Mexican American Catholic College

Intermountain Catholic

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Arturo Chávez, president and CEO of MACC, (right) conducts a workshop for Diocese of Salt Lake City teachers.

Toward the end of last week I flew to San Antonio for a board meeting of the Mexican American Catholic College. The college used to be the Mexican American Cultural Center, founded in 1972 by Father Virgilio Elizondo. It has served the Church in the United States well by educating many priests, sisters, brothers and lay leaders in pastoral ministry in various Latino cultures, principally Mexican. It has also been a center for language studies throughout its history. Several summers ago, I spent three weeks studying Spanish. Now that it is a college, it offers a bachelor’s degree in conjunction with a neighboring university. We will have several seminarians there studying English starting in January. I am enjoying my term as a board member and hope that MACC, as it is called, continues to serve our church for many years to come. 

Incidentally, Arturo Chávez, president and CEO of MACC, and Alejandro Siller-González, faculty member in the Continuing Education for Ministry department, have  been to our diocese several times, giving workshops for our Catholic school teachers and our lay ministers in the rural areas of the diocese. They have done great work for us and I hear great reviews of their workshops. Our diocese is blessed by MACC and I pray that we continue to benefit from them in the years ahead.