09-21-2015, 01:26 AM
So much, once again, for the idea that Mexican immigrants will save the Church in the U.S. They come here and become Prot or lose their faith altogether. Yay. From the Wall Street Journal:
Generation Gap Among Catholic Hispanics
Children of immigrants turning away from church, but dioceses are reaching out
By Miriam Jordan
Sept. 20, 2015 3:00 p.m. ET
Jeffrey Nigoche, a 23-year-old born in the U.S. to Mexican immigrants, is typical of many young Hispanic Catholics. His mother took him to Spanish Mass as a child, but during his teen years, he lost interest in religion.
Then, a few years ago, he began attending the Catholic Charismatic Center in Houston, where Mass boasts a festive atmosphere with live music.
He recently switched to Mass in English, his dominant language outside of church, though like many second-generation immigrants, he is in transition: “I still struggle a little with the prayers in English,” he said.
Immigrants who flocked to the U.S. from Latin America in the 1990s and the early 2000s have fortified the Catholic community in areas like Texas’ Harris County, which includes Houston and is home to 4.4 million people.
But experts say the church’s fate now depends on those immigrants’ children, who are overwhelmingly U.S.-born and whose numbers are increasing rapidly, according to census data. And like other young people, their engagement with organized religion is tenuous, posing a challenge to parishes.
Enter Gabriela Karaszewski, director of the Galveston-Houston archdiocese’s young adult and campus ministry, who recently enlightened Roman Catholic lay leaders about the millennial generation that is crucial to their future.
“We see a lot of first-generation Hispanics in the pews,” Mrs. Karaszewski told the gathering in a church classroom in Galena Park, a heavily Hispanic city just east of Houston. “The second generation we don’t see as much in Mass or church activities.”
About 40% of the roughly 80 million Catholics in the U.S. are Hispanic, up from 29% in 2007. That share is likely to grow because Hispanics are younger, on average, than whites. The median age of Latino Catholic adults was 42 in 2014, while the median age of non-Hispanic Catholics was 53, according to the independent Pew Research Center.
Yet the percentage of Latinos who identify as Catholic is slipping. It is a worrisome trend for Catholicism in the U.S., running counter to the perception that the church’s fortunes will rise in tandem with the growth of the nation’s largest minority group.
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A Pew report released earlier this year found that Catholicism in the U.S. has suffered a net loss of adherents, who typically have either switched religions or joined the ballooning ranks of the religiously unaffiliated.
Tracking the national trend, 1 out of 5 Hispanics surveyed identified as unaffiliated compared with 24% of whites and 18% of blacks. Among all U.S. millennials, 35% said they have no religion, up 10 percentage points from 2007. Just slightly fewer Latino millennials, 30%, said they were unaffiliated, up from 17% in 2007.
“The Catholic church as an institution needs to make the case that being Catholic is relevant today and that it adds something to the lives of young Latinos,” said Hosffman Ospino, a professor at Boston College’s School of Theology and Ministry.
“If the Catholic Church can do this, it will survive,” said Mr. Ospino, who wrote a 2014 study about Hispanic ministry in Catholic parishes. “If it becomes irrelevant to [young Hispanics], it will experience decline.”
To be sure, many young adults cut back on organized religious activities as they begin careers and leave home, only to return when they start families.
But there is another dynamic at play among young American Hispanics, many of whom don’t relate to the Catholic experience of their immigrant parents or grandparents who as newcomers found spirituality and support at church.
As Latin American immigration soared, the Spanish-speaking worshipers reinvigorated parishes in big cities like Los Angeles and small towns like Ottumwa, Iowa, home to aging or shrinking white Catholic populations. The immigrants brought their children to Spanish-speaking churches for Mass, baptism and confirmation.
But as English became their dominant language and they assimilated U.S. culture during adolescence, members of the new generation shed their religious roots and identity, like many other American millennials.
The Galveston-Houston archdiocese, one of the country’s largest, offers a glimpse of the demographic transformation of the U.S. Catholic church and efforts to engage young Americanized Latinos.
About 61% of the 1.4 million Catholics in the Houston metropolitan area are Latino, according to Rice University’s Kinder Institute for Urban Research. The archdiocese has been catering to Hispanic immigrants for years.
But with an eye on the future, the Galveston-Houston archdiocese is now offering grants to enable hundreds of Hispanic young adults to attend training to become lay leaders and do outreach to fellow youngsters. Currently, 60 young-adult groups are led by such lay leaders. The groups typically meet on a weekly basis to pray, discuss how to lead a Christian life and exchange personal experiences.
On a recent Friday evening, about 25 members of a group called “Nuevo Imagen” gathered at Assumption Catholic Church in northeast Houston.
Most were immigrants like Edgar Bautista, a car mechanic who left Guatemala alone seven years ago to find work in Texas to support his parents. “I found a second family in this group,” said Mr. Bautista, 27 years old. “I have no one here; it filled a void.”
The gathering also attracted U.S.-born Hispanics such as Jonathan Ramirez, 27, the son of Mexican immigrants. Mr. Ramirez said that he had “come around” and returned to Catholicism six years ago after accepting an invitation from a friend to join the group.
But his 26-year-old brother hasn’t been swayed, he said. “When you are born here, you don’t necessarily feel you need the church anymore.”
The archdiocese is making a concerted effort to engage Hispanics born and raised in the U.S. with relevant programming, its leaders said. On a recent Saturday it hosted a free Christian-themed pop concert that drew about 3,200 Latinos to the George R. Brown Convention Center.
Latin American artists sang to Jesus Christ in Spanish at the event, Cielo Abierto (Open Skies), backed by special effects, dramatic lighting and mega screens. Animated characters evocative of Disney’s Pocahontas, conveyed biblical messages of mercy and salvation.
But at a Tex-Mex restaurant near the convention center, one of the waiters, 22-year-old Frank Rodriguez, told a story of disengagement with religion that was more typical of young Americans. He devotes his Sundays to a baseball league, which attracts many Latinos, instead of church, he said.
“I got my sacraments and all that,” said the Mexican-American. “After, I stopped going to church.”
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