Close Encounters

The countdown has officially begun.

Another millennium gathering? Not quite.

Next year, from July 6 to 9, Los Angeles will host a monumental multicultural gathering of Roman Catholics from churches across the nation. The conference at the Convention Center, billed as Encuentro 2000 or Encounter 2000, is an attempt by the nation’s 300 Catholic bishops to open a candid dialogue about race, faith and culture among the hundreds of different groups that now make up the church.

As with a national political convention, to which states send delegates, local churches will soon begin the tough task of deciding who to send to the celebration as delegates from the country’s 177 dioceses.

Historically, the Catholic Church has served as a sanctuary in the United States for waves of immigrants searching for something familiar in a new land. But, even so, the church has not succeeded in making those newcomers feel at home, said Ronaldo M. Cruz, head of the Secretariat for Hispanic Affairs of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops. The result, he said, is that true unity does not exist.

“There is an unintentional segregation. You see churches that have Vietnamese Mass, Polish Mass and Spanish Mass. But in reality it’s not one community. It’s like an iceberg: You see the surface, but you don’t see what’s underneath,” Cruz said. “Encuentro is going to help us become one body in Christ.”

Humberto Ramos, associate director of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles’ Office of Hispanic Ministry, said he has seen how people erect invisible walls.

“We all like to stay in our own niche where we feel comfortable. I think that’s very true in the church,” he said. “The purpose of Encuentro is to bring people together so we can more authentically follow the Gospel. That’s going to be a big challenge.”

Encuentro 2000 is the fourth gathering since 1972 in a continuing series of discussions among Latino Catholic leaders sponsored by the bishops group. During their annual policy meeting in November 1997, the bishops approved plans that would expand the upcoming Encuentro to include not only Latinos, but people from all the ethnicities that are now represented in the church.

The theme for celebration is “Many Faces in God’s House: A Catholic Vision for the Third Millennium.” A subcommittee of four Latino leaders who were active in planning past Encuentros will take the lead in organizing the massive event. They include the Most Rev. Gabino Zavala, auxiliary bishop of Los Angeles for the San Gabriel region. In addition, a national multicultural steering committee was recently named.

“The bishops really had to look at the signs of the times. We are more and more intercultural and have not been able to respond fast enough to those demographic changes,” Cruz said.

Catholic leaders everywhere are grappling with the rising number of immigrants entering the country, especially from Latin and Central America, Asia and Africa.

Cruz said progress has been made on some fronts in ministry to Latinos. A study prepared for the bishops for Encuentro 2000 found, among other things, that budgets for Latino ministries have increased in more than 80% of the nation’s dioceses. Moreover, the number of staff devoted to Latino ministries in Catholic churches has nearly doubled since 1990.

Dean R. Hoge, professor of sociology at Catholic University of America, said clergy are also becoming more tolerant of cultural traditions and indigenous rituals that immigrants bring from their native countries to their new home.

“Not everyone agrees on that one,” he said. “But it seems leaders are becoming less dismissive of it.”

Still, much work needs to be done. Immigrants and minorities who do not feel welcome in the Catholic Church in the United States are increasingly turning to smaller, evangelical churches. The number of people entering religious vocations lags. At St. John of God Church in Norwalk last month only three men became priests, the archdiocese’s entire ordination class for the year. Racial tensions within churches are also an issue that remains discomforting and untouched.

“Socioeconomic gaps are another problem,” said Ramos, who is co-chairman of the Los Angeles Encuentro committee. “There are some churches where the parishioners are upper class and wealthy. Then there are others for gardeners and day laborers. Those people need to come together.”

Encuentro seeks to finally unite those groups at one table. Although the gathering is in the early planning stages, the bishops envision presentations focusing on integration, improving church hospitality and the different ways that each culture celebrates liturgy.

Cruz said he hopes that after Encuentro churches will see themselves as being one in faith. He referred to a portion of the bishops’ theological reflection as a contemporary Catholic mantra.

“I am who I am because of God’s love for me. It is God who seeks me. It is God who loved me first. It is God who makes room for me in his house.”