Reaching Out to Immigrants

[Augustine]

Writer:

Augustine:

*Good point. It is one thing that concerns me a lot. Being an immigrant myself, I’ve seen many other immigrants who were lukewarm in the Faith become prey of Evangelicals, whether because they’re maturing or because the distance from the protection of the family makes them more vulnerable.

I volunteered at a new ministry in my parish to reach out to immigrants, but it seems more concerned about stereotypes and in doing nothing in particular to address their spiritual needs that I’ve decided to leave it.

Particularly in a city with a lot of technology companies, the main concern is not English as second language or bus routes. The typical immigrant in town speaks English very well, earns a six-figure income and entered the US legally. Yet, their spiritual needs are not being met by the Church at large. But I digress…
*

Interesting digression, though… What do you think the Church needs to do to address this shift to the Protestant churches by recent immigrants? (might be a good new thread topic)

I don’t pretend to have the complete solution, but by looking at how some fellow countrymen were wooed away, I’d say that the Church needs to work more on creating a sense of community.

Many of those I’ve seen joining another church followed this itinerary:

• they meet another countrymen, either by chance or through someone else;
• they are invited to an event, party or barbecue, with a larger group of countrymen;
• this group grew around an Evangelical minister, also a countryman.

So, motivated by a feeling of loneliness, meeting someone with whom one shares the language, the culture and the difficulties adapting to a new country, one finds emotional support in a group which happens to be Evangelical. It doesn’t take long that one gets together more and more often with that group, leading eventually to a religious service and to the fatidical “conversion”.

It’s not that the Church is not doing anything, no. Oftentimes, not only Masses are said in a foreign language (e.g., Spanish), but some churches are erected for specific immigrant communities (e.g., Vietnamese). But this only happens when an immigrant community is really large, in the thousands. Yet, somehow many Evangelicals can send ministers abroad to spread their cult among immigrant communities more easily than the Church.

If only the American Church would exchange priests with other countries… One thing that I’ve noticed is that almost all priests are American. Not only that, but most were born or grew up in the same state. Back in Brazil, many priests were Italian or German, and more often than not, if Brazilian, descendands from these immigrant groups (the largest ones along with Japanese). Or maybe it is so because of Brazil’s particular history: large influx of immigrants, followed by priests from the country of origin, who then gave sons to the Church. I know that something similar happened in America too. But why not anymore?

The immigration influx in Brazil stopped long ago, but not in America. Perhaps the Church should strive to do the same today.

 

[Augustine]

serendipity:

Even if they are not standard day care facilities, per se, they offer all kinds of after school activities, which they send thier vans out to schools to pick them up and keep them until the parents can get them, or even take them home. I woudl think that this socialization helps the immigrant family (or may families in general) by providing child care, and by keeping kids involved in morally safe environments, and makes them feel part of a group.

Indeed, such reaching out is remarkable and we should immitate them. Perhaps the Church is so concerned about bread to feed the body that she forgot about the bread to feed the spirit…

 

[serendipity]

I have some reservations about the way intergration is handled at least in the lcoal parish here. It is not really “integration,” as much as it is a “separate but equal approach.” There are the Spanish masses, and then there is the English. There are almost two separate parish councils too, to handle issues related to Spanish speakers, and those related to English speakers. The two communities almost never meet.

I can appreciate wanting to worship in your own langauge when you are not fluent in a language (having traveled much and lived overseas myself), but I think that it is more helpful to offer free ESL courses for immigrants at a church than it is to have two systems one in English and one in Spanish. Stereotypes are not addressed by keeping the separation. I wonder if maybe offering a Latin mass, where both groups would be translating a little and have some sort of common ground might have helped the situation. It is surprising how much hate and prejudice exists in a religious atmosphere in the modern age…how every Spanish speaker is referred to as a Mexican…I guess I sound naive here.

The local church’s problems are compounded by a less that helpful priest for either community. I often wonder, do rurual southern churches so often get these poor candidates because the church figures that there are so few Catholics that who cares what the impact is?

Or does the fact that there is no where else for Catholics to go (next church is more than an hour away) so the priest has little pressure to do well.

Many English speaking families left the church. For many this means leaving Catholicsm. I only go there during inclement weather, prefering the long commute to the local priest. Now there is only one English service a week. It seemed the attitude was that the priest could take the presence of the Spanish-speakers for granted, since there is a coninued wave of Central American immigrants coming here, but many of them are leaving to attend new Spanish-speaking Bible-thumping churches that are cropping up everywhere.

 

[Augustine]

serendipity:

I have some reservations about the way intergration is handled at least in the lcoal parish here.

It puzzles me why many immigrants don’t make the effort to learn English… We speak Portuguese at home only and even when we meet other Brazilians among Americans, we then only speak English out of politeness.

In our case, we did feel a bit lost in the Mass, because the reponses don’t lend themselves to direct translation. And there are a few differences from country to country. So much so that I made my personal ministry to buy leaflets containing the Order of the Mass in English to leave in the parish, so that perhaps other new comers won’t feel lost at Mass and will hopefully feell a bit more belonging.