Preachers Find Converts Among Latinos Alienated From Catholicism

Beads of perspiration covering his face, Juan Ruelas delivers his tirade to a largely indifferent public of shoppers and passers-by at the San Fernando Mall.

“Cowards, effeminates, unbelievers, liars, drunkards and idol worshipers will not inherit the kingdom of God!” Ruelas yells angrily in Spanish, struggling to be heard above the noise of passing traffic. “The kingdom of God is for the valiant!”

“Brother Juan” and his handful of followers from the Body of Christ Church drew derisive laughter and sneers from some mall shoppers. Still, the Pacoima church and others in the east San Fernando Valley are having little trouble finding converts in the overwhelmingly Catholic Latino community.

The evangelists’ success among Latinos worries many Catholics. They say the Catholic Church’s failure to understand changes in the Latino community may be to blame.

1 Million Converts

According to a study by the Chicago-based National Research Center, about 60,000 Latino Catholics shift to evangelist and other Protestant churches nationwide each year and nearly 1 million have converted in the last 15 years.

“It’s something of serious concern to the church,” said Bill Rivera, a spokesman for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles. “We have no problems with the mainline Protestant churches. It’s the small Pentecostals--they are very aggressive in their recruiting.”

Although Catholic churches in the predominantly Latino communities of the East Valley retain large congregations, none can match the rate of growth achieved by some evangelical churches.

The Praise Chapel Christian Fellowship in Sun Valley, for example, began six years ago with a handful of people meeting in a storefront church. Now Praise Chapel claims 350 members who occupy a converted warehouse. And the congregation recently sent ministers to Northern California to start new churches.

“It’s a process of multiplication,” said Tyrone Garay, a 23-year-old minister at the Sun Valley church. “We’re growing because of our evangelizing. We hit the streets a lot, with flyers and posters to expose people to the church.”

The preachers take their militant evangelism not only to shopping malls but also to parks, bars and dance halls. Sometimes the evangelists preach to the youths who cruise Valley streets on weekend nights. Often they openly confront the beliefs of the area’s Catholic majority.

On one recent Sunday, Ruelas’ group distributed flyers explaining why Christians should not venerate the Virgin Mary, one of the most holy symbols for Latino Catholics. And Ruelas said his reference to “idol worshipers” in the street-corner sermon was aimed at Catholics who revere saints, represented by statues in Catholic churches and homes.

A 35-year-old day laborer from Mexico who looks for work on street corners when he isn’t preaching on them, Ruelas said: “The Bible tells us we shouldn’t kneel before any statue. It’s an aberration to God.”

In Pacoima, there are at least six storefront Pentecostal churches on four blocks of Van Nuys Boulevard. Together, the churches form a sort of “church row” interspersed among the boulevard’s hole-in-the-wall bars, pawnshops and housing projects.

Gang Members

Evangelists say the boulevard is fertile ground for finding new converts. Traditionally, the churches have been successful in recruiting members from among the ranks of former gang members and those who suffer from alcohol and drug abuse.

Gilberto Reynoso, a 25-year-old leader in the Church of the Companionship of the Living Word, said he and some of the other 150 members of the Van Nuys Boulevard church are former gang members.

After he was invited to the church by a carnal (Spanish for “blood brother” or close friend), Reynoso said church members took an active interest in his well-being, persuading him to step away from a life of violence.

“They came to my house to talk to me, to see how I was,” he said in Spanish. “It helped me a lot.”

Now Reynoso joins other church members who spend their evenings preaching to patrons of Van Nuys Boulevard bars.

“Sometimes they get mad,” Reynoso said of the bar patrons. “But since we go in a big group, all together, they listen to us.”

Indeed, bartenders at the Nopalito Cafe, El Paseo Dance Hall and other Van Nuys Boulevard establishments said the evangelists are a common sight, drifting among bar stools and pool tables to pass out leaflets and to exhort “unbelievers” to seek salvation.

Those who attend an evangelical service may see and hear something unlike anything that they have experienced before.

Speaking in tongues is not uncommon at Pentecostal churches. And at most evangelical services, the faithful are encouraged to raise their arms and shout out praise to the Lord: “ Gloria a Dios !”

Sometimes the proceedings seem surreal. Before a service Wednesday evening at Reynoso’s church, about a dozen members of the congregation paced about the aisles of the small chapel, wailing eerily toward the rafters.

Reynoso explained that the men were praying. Church members pray for at least 30 minutes before each service, he said, “to feel the power of God. We have discipline here. . . . It’s a spiritual discipline.”

Fight Over Views

The same spiritual discipline also leads members of the Praise Chapel Christian Fellowship in Sun Valley to take their hard-sell evangelism to the streets. This summer, the group made headlines when a spontaneous religious debate with Catholic youths cruising Laurel Canyon Boulevard in Pacoima escalated into a brawl. One Catholic youth and one evangelist were left with black eyes.

“They told me I was Satan,” one 19-year-old San Fernando girl said of the evangelists. “They said I was lost, and they had been found.”

The girl also said the evangelists made fun of her for practicing the Catholic ritual of confession. “It’s false advertising. They’re not peaceful people,” she said. “I was born Catholic, raised Catholic and I’m gonna die Catholic.”

Father Bill Antone, pastor at Mary Immaculate Catholic Church in Pacoima, said the evangelists’ persistent questioning of the Catholic faith and its symbols has caused many of his parishioners to come to him for counseling.

Some come after attending an evangelist service, or after talking to a friend who has joined an evangelist church, he said. “They ask me, ‘Are we adoring something other than God?’ Especially among the youth, it’s a pretty common question.”

Antone said he believes that many Latinos are drawn to the evangelical churches’ lively and emotional services.

“Many people carry very deep anxieties with them, and an emotional way of letting it out is good. But I’m not sure if that’s a long-range solution,” he said. “The answers just don’t fall from heaven. I just don’t find the word of God as I walk on the sidewalk.”

A service at the Praise Chapel in Sun Valley on Thursday night was not lacking in emotion or entertainment. The 300 people who attended the outdoor proceeding in the chapel’s parking lot were treated to sing-along hymns and a concert by a gospel pianist--the chapel itself was recently ordered closed by the Fire Department for building code violations.

There was also the lively sermon of co-Pastor Randy Bautista, who spoke to the audience through an amplified public-address system. “Thank you Jeeesus, and turn up the monitor please,” Bautista said with the crisp, clear voice of a radio announcer.

Garay, the 23-year-old minister, spoke to the congregation of his personal battle with drug abuse. “I’m an ex-cocaine dealer,” he said. “I used to push drugs. Now I push Jesus.”

Before his sermon, Garay said that although he grew up Catholic, he believes that Catholicism no longer fills his spiritual needs.

The Catholic Church is “dead; there’s no hope, no purpose,” Garay said. Many of the members of Praise Chapel are former Catholics who feel that Catholic services are “real repetitive, like religious calisthenics,” he said.

Despite the growth of evangelical churches such as the Praise Chapel, there is little sign of a weakening of the faith at churches such as Santa Rosa Catholic Church in San Fernando.

Each Sunday, the church is filled to capacity for most of the three English and seven Spanish-language Masses. In addition, priests perform about 60 baptisms each weekend. And parents still line up to enroll their children for catechism classes.

Strong cultural traditions, it seems, will keep many Latinos from abandoning the Catholic faith.

“It’s the road that we’ve always taken,” said Jose Esparza, a warehouse worker, when asked why he enrolled his 6-year-old daughter, Magali, and 5-year-old son, Octavio, in catechism classes at Santa Rosa. “It goes back to the roots of my family.”

Nevertheless, Ruelas and his fellow members say they will keep trying to convince Catholics that there is only one true interpretation of the word of God.

The part-time preacher said he and other members of the Body of Christ Church take their marching orders from a passage in the Bible--Mark 16:15--in which a resurrected Jesus appears before the apostles.

The passage reads: “And he said unto them, ‘Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.’ ”