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Walking into the brick church of the Immaculate Conception on West Chapel Hill Street in Durham, North Carolina, the feeling of smallness, often encountered in European Cathedrals, overtook me. The vast sanctuary, with its high vaulted ceilings and exposed wooden beams links the church to its European heritage, while its minimalism embraces a contemporary American style. The sanctuary's sleek white walls are covered only with modern, gold Stations of the Cross, stained-glass windows depicting the statements of the Apostles Creed, and a small modern silver and gold painting of a crucifix hanging over the altar. Within minutes of my arrival, the church began to fill for Saturday evening's 5:30 mass, complete with the musical accompaniment of a guitar, keyboard, and small four-person choir. Although Catholics of all ages came to celebrate mass that day, most of them were Anglos. Those who have not visited Durham in the last six years or so might assume that most of those who celebrate the liturgy at Immaculate Conception are predominately Anglo. However, Immaculate Conception parish reflects the change in the community of Durham.
Since 1990, the Latino population in Durham has grown nearly five-fold from a barely visible minority, to a population whose strong presence in the area is attested by the rapid increase in Mexican restaurants and Latino markets. Hispanics, chiefly from Mexico, began coming to North Carolina in the early 1990s to work in construction, food services and other industries that grew in response to the population boom in Durham, Raleigh, Chapel Hill (the Research Triangle) and the outlying areas. The number of Latinos currently living in the Research Triangle is difficult to measure, however it has been estimated from 150,000 to 250,000.
Although today Immaculate Conception is a large and vibrant parish of approximately 3,200 members, it began in 1906 to serve 110 Catholics. The parish grew slowly in the late sixties, fed in large part by the development of Research Triangle Park (RTP), which houses technical and research firms such as Glaxowelcome and IBM. The RTP attracted Catholics from the North to the Bible belt, and those newcomers found that being Catholic in the South was very different. Father John Heffernan, O.F.M., associate pastor at the church, explained:
In the North being a Catholic is somewhat commonplace. You . . . in a sense loose your identity because you don't have to think about being Catholic . . . You don't have to explain it. [In the South, however,] the general public lacks understanding and you're somewhat forced to explain yourself . . . The reflection enriches the experience.
In recent years, Catholics throughout North Carolina have spent less time reflecting upon where they fit in the Protestant South, and much more time discussing how to meet the needs of the many Latino Catholics who have come to North Carolina from Mexico and other Central and South American countries. As a result of this influx of Catholics, churches throughout the area have grown faster than ever before. Membership at Immaculate Conception, for example, rose from 2,332 in 1992 to 3,172 in 1998, as more and more Latino Catholics, approximately 600 as of 31 July 1998, found their way to the church on West Chapel Hill Street. Large numbers of Latinos, however, began attending Immaculate Conception only in October 1996. Although the Bishop of Raleigh designated St. Matthew's, the newest Catholic Church in Durham, as the home church for Latino Catholics, they were drawn to Holy Cross, a much smaller, historically African-American Parish, also in Durham.
Holy Cross' appeal came primarily from its modest size and the charismatic personality of its former pastor, Father Bruce Bavinger, S.J. Since many Latinos felt comfortable with Father Bruce, in 1988 they asked him if he would create a Latino ministry for them at Holy Cross. For eight years, Father Bruce led the Latino ministry at Holy Cross, where they instituted bilingual, instead of Spanish language, masses in an attempt to inhibit the segregation of the parish based on language. When Father Bruce's tenure at Holy Cross ended in 1996, however, the church discontinued their bilingual masses. Several reasons were given for the change: Holy Cross no longer had a Spanish-speaking pastor or a space to accommodate the growing number of Latinos. The church also felt that given its size and current resources, it could not fulfill its mission to minister to the African American Catholics of Durham, and meet the Latino's needs adequately. Many parishioners agreed. They hoped that this decision would serve to bring the two congregations, which had not come together as the church had desired. Other Holy Crossers, realizing that this decision would dramatically reduce the number of Latinos in the parish, hoped for a different solution. These parishioners enjoyed the increased diversity that the Latino presence brought to the church, which already included whites, Africans, and Asians, as well as African Americans.
Many of the Latino parishioners at Holy Cross interpreted the cessation of bilingual masses as a call for their departure, rather than an effort to incorporate them. Thus, the majority of the Latino immigrants, who had made Holy Cross their home in 1989, walked out of the church on 13 October 1996, taking their statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe with them. Immediately after they left Holy Cross, the Latinos asked Father John Heffernan at Immaculate Conception about making that church their parish home. Since that time, Immaculate Conception has devoted time and energy to the challenge of bridging the congregation's language and cultural differences.
As Father John commented, "We thought it was important to do what we could to inhibit the creation of a separate parallel community." Thus, whereas many communities feared that the increasing Latino presence might be too disruptive to their parish's established identity, Immaculate Conception has reached out to these new North Carolinians. Father John leads the Hispanic ministry at Immaculate Conception, and is one of three Franciscan priests who have been stationed there since 1996. In that year, Bishop Gossman, the Bishop of Raleigh, asked the Franciscan Friars of the Holy Name Province to serve Immaculate Conception. Three Franciscan priests answered the Bishop's request: Father David McBriar, O.F.M., the pastor, and associate pastors Father Patrick Tuttle, O.F.M. and Father John.
Father John, who ministered to Latinos in New York City, offers a bilingual mass each Sunday and facilitates parish-wide celebrations for Our Lady of Guadalupe, the patroness of the Americas. He also offers preparation for marriages and baptisms, as well as celebrations of the presentation of three year-olds, and quince años. Along with these specifically religious events, the parish has invited many Latino children into its daycare program and into its school. Parishioners offer classes each Sunday in Spanish and English. The parish also manages programs which supports the myriad of needs of Latino people in Durham. The church's leadership, that is, not only works to help its parishioners, also tries to help any dispossessed person in the city of Durham. Father John, for example, serves on the board of the Hispanic Center in Durham, and Immaculate Conception participates in Durham Congregations in Action, an ecumenical community organization that responds to the needs of the homebound and those who live in substandard housing. As advocates for the rights of all people, Immaculate Conception attempts to embody a gospel that expects its followers, in the words of Father John, to "take the side of the powerless, who for us in Durham includes the immigrants, jobless people, families who struggle in whatever way . . . So we embrace them and do our best to reach out, integrate."
Immaculate Conception's goal of integration extends to the children's faith Formation classes. Approximately five hundred Latino and Anglo children attend the classes, in which they learn Catholic beliefs and practices, using the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd Program. Sofia Cavalletti designed that instructional program in 1954, by applying Maria Montessori's educational techniques to a religious context. Montessori (1870-1952) believed that children should be treated as individuals who learned best through interactions with the world, in age appropriate ways that engaged their senses. Advocates of the Montessori method sum it up this way: "The Montessori classroom provides order and structure through a safe and enriching environment which allows children to learn at their own speed, according to their own capabilities, in a way that they enjoy, in a non-competitive environment." (1) Thus, using the method in a religious setting, children come to understand Catholic doctrine through their explorations, in a prepared environment, or atrium, that contains models of objects used in Christian worship, such as the altar, bibles, and vestments. The children investigate these objects in small groups, moving from one station to the next when both the students and their teachers feel that they have reached an understanding of the lesson they were exploring. For instance, while a small group of children learn the books of the Bible, another group might come to a better understanding of the Last Supper by using figurines of Jesus and his disciples to enact the biblical passages they heard on Sunday. By using this tangible, child-centered approach to religious education, Ms. Barbara Pegg, the director of Faith Formation, hopes that each child at Immaculate Conception will engage in a conversation with God that enriches her/his personal relationship with Him her/his own pace, rather than simply memorizing creeds, ritual gestures and bible stories. Thus, Ms. Pegg measures the program's success on a child by child basis, concluding that the program has succeeded if it has transformed an individual child's relationship with, and understanding of, God.
Using the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd has also served to help Immaculate Conception deal with its most pressing issue: the integration of the new Latino parishioners into their church family. Relying on instructed play and personal experience as the basis of religious education has allowed the Spanish-speaking children to participate more fully in the Faith Formation classes, which they attend with their Anglo counterparts. By watching and listening to the Latino children in these classes, the Anglo adults have also learned how different one community's Catholicism can be from another's. Ms. Pegg, for instance, had this realization when she listened to the Hispanic children's response to a question about the origins of Our Lady of Guadalupe, and Mary:
The children were telling stories about chickens and geese, and I thought, 'where is this coming from?' I thought they were conflating their scripture with something else, or getting the stories confused. I said, 'You remember who Mary is.' And I started telling them the bible story. Later, I was talking to an Anglo women [who is] married to a Mexican man, and she was telling me what they did at Christmas. They didn't just have a nativity but [she said you] put everything related to your family in with the Holy Family so that you are part of the Holy Family. They put in chickens, geese, and this year they even had a McDonalds. The rule is that nothing has to be to scale, so it doesn't mater if your baby Jesus is bigger than Mary and Joseph, as long as its there. They put their practice at home into the nativity, so that it isn't just about having the requisite number of wisemen and shepherds.
From this experience, Ms. Pegg understood that many Latinos approach the scriptures differently from herself. She explained, "They read themselves into the text, asking what does this mean in my life," just as they place themselves and their family into the nativity scene. Small realizations like this one help to bring the two communities, Latino and Anglo, closer together.
The desire to bring the Anglo and Latino parishioners together in worship and fellowship within the parish seems to stem from an understanding that each community has something important that it can teach the other. As Father John emphasized, "it's appropriate. . . . to sort out . . . . what's good from what the people bring and what's good from what we have and come to a melding and a better experience for us." The Anglo community, for instance, according to Ms. Pegg, can teach the Latinos more about scripture, while the Latinos, Father John explained, can offer the church an opportunity to regain the "imaginative images, symbols and stories that are the richness, ancient richness, of the Catholic Church" since before Vatican II. In this way, the Latinos provide the church with an avenue to deepen the sense of mystery and the sacred that Catholics today seek. Many members at Immaculate Conception, for example, welcome some of the Latino traditions that venerate the Blessed Virgin Mary. As the church works to meet the needs and traditions of the Latino community in relation to those of its Anglo parishioners, it continues to move slowly and carefully toward greater understanding of the two communities.
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