Congar Institute priest talks about inculturation

Intermountain Catholic

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Dominican Fr. Jorge Presmanes speaks about the Hispanic ministry as inculturation.IC photo by Christine Young

SALT LAKE CITY — "The Salt Lake City Diocese has a great need for ministers and a great need for the development and formation of leadership among lay ministers to support the efforts of the diocese to reach out to all the people," said Dominican Father Wayne Cavalier, Ph.D., from the Congar Institute for Ministry Development.

"There is a recognition that Salt Lake City is isolated from many of the resources that the Church has to offer to its lay ministers," said Fr. Cavalier. "Our goal is to bring excellent resources to assist in formation through the efforts of your Diocesan Offices of Religious Education through Director Susan Northway and Hispanic Ministries through Director Maria-Cruz Gray.

These offices sponsored this event. A dinner was also provided July 10.

Fr. Cavalier and Dominican Father Jorge Presmanes from the Congar Institute presented a day of study and prayer at Saint Vincent de Paul Parish July 11. Fr. Cavalier presented a day of study for the Lay Ecclesial Ministry Formation Program in English, while Fr. Presmanes conducted a day of prayer for the Spanish-speaking leaders. Fr. Presmanes was the guest speaker at the dinner and spoke about the Hispanic ministry as inculturation.

Fr. Presmanes is working to develop lay leadership in the Hispanic community. He became a pastor of a very large parish in Miami, and studied Hispanic ministry and teaches at Barry University in Miami. He has co-edited a book on teaching in the Hispanic community, and written many articles.

"The current U.S. Hispanic population as of 2006 was 44.3 million according to the U.S. Census. The U.S. is the fourth largest Spanish-speaking country in the world, following Mexico, Spain, and Argentina," said Fr. Presmanes. "The Latino population in the U.S. is primarily Mexican at 64 percent, Puerto Rican at 9 percent, and Cuban at 3.4 percent.

"The total population in Utah is 2,736,424 according to the 2008 Census Bureau," said Fr. Presmanes. "The Hispanic Population, excluding undocumented immigrants is 317,425. The median age of Hispanics is 23.2 years. So our numbers are growing not just because of the migration flow, but also because we are a very young population. Hispanic Catholics, excluding undocumented Catholic immigrants are 253,940. So even though the general population is going to grow, the Hispanic population is growing at a much more rapid pace."

Fr. Presmanes said the Utah Catholic population including registered Hispanics in the National Catholic Directory is 230,000. But it is not within the Hispanic culture to register as members of a parish. That is an American cultural trait.

"I went to the Census Bureau, and I found out that in 2008, there were 2.7 million in the state of Utah, and there were 317,000 documented Hispanics in the state," said Fr. Presmanes.

"Hispanics are the poorest Americans in this country, with 25 percent of our population being single-parent families," said Fr. Presmanes. "As a demographic group, the Puerto Rican woman is the poorest American. Only eight percent of Hispanics graduate from college, which is a huge problem for many reasons. Hispanics have the highest high school drop-out rate in the country. In 2006, 64.1 percent of all Hispanics 18- through 24-years old had completed their secondary schooling."

"Non-Hispanic whites who graduate from secondary school are 91.8 percent, African-Americans are 83.7 percent, and Asian-Americans are 94.6 percent," said Fr. Presmanes. "The difference is huge. This is an economic poverty-related issue because many Hispanics leave high school to provide income for their families.

Fr. Presmanes said evangelization has to be culture-specific or it loses it effectiveness. The ministry has to consider the language, signs and symbols, and it must impact their everyday lives. Without that they cannot respond to the mission of the church to proclaim the Gospel.

The faithful have the right to worship in their own living language in order to fully and actively participate in the Church’s liturgy.

"Enculturation is an anthropological term by which we become members of a particular culture," said Fr. Presmanes. "Acculturation is another anthropological term to describe the process by which one culture comes in contact with another culture resulting in a transformation of both cultures.

"Another term is transculturation, which is a sociological term used to describe the imposition of one culture on another," said Fr. Presmanes. "An example of this is when a dominant culture insists an inferior culture becomes like the dominant culture if they want to be members of that group.

Multiculturalism is the facilitation of an atmosphere of tolerance among several cultural, racial, and language groups.

Adaptation is limited accommodation of the faith tradition to a specific culture.

"However, the proper method is inculturation, which became popular in Catholic theology during the 1970s," said Fr. Presmanes. "It is dynamic and communal process by which there is a dialogue between the provision of faith and culture. The outcome of inculturation is conversion. It is not only a conversion of the individual to whom we minister, but also the conversion of the tradition of the ministry of the church.

"My life has been transformed much more by the people to whom I minister, and I have received much more than I have given," said Fr. Presmanes. " That is what inculturation is about. It is about coming into contact with another as part of one’s ministerial mission, but the result is that you are transformed by the person to whom you are ministering and called to preach to. The process is dynamic.

"Faith, according to Yves Congar, is the human response to God’s call, and that call is to make the world a community of brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit," said Fr. Presmanes. "But the call is only heard by the human subject, and the response to that call is also mediated by culture. Faith then, is something universal expressed in the particular and it is the internal principle of our catholic unity."

Fr. Presmanes said the ecclesiological outcome of inculturation of the church was to be one in faith in Jesus Christ, but expressing this faith in the context of a variety of cultures. "For though I am free from all, I have made myself a slave to all, that I might win the more. To the Jews I became as a Jew in order to win the Jews; to those outside the law I became as one outside the law that I might win those outside the law…I do it for the sake of the Gospel." (1 Cor 9:19-23)

The July 31 issue of the Intermountain Catholic will feature Fr. Cavalier’s study day.