my mother still live there. When growing up we were the only Latino family in the area at the time and recieved much prejudice and in some cases racism. I find that this area is still slowly accepting Latinos there or at least being tolerant and trying to understand the culture.

Remember there are far more White people missing Mass than Latinos (if you consider the population) No race or culture is innocent of that.

Lastly the Catholic Church is being politicized by the left and the right. Not just the left.

Hmm just wondering how do you know who is missing Mass? If you were the only Latino family where you lived, is saying whites miss Mass more than Latinos kind of disengenuous?

 

[josephdavid]

Hmm just wondering how do you know who is missing Mass? If you were the only Latino family where you lived, is saying whites miss Mass more than Latinos kind of disengenuous?

Well when the white population is larger than the latino population the averages will come into play.

But lets face it regardless all cultures are guilty of not being perfect in their faith. Even Mother Therese was not perfect in her faith.

I just will not take the self-righteous route to say one culture or person is better than the other. I am not perfect. I am human.

 

[sidonius]

Thank God for all of God’s faithful! Demographically, Latinos, Indians, Chinese and Nigerians are the major players in the coming decades even more so than today, and the more lay faithful among these folks the stronger the Church will be. People who look like me - pale, pasty-faced and easily sunburned - are dying off, and frankly, since nothing lasts forever, this is nothing to become sentimental about. In 200 years, as the pseudo-Spengler said, French and German will be spoken exclusively in Hell, but God’s Church will carry on, helped by our Latino brothers and sisters.

 

[Aboveallbereal]

Latino, Irish, Italian etc. I think we all have to accept that the number of nominal catholics from all those and other groups is essentiallly meaningless beyond its imparting some vague sense of shared ethnicity. Attendance at Mass is far below 50% in all these ethnic groups and there are probably fewer than 20,000,000 de facto catholics in North America with the rest of the nominal number either lapsed so far that the Church is merely a hatch and match ceremony provider or else openly dismissive of the Church.

Catholicism is a minority among those nominally catholic, a smaller minority among those nominally Christian and a tiny minority among the population at large and cannot be expected to act as some form of buffer against anything. The sooner the bettter we all realise this.