THE PAPAL VISIT : Pope to See Changing Face of Latinos in San Antonio

Altagracia Torres will be in a sea of brown faces welcoming El Papa this evening to Our Lady of Guadalupe parish, the activist heart of this predominantly Mexican-American city.

Pope John Paul II is scheduled to speak--in Spanish--in the small plaza across the street from the church at what is billed as one of the most intimate public gatherings of his nine-city U.S. tour.

Torres, 72, a lifelong parishioner who terms the Pope’s visit “something sacred,” has been praying that she holds onto her seat--one of only 3,000 at the plaza. She tenses when she thinks that she might be bumped by a bishop or a deacon.

“I respect bishops and priests,” Torres said, “but no more than the winitos (little winos) two blocks down the street.”

Though she walks with the aid of a metal walker, Torres, a large woman, is no pushover. She dismisses the “politicking” for the seats with a wave of her hand.

“The Pope’s no fool,” she said. “He knows who he is coming to see, that there is a necessity to see us and us him.”

America’s estimated 17 million to 21 million Latino Catholics are indeed a subject of great interest at the Vatican.

When the American bishops met with the Pope in Rome a few years ago during their last official visit there, they were forcefully questioned by Vatican officials about Latinos in their dioceses.

By one account, some of the bishops were startled and some “almost rattled” under questioning from the officials, who seemed to know more about Latinos in their dioceses than some of the bishops did.

Earlier this year, when a smaller group of bishops met with the Pope in Rome for a week, John Paul wanted to know how the church in the United States was preparing to help illegal aliens under the new U.S. immigration reform law, according one bishop.

As many as 40% of U.S. Catholics are Latino, and some church leaders believe that the Pope’s U.S. tour is, in large measure, a visit to Spanish-speaking American Catholics.

In Miami, where nearly three out of four Catholics are Latino, the pontiff was welcomed to the United States by throngs of Cuban-Americans, the area’s predominant Latino group.

Across the Mexican-American Southwest, as in Los Angeles, fully one-half of all Catholics are Latino. In Texas, the proportion runs as high as 75%. In Phoenix, another stop on the Pope’s tour, it is about one in three.

“I think the focus of the Pope will be very much to affirm and welcome the Hispanic community into the full life of the church,” said Los Angeles Archbishop Roger Mahony. “He is very, very conscious of (Latinos’) importance.”

When the Pope comes to Our Lady of Guadalupe, he will see one of the poorest communities in San Antonio. On hot summer days, old people and immigrant families escape to the porches of their weathered, ramshackle wooden homes. Deteriorating public housing throughout the area is home to hundreds of families who are too busy with problems of survival to be involved with the church. Some have only a vague notion of the Pope’s plans to visit the neighborhood.

Yet, even in the midst of their poverty, Mexican-American Catholics in this city’s West Side barrio have sustained a rich religious tradition. Sixty years ago, women in the neighborhood sold tamales to finance construction of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the modest, redbrick church known as “the heart of the West Side.”

A plaque at the church’s entrance declares, “The Mexicans of San Antonio” built this church “for their patroness, the Virgin of Guadalupe.” The brown-faced virgin appeared to an Indian in Mexico more than 400 years ago, according to church tradition, and became a powerful symbol of liberation for a conquered people.

The little church has lived up to its name. Over the years, Torres has supported activist priests who were outraged by extreme neglect of the neighborhood.

Coalition of Parishes

More recently, with the church’s backing, Torres and other parishioners have built Communities Organized for Public Service, a coalition of parishes that has changed the way politics in the city work.

In 1970, before COPS was organized, San Antonio’s Archbishop Patrick Flores was named the first Mexican-American bishop in the United States. With Flores’ blessing, a professional community organizer assisted West Side parishes in organizing COPS. Over its 14-year history, the militant parish-based organization has scored some impressive victories.

In 1981, with the balance of political power rapidly shifting in San Antonio, Henry G. Cisneros was elected the first Mexican-American mayor of a major U.S. city.

COPS has changed the face of San Antonio, and Latino Catholics here see the Pope’s visit to Guadalupe parish as a strong affirmation of their culture and of their vehement, church-based social activism.

Theme of ‘Parish Ministries’

Given the parish’s activist tradition and the fact that the Pope has chosen to talk on the theme of “parish ministries” here, Flores said the pontiff’s visit further validates Guadalupe’s approach of ministering to its people--”not only spiritually, but materially and socially.”

The church’s recognition of its Latino constituency is a relatively recent occurrence.

Theologian Virgilio Elizondo recalled that “just 15 years ago, we had to convince (church officials) that there were even Hispanics in the church.” Some officials, he said, saw the issue of Latinos in the church as a “passing fancy.”

Since Flores’ consecration 17 years ago, 18 other Latinos have been appointed bishops, including Los Angeles Auxiliary Bishops Juan Arzube and Armando Ochoa. Latino bishops now also head the archdiocese of Santa Fe, plus the dioceses of Fresno; Tucson, Ariz.; El Paso, Tex.; Corpus Christi, Tex., and Las Cruces, N.M.

But church leaders bemoan the dismally low number of Latino priests--fewer than 2,000, or about 3% of the U.S. total. Most of them come from other countries. The number of native-born Latino priests is 250 out of nearly 60,000 nationally of all backgrounds.

In a 1983 pastoral letter, “The Hispanic Presence: Challenge and Commitment,” American bishops termed the shortage “one of the most serious problems facing the church in the United States.” They blamed general neglect of Latinos and the failure of seminaries in attracting and holding Latino candidates.

Church leaders also blame neglect for the growing inroads into traditionally Latino Catholic ranks by Protestant proselytizers. Latino church leaders have urged greater flexibility in allowing more participation by lay Latino leaders in the church.

Meet Seminarians

“This is a crucial moment in U.S. church history in regard to the Hispanic,” said Elizondo, pastor at San Antonio’s San Fernando Cathedral, where the Pope will meet with seminarians today. “I think a lot will depend on the way the church welcomes and celebrates the Hispanic presence.”

Latino Catholics are generally more traditional in their religious beliefs and more supportive of church teachings than U.S. Catholics as a whole. A 1985 national survey showed that in contrast to their Anglo counterparts, most Latinos agree with the church’s stance against abortion and premarital sex. Still, the survey found that fewer than half accept the church’s anti-contraception position, and the proportion was even smaller among the young.

Latinos overwhelmingly describe religion as being very important in their lives. Embracing a more personal expression of faith, Latino Catholicism is marked by such traditional practices as maintaining home altars, devotion to the saints and parental blessings of children, the survey found.

Altagracia Torres’ mother was among the women who cooked at community jamaicas , or bazaars, to raise money to build Our Lady of Guadalupe in the early 1920s.

“People would come from miles around,” she recalled. “There was food and the bands played. . . . We may be poor, but we’ve always found time to celebrate in this parish.”

That tradition of celebration will continue when choirs, mariachi groups and folk dancers welcome John Paul to Guadalupe. Men in the parish have been busy painting church eaves. Parishioners have organized dances and other fund-raisers. Torres and other parish grandmothers completed a tapestry they plan to present to the Pope.

Even Latino prisoners at the county jail painted a mural of Our Lady of Guadalupe to serve as the backdrop for the Pope’s speech at the plaza.

The outdoor plaza will be filled with parishioners from Guadalupe and nearby parishes, as well as representatives from Latino parishes across Texas.

The fact that the Pope is coming to Guadalupe, when he could have picked one of the wealthy parishes in San Antonio’s North Side, means a lot to Torres.

“People are always putting down this community,” she said. “They’re afraid to come into the West Side.”

Torres is defensive about the neighborhood’s reputation as a poverty-stricken, high-crime area.

“This is my barrio and it hurts,” she said.

Torres remembers when Father Carmelo Tranchese brought the first public housing to the neighborhood. The Jesuit said at the time that he was moved to action by “long rows of miserable huts . . . dirt roads that became impassible with mud when rain fell . . . faces etched with hopelessness. . . .”

The neighborhood was often singled out as the worst slum in America; the death rate was about three times the U.S. average.

During the 1930s, Tranchese established a clinic in the community and supported the neighborhood’s striking pecan shellers. He also made a personal appeal to First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and was successful in bringing the first federal housing project in the city to Guadalupe parish.

‘Poorest People’

“A (papal) visit to the Hispanic community is a visit to poor people,” said Father Rosendo Urrabazo, president of the Mexican-American Cultural Center in San Antonio, the only institution in the country doing systematic research on Latino Catholics. “The Pope is not only visiting Hispanics, he is visiting the poorest people in the United States.”

In their 1983 pastoral letter, American bishops expressed respect for Latino culture and embraced “the quest for justice as an eminently religious task.”

In recent years, Latinos have come to feel more welcome in the church. Masses are now said in Spanish. There is often mariachi music in Latino churches and a greater respect for traditional Mexican religious celebrations.

But Latino leaders maintain that the church still has a long way to go in the “quest for justice.”

“Fifteen years ago, we were fighting to have Masses in Spanish,” Urrabazo said. “Now we’re saying it’s not enough. We need the church to help us organize our people to address the pressing social and economic issues facing Hispanics.”

Urrabazo added that American bishops appear to be out of touch with the needs of Latinos. Citing recent surveys by the research center, Urrabazo said that bishops believe that cultural issues are the primary concern in serving Latino Catholics. Latinos surveyed, meanwhile, say their top concerns are economic.

“So, while bishops are thinking cultural identity and traditions, the people are thinking bread and butter,” Urrabazo said. “We need to close the gap.”

Urrabazo noted that most improvements in housing, street drainage, health care and education have come to San Antonio’s West Side only in the last 14 years. He credits these improvements to COPS.

Torres recalled Father Edmundo Rodriguez and COP’s early days fondly. Torres taught catechism and was active in a number of church organizations, including the Guadalupanas, a traditional woman’s group devoted to Our Lady of Guadalupe. With Rodriguez’s encouragement, Torres also became part of the first wave of parishioners to join COPS.

The Jesuit pastor opened the church door to Ernesto Cortes, then a young professional community organizer. Cortes, a West Side native, had returned to the community with economics and training at the late Saul Alinsky’s Industrial Areas Foundation and a degree in economics. Alinsky, a self-proclaimed radical, advocated using confrontation as a tool in seizing power for the powerless.

‘Our Piece of the Pie’

With the strong support of church leaders, the church-based organization that Cortes helped build has grown to include 27 West Side parishes.

“Through community organizing, we’ve made the city more responsive to the needs of Hispanic people by exercising our rights as citizens to participate in the democratic process . . . for our piece of the pie,” said Urrabazo, COPS’ secretary.

Similar parish-based coalitions have been organized in other cities, including the United Neighborhoods Organization of East Los Angeles, one of four such groups in the Los Angeles metropolitan area.

Despite the church-based groups’ continuing growth and demonstrated success, Urrabazo said they remain the exception, rather than the rule, across the Southwest.

“Their work is a drop in the bucket compared to the needs that are out there,” he said. Nevertheless, describing San Antonio as “a model of cooperation between business, government and community,” Urrabazo contended that the city is a forerunner of things to come in a Latino Southwest.

‘Dominant Themes of Our Time’

Mayor Cisneros calls the church’s growing involvement in social justice issues across the Southwest “one of the absolutely dominant themes of our times.”

While economic clout in San Antonio remains in the hands of Anglo businessmen, the Latino community has seized its share of political power, said Cisneros, who has named his infant son in honor of Pope John Paul. Cisneros maintains that the church is providing a positive and stabilizing influence by encouraging citizen involvement.

“I’ve seen this with my own eyes in San Antonio,” he said.

What has evolved, he said, is “a Hispanic community that is very traditional, in the sense of wanting to participate in the political process . . . very institutional, very family oriented.”

“Its values,” Cisneros said, “are fundamentally church and American values.”

THE POPE’S DAY: SAN ANTONIO Sunday, Sept. 13: All times are local to the area.

NEW ORLEANS 8:40 a.m. Departs New Orleans Airport for San Antonio

SAN ANTONIO 10 a.m. Arrives Kelly Air Force Base 10:25 a.m. Celebrates Mass at Westover Hills Mass Site 4 p.m. Popemobile parade to Municipal Auditorium 4:30 p.m. Meeting with Catholic Charities USA and social action leadership, Municipal Auditorium 6 p.m. Visits San Fernando Cathedral, greeting by Archbishop Patrick F. Flores; meeting with Texas Seminarians, and men and women in religious formation programs 7 p.m. Parade to Our Lady of Guadalupe Plaza 7:15 p.m. Address in Spanish on parish life, Our Lady of Guadalupe Plaza 8:30 p.m. Greeting by Polish-Americans of Texas at archbishop’s residence ARCHDIOCESE OF SAN ANTONIO

Established: 1874

Archbishop: Patrick Fernandez Flores (installed 1979)

Catholic Population: 567,000 (48% of total archdiocese population)

Parishes: 135 covering 27,8000 square miles

Priests: 370

Nuns: 1,200

Researcher Nona Yates assisted in preparing this story.