Churches recruiting Latin American clergy

updated 12:39 p.m. ET Sept. 13, 2007

PHOENIX - They’re in a new country, working a new job and living a new life, but for the Latin American immigrants who come to the United States every year, going to church doesn’t have to be any different from worshipping back home.

Churches across the nation are actively pursuing clergy from Honduras to Argentina to meet the demands of an ever-growing number of Hispanic parishioners.

Some Roman Catholic dioceses send recruiters to Latin America to bring priests or seminarians to the United States. The Episcopal Church, through its Central and South American Province, has a direct connection to Latin Americans who want to serve here. And Southern Baptist churches rely on word of mouth to find Latin American ministers.

The reasons go beyond merely finding someone to conduct Spanish-language services. Churches also want to connect with congregants on a cultural level, and Latin American clergy can tailor services to immigrants from specific countries.

“I was an immigrant myself,” said Pastor Hector Llanes, a native of El Salvador who leads a Baptist church in Phoenix. “I have a great deal of sympathy for immigrants, and even though there are cultural differences between Mexicans, Central Americans and South Americans, there is a way in which we feel part of the same community.

“We talk about the same things — the customs, the food, soccer,” he added. “It’s just a natural bond.”

Making a connection is vital, said Edwin Hernandez, program director of the Center for the Study of Latino Religion at the University of Notre Dame.

“It’s about the nuances of cultural identity that immediately create a bonding that can never be replicated by anybody else,” he said. “The cultural identification and bonding that occur when a person of the same background is leading them, serving them and overall providing spiritual leadership is a big draw, and it sustains people’s faith.”

‘Really reaching to your heart’
The recruitment wasn’t necessarily needed in the past. When waves of Polish, German, and Irish immigrants were coming to the United States in the 19^th and 20^th centuries, for example, their Catholic priests followed them.

That’s not happening anymore. Churches now need to actively seek out clergy and seminarians, said Bill D’Antonio, a retired sociologist who has taught at the University of Connecticut and at The Catholic University of America.

According to recent estimates by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, in Washington, D.C., Hispanics comprise a third of all Catholics and 6 percent of evangelical Protestants in the United States.

The group predicts a continued rapid growth of Hispanic Christians, 68 percent of whom are Roman Catholic and 15 percent of whom are born-again or evangelical Protestants.

With the growth, coupled with a competition for congregants among Christian faiths, church leaders realize they can’t afford to fail to meet the needs of Hispanic believers.

Veronica Raya, an immigrant from Mexico City living in New York City, said she switched churches several years ago because she didn’t feel a cultural connection with her previous pastor, who was born in the United States and spoke Spanish as a second language.

“It makes you feel more like you are in a strange country and you cannot bring your own customs and worship like you’re used to,” she said.

Raya said she now feels more fulfilled at St. Gregory the Great on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, where the priest is from the Dominican Republic.

“They’re really reaching to your heart,” she said. “It’s more to our style, our culture than the American culture.”

MORE FROM FAITH

Faith Section Front

Newsweek: Is Obama more Catholic than the pope? Newsweek: Why the Vatican likes Obama Pope urges new financial order guided by ethics Evangelist Warren to Muslims: Let's partner Obama says he gets daily prayers on BlackBerry Faith Section Front   Add Faith headlines to your news reader: