Archdiocese looks to Latin America for priests

By Elizabeth Gibson
Medill Repotrs - Chicago

Rev. Rene Mena didn't realize what he was getting into when he came to the U.S. to become a priest.

"I expected the church in the U.S. to be just like Mexico," he said. "I thought I was going to be like a monk, you know, and wear a long, white cassock."

Instead, Mena said he makes house calls to the sick, baptizes children by the dozen and worries about the homeless in Little Village. At his church's Augustfest, he wore a plaid shirt as he swept up napkins from the sidewalk in front of St. Agnes of Bohemia Catholic Church.

"Here you have to be a priest with the people, of the people, for the people," he said.

Mena is the product of an Archdiocese program called Casa Jesus, seen as a solution to the local shortage of priests.

Casa Jesus targets Latin American men and recent arrivals to recruit and train future priests who can speak Spanish, relate to Latino cultures and act as role models for Hispanic youths.

The program prepares them to enroll in U.S. seminaries - but graduates are supposed to serve the whole Archdiocese, not just Latinos.

Rev. Adan Sandoval was assigned to Orland Park after his ordination in May. He grew up as the eighth of eleven children from a little Mexican mountain town named Santa Maria. Now he preaches in one of Money magazine's picks in 2006 for the top 50 places to live in the U.S.

He's a hit there, but Spanish skills aren't essential.

It's proof, some say, that even predominantly English-speaking parishes are in search of priests as well. The Chicago area had 910 priests active in parish work in 1985 compared to about 636 in 2007, according to church records. During the same period the Catholic population shrunk but only by a fraction of a percent.

Partly due to American materialism and the cross-cultural aversion to celibacy, local parishes aren't producing many Hispanic seminarians, according to clerics familiar with the situation.

So the Church has relied on the program for two decades. Still, the Archdiocese estimates that it has 1.2 million Spanish speakers and about 37 Latino priests, including about 30 from the program. It also estimates the Hispanic population in its territory will grow about 11 percent from 2005 to 2010.

"If you add all those numbers, you don't have enough to have one priest per community," said Rev. Claudio Diaz Jr., director of Hispanic Ministry for the archdiocese. "My God, you can't even really say who's at the top of that list of parishes in real need for a priest."

The Chicago archdiocese is struggling to meet the needs of a church community where 42% of the parishioners speak Spanish and about 17% speak only Spanish, church officials said. And that's not counting the unknown number of unregistered congregants, Diaz said.

"There are very few priests with the cultural and language abilities to help serve these people," said Rev. Alejandro Garrido, director of Casa Jesus. "We're trying to help them as well as the larger need for priests."

Casa Jesus occupies a former convent at 750 N. Wabash Ave., two blocks west of Michigan Avenue. It runs an English language and cultural immersion program where Latino men live at the house to prepare for St. Joseph College Seminary at Loyola University or for the University of St. Mary of the Lake in Mundelein.

The program hasn't changed much since it opened with four students, said Garrido, who was one of those original students.

Casa Jesus is home to 12 students this year, and the newbies just arrived for orientation. Recruits have included foreign seminarians, ice cream truck drivers, teachers, factory workers and youth group leaders.

For orientation, the students have been free to speak Spanish as they unpack their clothes, test out the pingpong table in the basement and chat over plates of pizza and enchiladas. But as the year passes, English will become the norm.

Days begin with Mass at 7 a.m., English as a Second Language classes at University of Illinois at Chicago and weekends volunteering at adopted parishes for about $50 a week.

So far it's an energetic bunch, said Becky Swab, an ESL instructor at the university. Men from Casa Jesus and the students in Abramowicz House, the Polish equivalent, got a head start before the other ESL students join class this week.

While learning phrases such as "I am standing" and "I drink water," the students seemed to be good-humouredly competing to see who could be the orneriest on a limited vocabularies.

Dramatic gasps greeted Chavez's declaration of "I - don't - like - Coca-Cola."

Across from him, Fermin Cavazos broke into a grin and used the chance to practice subject-verb agreement.

"You - are - crazy," he recited. "You are crazy. He - is - crazy."

The education system is becoming more demanding: Local seminaries are requiring higher language and culture test scores before students can start this year.

Rev. Thomas Baima, provost for St. Mary of the Lake, said the schools are trying to end a habit of settling for remedial academic performances while students bring their English skills up to speed.

Rev. Sandoval, for example, said he flunked his first class at St. Joseph College. He said he even tried taking an audio recorder to lectures.

"I remember spending a lot of time after class trying to understand what the class was about," he said. "If I wanted to be a priest, I had to pass these classes. So I asked God for help and I prayed and studied harder."

Most students finish the program at Casa Jesus, but only about 60% go on to become Catholic priests, Garrido said. The program has produced some 30 ordained alumni.

Although Casa Jesus has completed 20 school years, it can take an additional two years of pre-theology and fours years of graduate work to earn a master's degree in divinity and be ordained.

Many agreed that local recruits, particularly bilingual second-generation youths, are the missing element. But no one seems to know how to attract young Chicago Hispanics.

Most Mexican immigrants are buying into the American dream - money and class mobility, said Teresa Galvan, a parishioner at St. Maurice Catholic Church in Chicago's McKinley Park. U.S. parents want doctors and lawyers, not priests, for children, she said, and the children would prefer just to play video games.

Non-Hispanic sectors of the church are having the same problems, but they're magnified for Latinos because of the surge in the Mexican immigrant population, Chicago priests said.

Still, with 148 of more than 360 parishes providing Spanish ministry, non-Hispanic priests are taking care of most Latino Catholics, said Diaz of the Hispanic Ministry.

Bilingualism has gone from optional 20 years ago to an assumption in Chicago for Latino and non-Hispanic clergy, church officials said.

Spanish Masses at St. Maurice Catholic Church begin with "Buenos dias." But, unlike most of his parishioners in McKinley Park, Rev. Michael Boehm is not from Mexico.

Despite mutual affection, parishioners and Boehm said Latinos deserve Hispanic priests to represent them.

"We love all priests as long as they're priests," Estella Abundiz said at St. Maurice. "But we do feel more comfortable with Mexican people."

The Catholic Church is dealing with a tangle of demands.

Many Hispanic immigrants want Masses in Spanish, but sometimes their children prefer English. Even people who like English services often want a priest literate in Hispanic culture, however.

Then there's Rev. Jose Antonio Delgado, a Peruvian Casa Jesus alumnus. He said that just when his parishioners in Little Village started to compliment his grasp of Mexican slang, he moved to a parish on the Northwest Side with fewer Mexicans.

Delgado said the Mexican jokes he picked up don't make sense to his new Puerto Rican parishioners, and the Guatemalans aren't too fond of Mexican food. When he prayed for a Mexican soccer victory, a man came up after Mass and pointed out that Mexico was playing Ecuador. So why wasn't God cheering for Ecuador too?

"What I hear through my Peruvian ears, I might not have understood," he said. "It would be easier if we came from a homogenous background, but we don't."

St. Genevieve Catholic Church in the Craigin neighborhood is on the road to becoming a completely Latino parish, Delgado said. Half the Masses are in English, but the attendees are getting grayer and fewer. He estimates the parish is already more than 90% Hispanic.

"We need Latino priests and Casa Jesus does a good job preparing us," Delgado said. "It's not standard ministry from a can anymore. You have to adjust, and sometimes the only common ground will be our faith."