Evangelicals, Catholics Fight for Latino Souls

The continual stream of Latino immigrants into Orange County has sparked a battle for their souls that church leaders predict will last throughout the 1990s.

The struggle has pitted the Catholic Church, for centuries the predominant religion among Latinos, against evangelical Christian groups competing with increasing success for Latino converts.

As a result, besieged Catholic leaders are now being forced to grapple with the realities of a rapidly transforming flock--an issue they say they can no longer ignore. While Latinos will comprise the majority Catholic group in the next 10 years, the church lacks enough Spanish-speaking priests or those with adequate knowledge of Mexican, Central American and South American religious customs.

Church officials are particularly concerned about the defection among Catholic immigrants, but also worry about losing Latinos who have lived here all their lives.

“With the absolute explosion of the immigrant population, the church hasn’t been able to keep up,” said Jaime Soto, the Diocese of Orange’s Vicar to Hispanics.

In 1970, the county estimated its Latino population at 7.2%. The RAND Corp. estimated the 1985 figure at 16% and predicts a 21% Latino population by the year 2000.

Many newly arrived Latinos hunger for a passionate, inspiring ministry that reaches them on a deep emotional level, say observers. An increasing number come to Orange County already converted to Protestant sects. And 23% of Latinos in the United States now identify themselves as Protestant, said Tom W. Smith, director of the General Social Survey for the Chicago-based National Opinion Research Center. According to Gallup polls, the figure was 19% in 1986 and 16% in 1972.

The fastest-growing local Latino churches are charismatic, where immigrants find emotional, spirit-laden services, lively music and lay leadership, said Carlos Piar, lecturer in religious studies at Cal State Long Beach.

“There’s none of the staid organ hymns, Gregorian-chants type of thing,” said Piar, former pastor of the Spanish-language Emanuel Baptist Church in Fullerton.

As the rivalry grows, it evokes anxiety and accusations.

Catholics complain that their competitors’ “anti-Catholic” tactics have torn Latinos from their roots.

“My one big complaint with the Pentecostals is that I have consistently encountered an anti-Catholic edge which seems to undercut of the positive aspects of Christianity in this country,” said Soto. “It disturbs me with this new immigrant population.”

One Catholic seminary student, whose family migrated from Mexico 10 years ago, said his two brothers, converts to Jehovah’s Witnesses, called him an “anti-Christ” and refused to talk to him for more than a year.

“It’s been dividing my family against me,” he said.

But Protestant evangelicals such as Daniel de Leon, pastor of Templo Calvario in Santa Ana, say they are only responding to needs the Catholic Church has left unfilled.

“A little sheep, if not fed by the shepherd, will go looking somewhere else for food,” said de Leon, whose 3,000-member church is one of the largest Latino evangelical churches in the country. His church had just 100 members in 1976.

He predicts that the rivalry for souls will continue for years.

“If the economic, social and political problems persist in Latin America, we will continue to see a great influx of Latins in our country. Obviously, the Hispanic church in America will have a great opportunity to win them over to Christ,” de Leon said.

At a Sunday Spanish-language service, the sanctuary was packed with well-dressed men, women and children. On the altar, flanked by an American flag and a Christian flag, a band played beneath a lighted cross. De Leon says he does not advertise because there is no more room on Sundays in the 60,000-square-foot condominium-style converted warehouse that holds the sanctuary and offices.

As the congregation sang hymns in Spanish, ushers passed red velvet bags for the collection. On an average Sunday, the church collects $18,000, de Leon said.

The money comes from believers like Frank Lopez, 32, a junior high school dropout who spent 12 years in prison before turning to religion. Even when he cannot afford to pay his bills or buy groceries, Lopez said, he tithes to the church. When he gives, he said, his landscape maintenance business grows and his family becomes closer. He plans to earn his high school diploma and further his training to become a counselor.

With a $1-million annual budget, Templo Calvario has opened 40 missions associated with the Assembly of God in Latin America and two in the United States.

De Leon says he plans to expand his congregation to 6,000 during the 1990s and establish 15 new churches in the United States. The first one, Templo Calvario in Riverside, was launched in August. Under the leadership of de Leon’s brother, Lee, the church will open for services Jan. 1.

At Santa Ana’s Centro Cristiano, another of the 40 Spanish-language evangelical congregations in Orange County, many immigrants gather several times a week to worship. On hard pews arranged in a warehouse, they sing, beat tambourines in time to lively Latin music, offer testimony in Spanish, speak in tongues and take part in faith-healing ceremonies.

Member Angie Martinez, a single mother of two, said the faith she found in the Pentecostal church helped her to forgive the husband who deserted her and to look forward to a 10-hour-a-day job as an electronics assembler. “I saw joy and happiness here,” she said.

The last survey of Latino Protestant churches in Southern California, in 1985, showed 80 congregations in Orange County and 687 in Los Angeles County. Those figures have increased about 10% each year since, said Clifton Holland, president of the Orange-based In-Depth Evangelism Associates, a nonprofit research organization.

The Protestants’ success is forcing soul-searching not only among Orange County Catholics, but at local and national levels.

The Catholic Church will need to abandon its “ostrich mentality” regarding the mushrooming numbers of Latino immigrants on its doorstep, said Father John Lenihan, pastor of St. Boniface Catholic Church, an Anaheim parish where Latinos are the majority group. Faced for years with the fact of massive immigration, many Catholics thought “if you don’t see it, it might go away, or they hoped they would be Anglicized, or capable in the English language,” he said.

While 50% of the 700,000-member Orange Diocese is Latino, only 17%, or 40 of 225 priests, are Latino, according to diocese statistics. Only 60 of 353 masses are celebrated in Spanish.

While the ratio of priests is 1 to every 2,000 Catholics countywide, it is only 1 to 8,000 Latino Catholics. Not only does the diocese need more Spanish-speaking clergy, but also those who understand cultural customs such as quinceanera , a religious coming-out ceremony for 15-year-old girls, he said.

Diocesan priests in Los Angeles and Orange counties have been required since 1987 to learn Spanish before being ordained at St. John’s Seminary in Camarillo.

But considering the continued shortage of priests of any ethnicity, Soto said, “Our great hope is the Hispanic people themselves, especially in the lay movements.”

A variety of lay movements, called comunidades de base, or base communities, has taken hold at Anaheim’s St. Boniface, a parish that has evolved from 20% to 50% Latino in the past five years.

In many respects, the techniques used to attract Latinos mirror those of the evangelical Protestants.

The church has a 200-member charismatic prayer group, a Youth For Christ or Jovenes Para Christo group, a weekend retreat called cursillo , marriage encounter, and door-to-door evangelizing to barrio immigrants.

Delia Varela, a Catholic immigrant from Mexico, visits her neighbors in Anaheim to explain her faith and help with their problems. She said people are unused to seeing a Catholic with a Bible and often mistake her for a Protestant. She believes living by the Catholic rules is more difficult for people than Protestantism and said many people have converted because the evangelical churches give them money, food or gifts.

“The Hispanic coming up from South America is nominally Catholic for the most part,” said Father John Lenihan, the parish priest. “They are usually very uneducated in their Catholic faith, which renders them very susceptible to a strong personalized outreach.”

Combating Protestants is a full-time occupation for Karl Keating, founder of the San Diego-based Catholic Answers.

Keating, a former lawyer, said he uses both emotion and doctrine to bring back those who have forsaken Catholicism. His talks are in English and Spanish and stress biblical rather than papal authority. “If you don’t talk Bible verses and meanings, they won’t take you seriously and they shouldn’t.

“Our position is the Catholic Church is true and, all things being equal, one has a better chance of getting to heaven as a Catholic than a non-Catholic.”

Catholics are “still playing catch-up,” Keating said. “It will take awhile. In 20 years we’ll be every bit as prominent in evangelization as the fundamentalist churches, even more so.”

PASSING THE PLATE--Thousands of county poor enjoy free turkey and trimmings. B1

LATINOS AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH--Waves of Latino immigrants to Orange County are forcing the Catholic Church to re-examine the services being provided to its changing flock. Half of the 700,000-member Diocese in the county is estimated to be Latino. Only 60 out of 353 masses held in Orange County are celebrated in Spanish. Out of 225 priests in the county, only 40 are Latino. The ratio of priests to Catholics is 1 to 1,000. The ratio of priests to Latino Catholics is 1 to 8,000 Source: Diocese of Orange