I think the problem with my post is the use of the word “hatred”.
Allow me to explain this, so that no one is offended.
When I use the term “hatred” or “hate” in this context, I’m not speaking of an evil that we call hatred. I’m using it just as we would use it when describing something that we don’t like, something that feels very foreign to us, something that we rather not use or have.
If I’m choosing between two cars, lets say a Doge and a Toyota. I may say, “I hate that one, but I love this one.”
Do I literally habor evil feelings for one car? No.
I could just as easily have said that in my many years working and living among Latin Americans I have observed that it’s a very complex community where one size does not fit all, because there are many prejudices, memories, conflicts in their history, insecurities and cultural differences that makes people apprehensive about things. I can say all of this, leave out the word hatred and still be totally correct.
The Latin American community is not as simple as some make it out to be. Therefore, in pastoral care, one has to be very sensitive to these differences, invite without imposing and wait patiently.
When you’re in Mexico, Puerto Rico, Cuba, etc, pastoral care is much easier than in the USA where you have many cultures from Latin America in one place. The great advantage to pastoral care here is that faith actually makes friends out of mortal enemies. The best example that I can offer are the people of Ecuador and the people of Peru.
If we were back in either country, they would tell you that they’re mortal enemies and have been for a long time, all over a piece of land on the southwest side of Ecuador that Peru annexed and Ecuador still holds that it was an unjust theft.
However, bring them to the USA and they are drawn together by have they have in common and they lay aside the differences. It’s necessary for their survival here. Spanish and Catholicism are the strongest bonds between them.
However, that does not mean that we can give them one size Catholicism either. They have their faith history, which one cannot deny or ignore. That would be disrespectful. Imagine being in a parish of Mexican Americans and ignoring the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe or the Feast of St. Juan Diego, but celebrating the Feast of Our Lady of Charity of Cobre, because there is a small Cuban community in the parish and we just assume that since they’re all Catholic, it makes no difference which title we use to honor Mary. The would be a very poor assumption.
Rather than go into this whole long analysis of the Latino Catholic community, I tried to summarize it and present it in bullets. Even this is not a complete analysis, but it’s more than what is needed here.
We must also remember that the purpose of the OP was to share his thoughts on the EF and the Spanish speaking community. I just simply broke down how the Spanish speaking community is composed.
If that’s a crime, prove it.
