Latino Community, With Church’s Help, Is on Move

While attending Celebracion ‘86, the colorful religious fiesta sponsored by Los Angeles’ Roman Catholic Archdiocese recently to reaffirm its ties to the Latino community, I recalled an argument that I had with a Chicano activist in 1969.

He was helping to organize a group called Catolicos por la Raza (Catholics for the People) to pressure the Catholic Church’s hierarchy into doing more for the many Latinos in its flock. Latinos were already the largest single ethnic group in the local Catholic Church. Today more than 65% of the 3 million Catholics in the archdiocese--Los Angeles, Ventura and Santa Barbara counties--are of Latin American extraction.

The ardent young Chicano wanted me to support Catolicos. But while I agreed that the local hierarchy needed to be more sensitive to Latinos, I feared that he and other activists were jumping out too far ahead of many Latinos, who were still very loyal to the church and uncomfortable questioning the wisdom of its leaders. I suggested that they might get farther trying to work with the church rather than attacking it from the outside.

He disagreed vehemently, and the conversation ended with him telling me, “With or without you, the community is moving on this.”

“The community.” Activists used the phrase so easily back then--some still do--without really defining what they meant.

Yet that phrase kept crossing my mind as I looked around Dodger Stadium during Celebracion ’86. The enormous structure was nearly filled with people praying and singing and cheering Archbishop Roger Mahony’s announcement of a “Plan for Hispanic Ministry.” The plan commits the local church to work harder not just to meet the spiritual needs of Latinos but also to help them in their struggle against the social ills that afflict many barrios.

Among other things, Mahony said that the church will establish centers to help the homeless and immigrants, sponsor activities to control gang violence, provide additional scholarships and other educational resources for Latino students in parochial schools, and organize groups of Latino clergy and lay people as a means of improving communications between church leaders and grass-roots Latinos.

The crowd was the largest gathering of Catholics here since the mid-1950s. It was almost certainly the largest gathering of Latinos that this nation has ever seen. By contrast, the largest Chicano demonstration ever held, an anti-Vietnam War protest in 1970, drew only half the nearly 50,000 who showed up to hear Mahony.

So if there was ever a gathering of Latinos in this country that could truly be called a “community meeting,” Celebracion ’86 was probably it. That’s why so many Latinos, even non-Catholics and Catholics alienated from the church for many years, were inspired by it.

That is what I tried to make my activist friend understand in 1969--that if Latinos could find a way to work with the church, they would find it a potent force on their behalf. Because for Latinos the Catholic Church is not just another institution. As Mahony noted in announcing his pastoral plan, there is “a close link between faith and Hispanic culture.” And even in a secular society such as this one, organized religion and churches have been key forces behind important social and political movements, from abolition to civil rights.

That is why I believed in 1969, and still do, that if there is one social institution that unites most Latinos in this country--who are a more diverse people than is often realized--it is the Catholic Church. And if anything can inspire Latinos to tackle as daunting an assortment of challenges as youth gangs, drugs, unemployment, school dropouts and illegal immigration, it is their religion.

I have become even more convinced of this view in recent years with the continued success of activist groups such as the United Neighborhoods Organization of East Los Angeles and the South-Central Organizing Committee, which are built around Catholic churches and Protestant congregations. And I’m glad to see that the new archbishop feels the same way.

Of course, using the church to speak out for social change will be controversial. Mahony already is being criticized for his stance on immigration issues, even by fellow Catholics. But the bishop is a decent and moral man, and politically astute as well, so he should be able to maneuver through the controversies engendered by his activist stance.

So there is no turning back. After Celebracion ‘86, the local Latino community will never be the same. The young activist with whom I argued so long ago no longer lives in Los Angeles, but I suspect that he has heard about Mahony. “The community” is, indeed, on the move.