In the near future, the majority of Catholics in the United States will be of Hispanic origin. Hispanic’s rich culture, deep spirituality, respect for life, and love of family are tremendous gifts by which millions of parishioners throughout our country contribute to the vitality of the local Church.
Tag: Hispanic Catholics
Hispanics join in national effort
 |
||
| Carlos Hernandez, Hispanic ministry director for the Diocese of Green Bay, stands with Francisco Sanchez from St. John the Baptist Parish in Waunakee and Juan Estrada from Cathedral Parish in Madison during the recent diocesan training session for “V Encuentro” at Holy Name Heights in Madison. (Catholic Herald photo/Kevin Wondrash) |
MADISON — “We are in a very crucial day today,” said Edgar Martinez, positively looking ahead to the start of a training session on July 7 at Holy Name Heights in Madison.
Martinez, member of St. Thomas Aquinas Parish in Madison, is helping to lead the efforts of the Diocese of Madison’s role in “V Encuentro” — a series of meetings that will take place over the next few years aimed at getting to know Hispanics and producing more involvement in the Catholic Church of its second largest and fastest growing community.
Encuentro is a national effort on behalf of the Catholic Church in the United States to respond to the needs of Hispanic Catholics and to strengthen the ways in which Hispanics respond to the call to the New Evangelization as missionary disciples serving the entire Church.
Spanish translation |
||
| A Spanish version of this article can be read here. |
Encuentro means “encounter” and this encuentro is the fifth such series of meetings held in the United States since the first in 1972.
According to the V Encuentro website (https://vencuentro.org), there are more than 38,000 Hispanic Catholics in the Diocese of Madison. That is about 15 percent of the total number of Catholics in the diocese.
The training session’s goal was to bring together the Hispanic ministry leaders from the 16 parishes in the Diocese of Madison that have them. The leaders included priests and laity.
Martinez said the first step in the process is “to organize everyone from the base, from the parish to the diocese and so on.”
Opportunity knocking: Catholic school answers the call by recruiting Hispanic students
Although there are still many strong Catholic schools across the United States, trends show a continuing decline in the number of Catholic schools and students attending those schools.
According to data from the National Catholic Educational Association (NCEA), in the past 10 years, the number of Catholic schools across the country has decreased by 23.8 percent from 8,114 to 6,841. The enrollment in Catholic schools has dropped by 23.4 percent from 2,320,651 to 2,031, 455.
Most of the enrollment decline has been experienced at the elementary school level. It is estimated that there are almost 700,000 empty seats existing in Catholic schools.
Number of Hispanic Catholics growing
The number of Hispanic Catholics in the United States is growing by leaps and bounds. Hispanics now comprise 35 percent of all Catholics and 67 percent of practicing Catholics aged 18 to 34, according to a Notre Dame report, To Nurture the Soul of a Nation: Latino Families, Catholic Schools, and Educational Opportunities (December 2009).
According to the report, only about three percent of Hispanic students currently attend Catholic schools. Many families would like to send their children to Catholic schools, but they think they can’t afford to do so.