Latino Girl’s Coming Out Rite

Claudia Puig’s article (Feb. 2) concerning the Catholic Church’s dilemma with “Latino Girl’s Coming Out: Costly Rite” impressed me.

Although quinceaneras are not an official celebration of the church, they are a rite of passage for many of those who are of part Indian descent. Quinceaneras are also part of what reconciled Latinos with the Catholic Church after the slavery and cultural invasion of the Conquest.

Different cultures bring different things to the church’s celebration of life, and its sacraments as well. Different cultures celebrate the sacrament of marriage in different scales. Not all who participate in these cultural manifestations of faith attend Mass every Sunday or have relatives in the Knights of Columbus or belong to other church-based organizations.

True, the rite of passage for 15-year-old Latino girls (quinceaneras) is often an expensive extravaganza. True, some families do take out mortgages on their homes to pay for it. And true, it did evolve from an Indian ritual.

So what is the church to do, impose spending limits on manifestations of faith? Restrict days of celebration to strict church-going events? Ban the four-leaf clover and the St. Patrick’s Day parade because its too social?

It is typical of the Catholic Church to “promote primitive rituals to a modern expression of commitment,” and an insult to American Latinos that some priests have chosen to tell us what to hold dear in our culture as it relates to the church.

ADAN ORTEGA

Los Angeles