V Encuentro Proceedings and Conclusions

98 | Proceedings and Conclusions of the V National Encuentro of Hispanic/Latino Ministry VI. Ministerial Area Team • Episcopal Moderators: Seán Cardinal O’Malley, O.F.M. Cap., Archbishop of Boston; and Most Rev. Mario Dorsonville-Rodríguez, Auxiliary Bishop of Washington. • Co-Leaders: Kathia Arango and Marilyn Santos. • Panelist: Peter Casarella, Ph.D. 8. FAITH FORMATION AND CATECHESIS I. Vision Members of the Hispanic community bring the richness of their faith tradition, family-centered worldview, and profound sense of God’s presence in daily life to the life of our Catholic Church in the United States. The local parish community needs to: provide spaces in which they can be protagonists in articulating and celebrating their faith and religious practices as gifts for the Church; support and encourage Hispanic families to nurture, celebrate, and share faith at home; and identify ways in which the Church can nurture faith through family- centered faith formation models. II. Social and Religious Context in Hispanic Ministry • Parents have a very important role in the formation of their children’s faith, but they are not always prepared to undertake and fulfill that responsibility. • New faith formation models and materials are needed that respond to the current reality of Latino families, welcoming everyone and preparing them to share their gifts in the Church and society. • There is a clear decline in Hispanic/Latino religious participation between the immigrant and subsequent generations, indicating a need to help parents communicate the faith in the midst of cultural and linguistic transitions. 7 • Language is a big challenge—it is sometimes difficult to find bilingual Latino catechists, and in some places the children speak less and less Spanish. • There is a great need to strengthen the training of catechists and offer them dynamic and easy to handle materials, grounded in the lived reality and experience of Latino Catholics. • Hispanics account for 71 percent of the growth of the Catholic population in the United States since 1960, and 62 percent are U.S.-born, yet about one in four Hispanics is a former Catholic. Responding to their faith formation needs is vital for the future of the Catholic Church in the U.S. 8 • There are about eight million school-age Hispanic Catholic children, but barely four percent of them are enrolled in Catholic schools. Catholic schools represent an underutilized resource to strengthen the faith formation of young Hispanic/Latino Catholics. • Most young Hispanics are significantly influenced by the faith, culture, and language of their parents. It is very difficult for a parish catechetical program to compensate for what is lacking at home, but in the best case it should strengthen and harmonize with what parents provide. • Most dioceses and parishes in the country define Hispanic ministry mainly as ministry in Spanish with a focus on immigrant populations, yet in many parts of the country the Hispanic community is a bilingual reality. The Church should respond accordingly. 7 Christian Smith, Kyle Longest, Jonathan Hill, and Kari Christoffersen, Young Catholic America: Emerging Adults, In, Out of, and Gone from the Church , Oxford University Press, 2014. 8 Hosffman Ospino, “10 ways Hispanics are redefining American Catholicism in the 21 st Century” America , October 30, 2017. Ministerial Area Sessions