The Future of Hispanic Ministry
Episcopal News Service. March 19, 1998 [98-2119]
As he looks back over 20 years as head of the Episcopal Church's Hispanic Ministries Office, the Rev. Canon Herbert Arrunategui sees some encouraging signs -- and a, few discouraging ones.
"I am encouraged by the way dioceses are opening their mission strategies to Hispanic ministry," he said during an interview. In the past too often it has been "a foster child, a project, or part of a broad social agenda." There are signs now that Hispanic ministry is moving, if somewhat slowly, towards the status of an "integrated part of diocesan mission, " he said. "It is crucial that Hispanic ministry not be an appendix to other programs. It must be allowed to grow with its own identity, shaped by its own spiritual and cultural idiosyncrasies."
Ministry and money continue to be challenges for developing Hispanic ministries, Arrunategui observed. He is discouraged that the leadership of those ministries "still clings to old patterns, not ready to try some alternative ways of congregational ministry. That's going to be a challenge for some time to come."
In the future, he argues, "we need a better understanding of the church. It is still too culturally centered, too personality-centered." And he is deeply concerned about clergy in the future, convinced that leadership for the future must come from Hispanic congregations themselves. "That is possible, but it will take some time," he said.
In the meantime, his office will continue to serve as an advocate, providing some seed money and trying to link different groups in the church who are interested in Hispanic ministry -- especially dioceses, seminaries and decision-making bodies like the House of Bishops. Interest is growing, he observed, with more openness.
Arrunategui is still worried that change is coming too slowly, that the laity, especially the growing Hispanic middle class, is getting impatient. The appeal of the Episcopal Church is still strong, he believes, because of the familiar catholic shape of the church and its worship. And he points out that the Episcopal Church carries much less dogmatic baggage, much more freedom.
Yet Hispanics have not always felt welcome in Episcopal churches, as he said in an introduction to a study his office did several years ago on "strategies for renewal." While Hispanic communities in the United States are growing and Hispanics are finding their way into Episcopal parishes, "there is a widespread perception that they are not truly welcome in the church, either as parishioners or clergy. Their cultural background is frequently ignored or is not respected in the liturgy and the pastoral care they receive. They often confront stereotypical concepts of who they are, both as Hispanics/Latinos and as children of God," he wrote.
While the need for multi-culturally sensitive clergy is an obvious one for the whole church, Arrunategui acknowledged that "changes are painful, but the new reality in our society and church ministry makes it inescapable that we begin now to bring about a renewal in the way we prepare our future leaders."