JAZZ
MUSICIANS
ENTERTAIN AT
BLACK HISTORY
FESTIVAL
-SEE PAGE 15
Fordham Jesuit Lectures on Catholic History.*.
By JACK SNEDAKER many, and France 'and the second wave
Loyolan News Writer came from Poland, Italy and
Czechoslovokia, among other countries,
s the Catholic Church continues to Fitzpatrick pointed out that these im-
redefine its relationship to the migrants brought the Catholic faith with
American society, new problems con- them and that each country had di¬
stantly arise. In the second of his series ferent ways of practicing the faith,
of lectures last week at LMU, Father Therefore, the United States became one
Joseph Fitzpatrick sought to examine huge melting pot of various ethnic
some of the problems the Catholic groups, each with different Catholic
Church of today faces when attempting backgrounds.
to serve all the different ethnic groups in The problems each group faced were
the United States. obvious. First of all, they had to decide
Fitzpatrick, distinguished author and how they would deal with the American
Professor of Sociology at Fordham society of that time, which was compos-
University, compared and contrasted the ed mostly of white Anglo-Saxon Pro¬
problems the Church faces today with testants. Secondly, the ethnic groups
the problems it faced around the turn of had to decide how they would deal with
the century, when millions of im- each other. The objective of achieving a
migrants poured into the United States unified Catholic Church seemed dif-
from Europe. ficult to attain.
In the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, Fitzpatrick asserted that before a
there were two massive waves of im- unified Church could be achieved, the
migrants, both from different parts of different ethnic groups would have to in-
Europe. The first wave included im- tegrate themselves into the American
migrants from England, Ireland, Ger- society. However, before this could oc-
...And Current Role of
cur, each group would have to build alleviating the problem of a unified
some sense of community within itself Catholic Church at that time,
because, as Fitzpatrick asserts, one in- However, the Church of today faces a
tegrates from a position of strength, somewhat different problem. Fitz-
never frojn a position of weakness. patrick stated that New York City alone,
Therefore, all the different ethnic between the years of 1917 and 1980, lost
groups established parishes within their 1 ,750,000 people of European
individual communities for the purpose background. These have been replaced
of practicing the Catholic faith and to by 300,000 Asians and 1 ,400,000
strengthen their position in the Hispanics. The Catholic Church now
American society that seemed so foreign faces the influx of a new generation of
to them. This security of neighborhood immigrants from different countries
gave them the confidence to go forth than before. Moreover, these new inl¬
and integrate into this society and, as migrants are primarily poor and, since
Fitzpatrick specifies, they accomplished
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did not bring their own Catholic
this primarily through the intermarriage clergy over with them, they have to rely
of different ethnic groups. on the Catholic clergy already present in
Fitzpatrick, author of Hispanic Inter- the United States.
marriage in New York City in 1975, The problem today takes on the
adopted the study of intermarriage of nature of a social class. The Catholic
racial groups as one of his fields of clergy in America is predominately from
speciality within the realm of Sociology, the middle class and therefore lacks the
He pointed out that the intermarriage intimacy needed to evangelize the lower
that occurred after the early immigra- class immigrants of other cultures,
tions is what led to the integration of Thesc new immigrants cannot turn to
these ethnic groups into our society, thus (continued on page 11)
Hispanics in the Church
By ELIZABETH S. DELGADO
Loyolan News Writer
Fr. Joseph P. Fitzpatrick, a guest
lecturer from Fordham University
in New York, presented a lecture last
week on “Hispanics in the Church.”
Fitzpatrick 'is a sociologist who has
dedicated a great part of his career stu¬
dying and working with Hispanics,
specifically with the Puerto Rican
population in New York%
The focus of his talk was on the U.S.
Catholic Church in relation to
Hispanics. As an introduction, he
presented statistics and the demographic
changes that are taking place within the
Hispanic population. “The future of the
church, if things continue going the way
they are going, by the middle of the next
century will be predominantly Hispanic.
Thisris not a guess, it is a reality.”
Fitzpatrick gave a reliable estimate
that there are 20 million or more
Hispanics— close to 10 percent of the
U.S. population. The exact number of
Hispanics in the U.S. is unknown
because of the undocumented popula¬
tion that is not accounted for.
Moreover, he estimated that possibly 40
percent of the 52 million Catholics in
1983 were Hispanic.
“The future of the
church... by the middle
of the next century,
will be predominantly
Hispanic.”
. . — ' I II — — — — SSSS
“The total population of the U.S.
keeps diminishing and very soon it will
reach zero population growth,” Fitz¬
patrick said. “The population of the
U.S. is declining while the youthful
Hispanic population is expanding very
rapidly. If the present trend continues by
* _ Loyolan photo by Bob Sanregret
Rev Joseph Fitzpatrick, a guest speaker from Fordham University in New York,
delivered a series of four lectures last week, in conjunction with LMU’s Lenten Sym¬
posium: Faith That Poes Justice.
the year 2050 the church will be
predominately Hispanic and what the
European immigrants meant to the
church of the 20th century, the Hispanic
immigrants will mean to the church of
the 21st century.”
A second issue that he dealt with was
the continuity of language and culture.
The main question is: Are Hispanics go¬
ing to be able to keep their culture or are
they going to follow the same pattern of
former immigrants? Fitzpatrick
presented as an illustration the example
of his own family experience: he is a
third generation Irish, describing his
style of life as a middle class American
Catholic with nostalgic interest in the
Irish background. He reiterated that
third generation European immigrants
are very similar to him.
As a last point, he dealt with the issue
of culture stating that “religion can’t ex¬
ist unless it expresses itself within the
framework of culture. God will accept
anyone from any background who will
“Religion can’t exist
unless it expresses itself
within the framework
of culture.”
accept him”.
Hispanics find themselves dependent
on a ministry of predominantly
American culture. As in the case of the
European immigrants, it is very likely
that Spanish may be lost among
Hispanics, he observed. Sociological in¬
dicators such as education, occupation,
income, intermarriage are increasing
and it begins to look like the Hispanics
in the second and third generations are
following the same pattern as the Euro¬
pean immigrants.
“We have to begin looking at the fac¬
tors that affect the continuity of the
culture and language of the Hispanics
such as the proximity between the U.S.
and Mexico,” he stated.
At the end of an excellent and infor¬
mative lecture, Fitzpatrick allowed for a
question and answer period. He
answered questions on the issue of im¬
migration and the Hispanic opposition
to the Simpson/MazzoU bill. He also ad¬
dressed the issue of the Hispanic
.Pastoral letter — a strong plea for
cultural pluralism, containing social and
economic facts about Hispanics.
Fitzpatrick ended the lecture by
stating, “I am obliged according to the
scriptures to exert myself on their behalf
to liberate them from oppression and in¬
correct injustices. *>’ II
