Quinton Interview

The person being interviewed talks about their involvement in Hispanic ministry. They started helping teach English to Hispanic children in their youth ministry. They also helped with the Spanish language ministry and attended Spanish mass. They have been involved in various ministry activities, including teaching catechism in Spanish and giving talks in Spanish. They discuss the presence of Hispanic parishes and Spanish masses in their area. Their perspective of Hispanic ministry has changed over time, seeing it more as ministry to individuals rather than a separate category. They also mention that many Hispanics see themselves as part of the broader church community rather than a distinct group. Okay, I'll go this way. I'll still be here. First question. Good. I'm making these questions up a little bit as I go because you're not the person I thought I would be interviewing. I could play a role? Yeah, if you could pretend to be Alfonso Guadalupe. Okay. He's from Venezuela. Venezuela. Actually, there was a man who came this morning. Did you see him? No. He was looking for a bathroom. He came into your room asking for a bathroom. Yeah. He was real up. He was on the second floor. Third. Yeah. Okay. What has been your involvement in the Hispanic industry? And for how long have you been involved? Well, I was in... I probably was in 10th grade my first year. So that's when I was on the dole fund. 10th grade. I'm currently in 18th grade. But I mean, I haven't been completely thinking of this. But yes. So I... Let's see. In 10th grade, the youth ministry people, like the young kids, they called it EDGE. Oh, yes. That's what we're doing at the middle school. That's what we're doing at the middle school. Or no. I think it was a pre-EDGE group. Like 6th or 7th. The period down. But not the young kids. But anyway. They needed somebody to help teach that. And that was just the English. My own parents had English. Yeah. They needed somebody to help teach it. And I had just been confirmed. And I wanted to do it. So I was helping with that. And the parish is like, in the youth ministry, it's like half of the kids are Hispanic. Way more than that. And so... But all the volunteers and the catechists and whatever, they're all English. Yeah. And there was like a sister, a religious sister, who was helping for a while, who spoke Spanish. And then she was gone by this time. So there was nobody that knew any Spanish at all. And so they had... And I didn't know Spanish either. But anyway, they had me help them talk to parents. That was Hispanic ministry. The Spanish language ministry. And most of the kids were Hispanic. That was my introduction to... But then I... And then I was started... And I was attending Spanish math every Sunday. Oh, really? Yes. Because my parents didn't go anymore. So I was by myself. So I switched and started going every Sunday. And I did like... I tried to do this. But I couldn't do it. It was a little intense. Like I did patients across. Or were you just trying to learn Spanish? That was part of it. But also... Yeah. I liked being... Yeah, it was the language. But I liked being with those people in particular. Yeah. So... And then I had a lot of friends there. So the people I grew up with. Oh. But that wasn't really... That part wasn't ministry so much. Yeah. Have I ever done a Spanish? Yes, I have. And... So I... Okay, so that's like... Like I said, it's ministry. It's regular ministry. But it's mostly Hispanic. By default. But then... My first year... So I did that... I did that all the last years. Of high school. So, yeah. I did that for like... Two or three years. Then... I... My first year in seminary, my apostolate was catechism in Spanish. At Good Counsel Church in Newark. And... What was my apostolate? RU! Yeah, RU at Good Counsel. And they had... They had an English language program and a Spanish program. And probably there were some Hispanic kids that went to the English program too. But... But the Spanish language program was the only Hispanic. And I was at that one. And then it was run by some sisters. Uh... I don't know if that's Spanish. It was called Missionary Catechism. Missionary Catechism. And MCT. And so they were there. And they ran the program. And I was on a whole bunch of catechism. But I was on... Seminary. And... Actually, I only do. Period. Um... Yes. And so I taught different... I rotated and took different groups. I didn't have my own class. I would fill in when someone wasn't there. Or take a... Or like... Sit in with a teacher. So like I was going around to all the great schools. Pre-confirmation. What else? And then just like... There's just been a whole bunch of ministry. Like... I'm trying to think if I did anything else that wasn't explicitly Spanish. That's not possible. I don't think so. But I... But then like... There's just been a bunch of random ministry things. Like I mean like... I mean serving... I've been in seminary and serving. And like when we do evangelization team in the summers. So going to people's... It's like going to people's houses. Just seminaries. And eating and talking with them about whatever. Usually it's like... People's life stories about their immigration and their family that's back home. And like the difficulties of... For some of them the difficulties of not having legal status here. Or haven't had somebody get deported. Or haven't come over with... Had to pay a coyote a lot of money to get brought over. Haven't been across the river or that kind of stuff. Usually hear a lot about that. And then also people just have questions about the faith that they want answered. So they'll have seminary to work with that. Or like... Or about their... It's usually thoughts that they've lost somebody. Or their family. Or somebody's worried about their kid. Yeah. I think that's the extent. I've been teaching. I've been like helping do informally teach seminary in Spanish. But not to Hispanics. I mean that's important. Yeah. I don't know any... So... Oh, and I guess evangelization... I've given a bunch of talks in Spanish. I've never given a whole retreat. But I've given retreat talks. Or also just... Or like... Or we just have like a talk at the parish that we invite everybody to on the theme of spirituality or seeing. Yeah. Do most of the parishes in Uruguay or in Arkansas have like a Hispanic worship? Because I know like in Edmondsville we have like six parishes that have Hispanic worship. And the rest of them don't have anything at all. But in like Owensboro there's like a... I don't know, two or three Hispanic parishes. And then most of the other ones have like a Spanish mass or something. Yeah. We... I don't know if we have any exclusively Hispanic parishes. But there are a lot that are predominantly Hispanic. And then there are... And then I would guess... I'm guessing, but... I mean, more than three-fourths have Hispanics in them. And then I don't know what number have masses. Probably... I mean, more than half have Spanish masses for sure. More than half of the parishes. So yeah, the general... the bishop's like general strategy is just if there are Hispanics living somewhere, have a Spanish mass there. So, at least that. So, that is almost everywhere. Okay. Yeah. But we have more Hispanics than non-Hispanic Catholics in the state. Oh, really? Yeah. It's like 50... I don't know if I'm doing it right. I think it's like 55%. Okay. Okay. Yeah. How has your vision of the Hispanic ministry changed over time? Or has it? Or this might be a better question. Well, I kind of have an answer to that. I think that I didn't... I probably cared about it at first from like a social justice perspective, which is legitimate and I still have that. But I don't think I appreciated it as ministry. So, like probably it was like a social justice thing in the same way. Because I also did like... I was in like a couple of what do you call them? In Spanish they're called manifestos. They're like protests but not really protests, but like not angry. Those people there are angry. They're like getting in rallies for like pro-immigration and stuff. When I was in high school. I think that I thought of Hispanic ministry as something pretty much exactly akin to that. But just in the... among church people. So it's like I just have a general goodwill towards Hispanics as their social justice thing. But now I see it a lot more as ministry. As in like... Like I see... I don't know. I see individuals a lot more. Like I just see... I see less distinction between... I think yeah probably I considered Hispanics like categorically before. So like they're a category of people that are kind of because they're in this special circumstances they deserve special kind of treatment and that sort of thing. As a whole in the bottom right group. So like now I just like when I think Hispanic I think more like the individual people I've met and they don't seem as distinct. Like I just see them as much more interesting people. And so ministry is naturally just like going to be even. It's just ministry. I don't know. Maybe I don't really believe in Hispanic ministry. Well let's... I had... When I was interviewing a lady that is from Holy Virgin Parish in Evansville, she said the Hispanic parish there, well it's the only one that has Hispanic ministry in the city of Evansville. But like I've definitely heard about Hispanic ministry but her answers were all pretty much like they weren't really unique to Hispanic ministry. It was just ministry for her which is something I hadn't heard before. But like from her perspective it's not like she's doing Hispanic ministry she's just doing. So there's not like a big I guess distinction. And like I'm sure there's like different like I mean you do have to be aware of cultural differences and like obviously language and different ways of doing it but it's not like you have a different goal or something. And it's like Hispanics on the whole seem to be a lot less interested in the term Hispanic and like the concept of Hispanic ministry and stuff. I mean like you're saying and it's the only ones that I've heard when that's not the case it's like people that have like a kind of almost a nationalist tendency like they only feel extreme pride in their particular ethnicity. But like on the whole that's not the case. People get just ministry. Also Met is really interesting at NCYC. I sat at the dinner and I sat with a priest who has been involved in Hispanic ministry for a while. He was very excited about it. Between he and I was sat this priest who served in California but is from Mexico originally. Grew up and went all the way through Mexico. But he spoke English and the priest and he spoke English better than this priest spoke Spanish. But this priest insisted the entire time on and like was very excited about getting to speak Spanish on the one hand like it's cool that he got excited but it's like there's almost a kind of blindness of like it's become a Hispanic thing that's like a token thing. Yeah. It's like a like yeah I don't know. We don't want to exaggerate the differences. Yeah. At the expense of people's common faith. Common ministry. That should be good. I think it's good. I mean I mean like because like how difficult it was like we talked about like getting your interviewer to focus on just the Spanish. Like how difficult it was like Yeah. Well I've never been involved with a Christian program so this question is for you. What What What do you think that like personally what has been the biggest thing in the Spanish industry and so like what has been the biggest success or something you've gotten out but also have you been able to learn from any failures and have you learned from mistakes you've made? If you made mistakes. No, I don't make mistakes. That would have been a good question for someone else. Right. Okay. The first part was I forgot. Or maybe I couldn't. Or either. I think I have a lot more like variant devotion to those people like Latin American love Our Lady. They're all about her and so that has been really beautiful. And also there is culturally with Latino cultures like Latin American culture there is a lot more like liberty of spirit, freedom of spirit like of like not having to arrive at the exact time like that's one thing sort of and being much more expressive about feelings especially like affection to other people like your friends and family like that is shown like carries a lot more weight for folks from Latin America and so that's on a personal level like a go with the flow kind of attitude and people call it ambiguity tolerance I don't think that's like a necessary thing I feel like I've been trained in that a little bit also just like how freaking chaotic Spanish Mass is almost anywhere because it's alive it's like there's actually children here and so it's loud but also it's a little bit less ruly and that can be like good and bad but like at least it teaches empathetic practice it teaches you how to focus on what's important not to like let your personal discomfort with like the noise be an obstacle for singing at the grace of what we're doing like that's another personal thing you have to rise and just met a lot of people I wouldn't have met otherwise I treasure having met I told you I gave communion to a lady this summer who right after I put the host on her tongue she started just crying and like with her eyes closed and like deep in prayer not crying like because she was like confronting before me or anybody else in the room or anything but because she was like being with her Lord so like I wouldn't have met her and I wouldn't have seen that had I not you know earlier yeah I think there yeah I mean like I've seen stuff happen I've seen like I've seen people try to get like a program going to go about it the right way and either nobody showed up or people got divided over and I haven't ever been directed to get involved in anything like that um I think in catechesis there's uh I don't know I don't know it sounds really bad well I mean I just haven't been directly involved in that it's not like yeah um what do you think uh maybe I've seen people I don't know I've offended people by not by being too direct and I guess that's why the real value of like you know there's probably more to like courtesy than just nicety yeah like asking how people are doing but yeah um in your diocese what do you think are the biggest challenges with the faith ministry and also what do you think your diocese does well it um there's well I guess just like any kind of ministry in my diocese there's always a special shortage of volunteers or even employees who have the who have like adequate formation for the stuff that they're doing for the ministry that needs to be done so like whether that I mean priests have to learn spanish and that's like if there's so there's so many parishes that which that's needed that virtually all of Korea so like everybody's learning spanish they have to learn but it's learning a whole new language and that's really tough and a lot of guys can't uh a lot of guys don't get very proficient no but they do but they do get sufficiently proficient but that's still that's a challenge the language barrier but and then also but like sufficient formation and then like to have somebody who's like done any theology like you know we don't have there's probably no native there's very few native spanish speakers in our the only ones are our other religious sisters who will come in on a contract to like work in the diocese for a little while for the MCPs like I said earlier and there's we have at least there's at least three but it could be probably more groups of religious sisters working on dioceses and shit like that um they're probably the only ones having theology uh and then like but then generally like it's in the nature of like like immigrants on the whole have proportionally less uh like formal education so if we're like looking among like people that have immigrated there's a lot less people that are that are like um willing and able to or like able to take on a role in the ministry but and then there's just a ton of need that's another challenge like how much freaking need there is there's so many people and uh and I mean like it runs the gamut there of like you need like resources for like obviously poverty stuff like people that are struggling to keep like to pay their bills or like struggling to get the like there's a lot of medical crises and like people that uh don't know how to work the system over here yet and that kind of thing um all the way to like I mean like and then obviously just regular catechesis and preparation for the sacraments and counseling and legal troubles and um and then like yeah generational divide between parents and kids you know like kids that are raised here that don't feel connected totally to their parents culture and then parents feel like they've lost their kids because they're not because they're American and that kind of thing I mean like that's a challenge like just how much these um there is some resistance like ideological resistance to doing ministry in Spanish or or even thinking about Hispanic ministry as a thing how um on the part of like Native Americans who priests and lay people very few priests but but who don't want to have to minister don't want to have to do that we all feel like we should have to it's just a challenge do you do that in like if you're a resident in and at yes a lot of times people there'll be a small group of people who resent that there is a Spanish mass and they'll hear passive aggressive comments about it yeah um I have never heard a priest complain about it but I know that there's priests that didn't want to have nothing to do with it that's not an assignment Spanish didn't want to have to go in there's also there's yeah I mean there's so many Hispanics I don't know if I can say that but like so I mean like there's people coming like in urban areas like all the time and we're not getting them in to the church also Protestant groups that are snatching people that's a bad one but like we can't get people quickly enough and they and like in Latin America like for a person and a generation and everything there is a lot like a cultural fall system that's pretty common so like moving to the US it's like it's not obvious to them that they would like they don't think immediately of going to Mass and getting plugged into a parish like maybe that's not how life here is so they don't do it yet so that's a challenge um also there's like syncretism do you know about that? yeah there's a lot I don't know if they have well and also the generational divide how do you like so like kids that grew up here but their parents take them to the Spanish Mass how do they like so now there's kids who primarily speak English they speak English at school in like the language of their mind and also like probably they have some Spanish between friends and they might even like you know if they're like in a romantic relationship they might have some Spanish in it but it's not entirely Spanish they lean English anyway but then they're going to Mass in Spanish and even like they might be then in the Hispanic ministry kind of category of like catechesis as children and then so like they might have religious sisters that don't know English that are teaching them or other adults in the parish that are teaching them and it's all in Spanish but then they're not really proficient in Spanish like yeah that's that problem so you guys have a lot of parishes that have English and Spanish but but I guess so like you were talking about the kids that I mean like they lean English but they're still kind of considered into Spanish they might end up in Hispanic ministry stuff because that's just kind of what they're assigned yeah so so if you have a parish with both groups how do you keep from dividing this is Hispanic ministry and this is our and so there's I mean so like there's an aspect of like how would you make them into one community but also specifically how do you keep your ministry from being completely divided into separate categories well maybe you do I don't know like where do you think it's better to do that I don't know I see I see yeah I see benefits and risks both ways like yeah but I have seen both done the problem the problem like so like yeah I don't know I don't know and you think it's okay yeah sometimes people sometimes like one can if they're together sometimes it sometimes I mean for the kids it's probably better for the kids that they do be one kind of one program I do I kind of think that that works better because almost all the kids know if the kids ministry like children youth ministry then it should be probably all together because it's all going to be in English anyway and I mean so there's not I mean there's very few that need and they can just be like a special have a special track or something like that but the problem is just like you don't want you don't want them to you don't want to like I mean because like they represent like they go to a different mass and they're not plugged in to like everything that happens like so like you don't want them to like disappear in the group you know like not like now not along so you remove a little bit of the legitimacy of the thing just confine them usually the English kind of dominate so that's the downside but like in my home parish they're combined and but like the majority of the kids are Hispanic and then all the volunteers are English so so so it's like there's like next to no connection between yeah the parish runs in English but the actual kids and for the ministry of English the kids are all Hispanic so they don't have any you know yeah there's no overlap but also it does you see it even but you see it strongly to the problems like for Holy Week when we have liturgical celebrations that can only be done once and then like you have to decide how to do those so like we almost all across the diocese they typically do them bilingually but like to be honest I'm the only person I've ever heard who are satisfied with bilingual stuff are the priests who are bilingual you know what I mean like everybody else like tends to cringe about bilingual stuff they'll go with their faces but but you can't it's hard to pick one or the other you can't really pick one or the other I think that I think that shows a place there's a growing openness to it in Arkansas I've like chose one of the one of the really good places in the church today for a while it's like it's kind of common in the church yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah one of the things that Dr. Adams talked about was like even having like continuing to have hispanic history even for people who are culturally hispanic but don't speak hispanic what do you think about that? I don't know well like when he was talking about it it seemed like it was I don't know like in my mind it seemed like by doing that it's like perpetuating kind of a divide but it would also be tricky to like not just like like it's one thing to be like oh well you can take what's good from that and combine it with what's good from the other part of the community but I think it would be much trickier to actually try to do that yeah I think so no I typically I do not favor more more division I don't think that works as well I really think that the main reason for the division is the language it's practically required but when you're not doing it in a different language I don't see a point for them to be separated because I mean because yeah there might be like there can be particular needs but like there's a I mean actually we gain something more by being together I think I don't know I think yeah I see the challenges of like well yeah like I was saying I think probably the kids feel alienated when they come to these industries because there's a bunch of people they don't know and in a context that feels unfamiliar that's a real thing that's a real challenge that's going to make the whole experience catechesis and like getting them plugged into the parish which is what confirmation practice was to do it undermines that yeah so I think though that if you had a if you have a team of people like in the parish that are the people who are doing ministry the lay ministers they ought to represent the community that's being ministered to and so obviously if you have a section of people that are hispanic that speak english then you're going to have like you ought to have a lay minister who is also lay ministers who are hispanic and volunteers that are hispanic and speak english and that can help ease that I think the problem in my parish is that it's so it's just that's what should naturally happen and if that's not naturally happening then there's like some barriers to that and I don't think that it's them wrong to like try to identify and remove the barrier and allow it to happen or even help it on it's way I don't quite believe in like saying that the parish council has to have exactly this committee but I think that generally that should be happening and if it's not something's wrong so there ought to be but I think you could have one youth ministry and you would have like in my parish there are a whole lot of adults that are hispanic that have grown up and raised girls and they could be help teach it so then then you wouldn't have the problem yeah yeah because I mean you could take a community that does not have any hispanics in it and do the same thing and like subdivide into groups and so they'd be separate to respect the different needs of each of them but like usually that sort of thing on the one hand it's not clear what lines to divide on but then like turn on the other also sectarily that stuff usually takes care of itself have a representative group I'll just ask one more question ok what advice would you give to someone who is just getting involved with the hispanic ministry or to a new pastor who is assigned to a hispanic parish but hasn't really done anything ok I don't know the language I'm just a bit scared to learn it well not to screw around do you think there is someone that I won't name some people are like as long as you can even if you can a couple sentences in spanish they'll appreciate that you which I mean seems like but it seems like you would be much I don't think I would agree with that I'm sure that people appreciate it but the thing about the ministry isn't for people to feel appreciative and appreciated like it's about adequately it's about you know it's an exercise, it's a sacramental exercise in the words of Christ Jesus who wants to minister to them in all of their needs so like so that's the same right, that's the same for everybody so like if if it would be inadequate for a if you would consider it inadequate to only know a few words in English and say people would be appreciative like it's probably also inadequate and I think I I don't it's harder for some people than others and so some people really want the it'll be the more prudent thing to have them focus on other stuff than like to try to like the amount of time and energy that it would take to get the proficiency that we're looking for it wouldn't be worth it and it would and I still have people that can celebrate the sacrament even if they can't do more than that but I think it's within everybody I would guess it's well it's within nearly all priests' capacity I mean you have to be intelligent enough to learn how to make it to get through seminary so you probably have the capacity to learn at least how to celebrate the sacrament but I what I do see happen a lot though is priests that learn how to say the sacrament and learn how to talk a little bit but they kind of they suffer from the thing that well it's a epistemological phenomenon that we all experience but it's like when you're not very advanced at a thing you think that you're you can't appreciate how much you lack so there's a lot of priests that'll learn just a little and think that they're speak and think that they're extremely proficient but then they they miss a lot they miss a lot of stuff and they're actually not able to rise to the occasion so they really should learn a little bit or they should keep going that's what I'm saying I mean think of how linguistically complex counseling is when people are implying stuff they feel ashamed to admit or maybe they're not implying it on purpose but it's the pastor's duty to kind of look and try to read between the lines and see what's going on or also just those subtle ways of handling people's grief or their sins how to even just like the linguistic complexity of congratulating and just sending people a baby just so much and so I really think that I think that that's incredible yeah that'd be my point I'd say that's a concrete expression of love yeah if you do that do you have any things pressing that you want to say about history that you didn't get the chance to say I think that it's unfortunate that like immigration has become a political issue in the United States well in a lot of places immigrants are a political issue but I think that the church that is in the world and not out in the world has to supersede that not naively but yeah that has to that has to like supersede the kind of division that's what I mean really that's inherent in a political thing so like yeah so I mean really so we fall victim to that when we exaggerate the differences between uh between Hispanics and non-Hispanics in our industry either because you know either because you really don't like you really don't want to have to do Hispanic ministry to exaggerate the differences or because you really want to and you exaggerate the differences but that's always it's not really quite true that's the part where it's not like a Christian view of the human person so I think like a more integrated view of the theological apology of the world is like to see like common humanity that's like Christ holds the people by now is that right? yeah well I think that's all the questions I have well good I enjoyed it great well thank you for doing that you're welcome well how did you know? did I hear you talking? did you know? where did you know? that's all I'm sorry