The Spanish-speaking priests in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Tucson need backup.
So diocesan leaders are looking toward lay people to fill the gap.
Hispanic parishioners are the fastest-growing population in the local diocese, but the number of Hispanic and Spanish-speaking priests is lagging. The diocese does not track numbers of Hispanic priests, but the need for more is clear, Tucson Bishop Gerald Kicanas said.
“We could use six Spanish-speaking priests tomorrow,” Kicanas said. But finding them has proven difficult, so the diocese has adopted its first, formal plan for Hispanic ministry.
The 29-page plan, based on input from parish leaders and concepts presented by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, emphasizes lay leadership and youth involvement in the 78-parish diocese.
Part of its mission is to share the responsibility of ministry with the Hispanic laity, said Monsignor Raúl Trevizo, the vicar general for Hispanic Affairs at the diocese. It’s yet to be decided exactly what roles lay people — church members not in the clergy — will be able to play. But sacraments like Holy Communion will be performed by ordained priests only.
“They want to serve,” said Trevizo. “So while they can never replace the priestly ministry, a lot of the pastoral work that the church does can be carried out by the faithful if they are well formed. ... Even if we had many, many more Spanish-speaking priests or Hispanic priests, it would not be enough.”
THE PRIESTS
This summer, the diocese ordained two Spanish speakers to the priesthood. The Rev. Marco Carrasco of our Mother of Sorrows Parish grew up speaking Spanish and English. The Rev. Albert Miranda grew up in the Philippines and went through an eight-week immersion program in Mexico to learn the language and the culture.
Instead of asking a retired, Spanish-speaking priest or one from another parish to celebrate Mass at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, Miranda does it himself. He writes his homilies in English and then seeks help with translation.
The immersion program “plays a pivotal role in order for me to relate to the people,” he said. “Not just the language, but also the culture. I learned the culture, the food, the customs, all of that.”
In the 2014 class of ordinands to the priesthood in the U.S., 15 percent reported a Hispanic or Latino background, a number consistent for several years now.
These priests will serve an adult Catholic population that identifies itself as 34 percent Hispanic or Latino, said a study released in April by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) out of Georgetown University to the conference.
The Rev. John Guthrie, the associate director of the Secretariat of Clergy, Consecrated Life and Vocation for the bishops’ conference, noted that numbers are not everything, and while many Hispanic Catholics are generations removed from a Spanish-only reality, the culture and language still have significance in creating a diverse but unified church.
“It’s also about having communities and vocations directors and people within the church that may not speak Spanish but could have intercultural competency,” Guthrie said. “It’s not just about the Spanish-speaking part of it.”
THE LAITY
The Diocese of Tucson’s new plan aims to build up future leaders among laity and young people who can bridge parishes that often seem divided by English and Spanish, said Sister Gladys Echenique, coordinator of the Office of Hispanic Ministry and a main developer of the plan. She is quick to note that this will take years.
Despite the work of individual parishes, the diocese has never had a widespread strategy for investing in and training the Hispanic community.
Now, several levels of certification will prepare Spanish-speaking laity for leadership roles within the diocese and through community outreach, giving clergy a standard for gauging competency.
“We are not in little towns anymore, where one priest can know every single family and go spend some time with them, one on one,” said the Rev. Jorge Farias-Saucedo, the diocese’s vocations director and a priest in residence at Our Mother of Sorrows, 1800 S. Kolb Road. “There is no way that one priest or two priests are going to be attending to the needs of every single family.”
THE YOUTH
Investing in young adults is another way the diocese plans to build community through involvement. Farias-Saucedo, who moved to California from Mexico City as a 14-year-old, remembers the identity split between Hispanic and American cultures.
“You’re looking for God,” he said. Without enough priests and leaders speaking Spanish and understanding the culture, young people may go elsewhere.
“That desire of wanting to be more in contact with God, that feeling that God is listening to me? Of course they’re going to go into non believing...” he said. “Or there are small, evangelical churches that they will go to that are there with them, and they are small communities and make you feel welcome and that you’re part of the family.”
There are many reasons for a religious switch. Today, 47 percent of Hispanic Protestants and 61 percent of Hispanics with no religious affiliation were raised Catholic.
Among Hispanics who have converted from their childhood religion, 70 percent made that change before the age of 24, said a study on “The Shifting Religious Identity of Latinos in the United States,” released in May 2014 by the Pew Research Center for Religion and Public Life Project.
“We want to help the Hispanic population, to help them feel part of our church,” Echenique said. “Especially the young adults so that they can be leaders, because the Hispanic youth, their reality is different. They speak English, but in their home they speak their own language and their own culture.”
Forming personal connection with the church can make the difference in retention and future leadership. For example, 80 percent of priests in the class of 2014 were altar servers at one point, and 49 percent were involved in a parish youth group, the CARA study said.
Some of those youth may become priests one day. But it’s likely that more will be involved as lay people — and the church needs more people in both groups who speak Spanish and understand Hispanic culture, Farias-Saucedo said.
“It’s not only about celebrating Mass,” Farias-Saucedo said about his relationship to the laity. “They need to have a priest to hear their confessions. They need a priest who knows the culture, not only the language, to give them advice.”
