CARA Symposium on Hispanic/Latino(a) Catholics in … parents, one might expect the Latino/a Catholic teens to be more engaged as well. However, in our research we found that Hispanic

Copyright © 2008, Instituto Fe y Vida Research and Resource Center p. 1

CARA Symposium on Hispanic/Latino(a) Catholics in the United States

A Generational Perspective

Presented by Ken Johnson-Mondragón, D.Min. cand.

I would like to begin my presentation by thanking the staff of CARA for hosting this

gathering and for the opportunity to share with all of you some of the work I have been

doing at Instituto Fe y Vida since 2001. If you would like additional information, I would

encourage you to explore the materials on our website at:

http://www.feyvida.org/research/researchpubs.html

Part 1: A Statistical Look at Hispanic Generations

My presentation is divided into three parts, and in this first section I want to provide

some demographic data to contextualize our conversation about the various generations

of Catholic Hispanics. Later on, I will mostly be focusing on Latino/a youth and young

adults since that is my area of expertise, but I think it is important to at least begin with a

broader perspective on the population we are discussing.

Figure 1: U.S. Religious Affiliation by Age Group and Race/Ethnicity

The first thing to notice in

Figure 1 is that the Hispanic

population increasingly self-

identifies as Catholic as it

gets older. What is especially

noteworthy is that the

Hispanic young adults are

significantly more Catholic

than the adolescents. This

pattern is reversed in the

white, non-Hispanic


population, where the greatest growth between teens and young adults is seen in the

segment that has no religious affiliation.

Figure 2: Hispanics in the United States in 2007 by Age and Generation

The higher proportion of Catholics among Latino/a young adults makes sense when

we remember that immigrant Latino/as are more likely to identify themselves as Catholic

than Hispanics who were born in the United States. Due to the steep increase in the

number of Latino/a immigrants between ages 17 and 25, as shown above in Figure 2, the

majority of young adult Hispanic Catholics is foreign-born, and the immigrant percentage

among Hispanics over age 30 is even higher.

Another important point on this graph is the sheer size of the immigrant adult

population among Latinos. Furthermore, the proportion of immigrants among Hispanics

is even higher among Catholics. As a result, we cannot assume that Latino/a adults

experienced the changes in the Catholic Church before, during, and after the Second

Vatican Council in the same way as Catholics living in the U.S. did. Thus, a broader Pan-

American perspective on the Church is required when describing the generational


differences among U.S. Catholics. Even among the Hispanics who were already here for

generations, there were significant differences in the way they experienced the Church—

and especially the parish—compared to Euro-American Catholics.

Finally, when we look at the size of the Vatican II and Pre-Vatican II Latino

population, it is clear that it forms a much smaller segment of the overall Catholic

population in those age groups. However, in the Post-Vatican II and Millennial

generations, the proportion is much higher, to the point that the youngest Millennial

Hispanics actually form the majority of Catholics in their age cohort.

Figure 3

All of this begs the question

of whether the traditional

generational categories used in

mainstream sociological

research on U.S. Catholics are

meaningful with respect to

Hispanic Catholics. As Figure

3 shows, there can be

significant “generational”

differences between Latino/a

Catholics by age cohort, even

between age groups that are

considered to be part of the

same generation (in this case “Millennials”) by many sociologists.

My last point in this section is simply to underscore the importance of this gathering

here today. As shown in Figure 4 below, Latino/a children are already about half of all

Catholics under age 18 in the United States, and Latino/as are poised to become the vast

majority of all Catholics in the next 40 years. Thus, the pastoral work of our Church in

this century will be shaped by a tremendous demographic shift to a majority Hispanic

population. If we as sociologists and pastoral practitioners do not collaborate heavily in


the years ahead, our leaders will not be prepared to address this change and lead our

communities in constructive ways.

Figure 4: U.S. Catholic Population Projections by Age, Race/Ethnicity and Year

Part 2: Findings from the National Study of Youth and Religion

Over the last five years, Fe y Vida has had the privilege of working with survey and

interview data from the National Study of Youth and Religion (NSYR), the largest study

ever conducted on the religious lives of adolescents in the U.S. We have published a

book called Pathways of Hope and Faith Among Hispanic Teens detailing our research

on the Latino/a teens, both Catholic and Protestant, as well as the pastoral implications of

what we found. In this section, I will highlight a few of the most important findings and

implications of that work.

Key Finding #1: As a whole, when compared to their Protestant peers, Catholic

teens are: less articulate about their faith; less engaged at church;


and more likely to subscribe to the tenets of Moralistic Thera-

peutic Deism (MTD).

The first finding relates to all Catholic teens in general, not just the Hispanics. The

NSYR research found that U.S. Catholic teens were the most religiously inarticulate and

disengaged of all Christian denominational groups. Their core beliefs, dubbed Moralistic

Therapeutic Deism by Christian Smith, form a kind of religious “whateverism” that says

people can believe whatever they want to believe about God, and it doesn’t really matter.

For most of our young Catholics, the sum total of what they could express about their

faith is that God exists, that God loves and helps people when they need it, that good

people go to heaven when they die, and that almost everyone is good no matter what they

do or don’t do in their religious lives.

Key Finding #2: As a group, Latino teens are more religiously disengaged at

church than other Catholic teens, despite the fact that they

participate in more personal and family-based spiritual

practices, and their parents demonstrate greater commitment

to their faith than do the white Catholic parents.

Figure 5: Young Catholics Currently in a Youth Group Catholic teens as a group by Race/Ethnicity

distinguished themselves from

other young Christians in the

NSYR by having lower rates of

attendance at Sunday worship

and lower youth group

participation. Figure 5 indicates

the proportion of all Catholic

teens who are members of a

youth group, as represented in

the central circle. Each person in

the diagram represents 145,000

high school-age Catholics of the


racial/ethnic group(s) indicated by the color. The research found that Latino/a teens were

even less likely to participate in parish youth groups, and did not stay involved as long, as

their peers of other racial and ethnic backgrounds.

Figure 6: Spiritual Practices at Home Among Catholic Teens by Race/Ethnicity (NSYR)

Nevertheless, on a number of personal measures including those presented in Figure

6, the young Hispanic Catholics reported higher levels of interest and participation in

spiritual activities than their white peers. In fact, they were twice as likely (30% v. 16%)

to say that they were “very interested” in learning more about their faith.

Similarly, the parents of the Hispanic Catholic teens in the survey also reported

higher levels of commitment to their faith life than their white peers. The following table

offers a composite summary of the religious commitment of the Hispanic and white

Catholic teens and their parents, based on a number of questions from the NSYR surveys.

Each number represents the percent of Catholics that is of the indicated religious type

within each group identified in the column headings, based on their survey responses.

Teenagers Parents

Religious Type Hispanic White Hispanic White

Committed 4 8 8 6

Engaged 43 44 43 38

Sporadic 22 25 7 12

Disengaged 3 7 3 10

Mixed 28 16 39 34

Source: Pathways of Hope and Faith Among Hispanic Teens, 2007.


Key Finding #3: A majority of the most religiously committed Hispanic

Catholic parents has a difficult time getting their children to

participate in their parish’s youth ministry programs, and to

go to Sunday Mass every week.

To put this in context, it helps to understand that one of the major findings of the

overall NSYR study was that U.S. adolescents are generally similar to their parents in

terms of their level of religious understanding, commitment, and engagement. In other

words, as parents, you tend to get what you are.

Given this reality and the overall higher level of commitment among Hispanic

Catholic parents, one might expect the Latino/a Catholic teens to be more engaged as

well. However, in our research we found that Hispanic Catholic teens alone, as distinct

from their Hispanic Protestant peers and their white peers whether Catholic or Protestant,

were the exception to this rule.

Figure 7: Community Religious Practices Among Catholic Teens with Committed Parents

This fact is vividly demonstrated in Figure 7 above. You can see from the Ns in this

graphic that this finding is based on a very small subsample—namely the adolescent

children of highly committed and engaged Catholic parents—but the finding is dramatic.

Among this group, the Hispanic teens were less than half as likely as their white peers to

go to Mass every week, one-third as likely to attend a youth group or serve as an acolyte,

one-fourth as likely to attend a Catholic school, one-fifth as likely to be a youth group

leader, one-sixth as likely to have been on a retreat, and one-eighth as likely to have gone


to a religious camp. Although the data are from a small subsample, I have spoken to

numerous groups of youth ministers and Latino parents over the last two years, and they

have universally affirmed this finding as part of their experience.

Figure 8: The Acculturation Process The reasons for this disparity

are not clear in the data, but we

believe that cultural differences

play a major role. Figure 8 is

taken from Fe y Vida’s book on

the NSYR, and it is also found

with a detailed description of the

processes involved in Publication

#5 in our Perspectives on

Hispanic Youth and Young Adult

Ministry series, which is available

on our website. To summarize, the diagram depicts the four possible outcomes of cultural

adaptation when migrants move into a new cultural setting.

Without going into detail about the mechanisms of cultural adaptation, we have found

that there are several common patterns of acculturation that play out between immigrant

adults and their children who were born in the U.S. or who came here at a young age, as

shown in Figure 9 below. When such teens find themselves rejecting or being rejected by

Figure 9: Patterns of Acculturation in the Second Generation


people of their parents’ culture, people of the mainstream culture, or both, their

acculturation process can negatively impact their ability to understand and integrate the

faith of their parents, or to feel comfortable in a youth ministry setting that caters to teens

of the cultural mainstream.

Figure 10 On another note, recent

surveys have shown that

Latino/a Catholic adults are

more likely to identify them-

selves as charismatic or

pentecostal than their white

Catholic peers, as shown in

Figure 10. Could differences of

spirituality between the

adolescent children of Latino/a

charismatic Catholics and their

non-charismatic, non-Latino

youth ministers contribute to the low participation rates of Hispanic teens in Catholic youth

ministry programs? Unfortunately, the NSYR does not provide insight into this question

since the teens in the large survey were not asked if they are charismatic, and only one of the

16 Hispanic Catholic teens in the personal interview component of the NSYR made mention

of anything that resembled charismatic practices or experiences. In fact, he only mentioned it

in order to say that he did not believe it was real. Nevertheless, anecdotal evidence suggests

two things regarding the impact of the Charismatic Renewal on Latino/a teens:

1. The percentage of Latino/a Catholic teens who consider themselves “charismatic” is

probably very small, but those who do usually prefer to go to a charismatic prayer

group instead of their parish youth group; and

2. Non-charismatic teens who have charismatic parents sometimes reject not just

their parents’ spirituality, but their faith as well, and therefore choose to have very

little to do with the Church at any level, including Mass and youth group.


Key Finding #4: There are significant social barriers to the integration of all

Catholic teens—Hispanic, white, and of other races or

cultures—in a single youth ministry setting. Therefore, we

need a differentiated approach to ministry with Hispanic

Catholic teens and their families in parishes and dioceses in

order to effectively reach all segments of the population.

While the cultural and religious differences between Latino/a Catholic teens and their

white, non-Hispanic peers can play a significant role in the young Hispanics’ decision to

opt out of parish youth ministry programs, the NSYR found other differences that may

also contribute to this underrepresentation.

Figure 11: Annual Income in Households with Catholic The first of these is simply Teenagers, by Race/Ethnicity

access to economic resources,

which also reflects educational

differences among the parents.

The NSYR found that white

Catholic families are better off

than the general white population

in the U.S., while Latino

Catholic families have lower

incomes than other Latinos.

Educational and economic

differences often lead to

socialization in different circles,

especially in adolescence—even if the teens attend the same school. Although they were

relatively few in number, the upper-income Hispanic teens in the survey were actually

just as involved in youth ministry as their upper-income white peers. Youth group

participation rates dropped with family income for both Hispanic and white Catholic

teens, but the drop among Hispanics was steeper, and the proportion of low-income

families was much higher among Hispanic teens—41% compared to just 7% for their

white peers.


Figure 12: Pastoral Categories of Young Hispanics

Taking into account a variety of sociocultural factors, it is possible to discern four

broad pastoral categories of young Latino/as, as shown in Figure 12 above. The challenge

for youth ministry lies in the fact that, even among adolescents who are all Hispanic, the

teens in different categories often do not relate well with one another. Not all Hispanic

teens fit neatly into one of these four categories, but if a parish can develop youth

ministry programs designed to meet the needs of all four “types,” it is likely that any and

all young Latino/as will find a youth ministry setting in which they feel comfortable,

welcome, and can grow in faith with their peers.

The problem is that far too often, the sum total of youth ministry programming in

Catholic parishes consists of a single youth group. The limitations of this approach were

also identified by the participants in the First National Encuentro for Hispanic Youth and

Young Adult ministry (Encuentro) held at Notre Dame two years ago, as shown in the

following quote from page 33 of the Encuentro’s conclusions, which are available for

purchase from USCCB Publishing:

“The leaders in Pastoral Juvenil, Hispanic ministry, and mainstream youth and

young adult ministry are increasingly aware that the programs and activities of the

mainstream culture do not attract the full participation of Hispanic adolescents


and jóvenes, even though they may speak English. This occurs due to economic,

cultural, educational, geographic, and linguistic differences between the young

people, especially when the parish ministry is limited to a single youth

group.” [emphasis added]

Thus, the pastoral reality calls for a differentiated approach to ministry with Hispanic

Catholic teens and their families in order to effectively reach all segments of the

population with ministries that provide a welcoming social environment and address their

pastoral needs. In Renewing the Vision—the U.S. Bishops’ document from 1997 that sets

out the vision for Catholic youth ministry—the importance of developing specialized

ministries for cultural minorities is also recognized. The document states: “Ministry with

adolescents is multicultural when it focuses on a specialized ministry to youth of

particular racial and ethnic cultures and promotes multicultural awareness among all

youth.” (p. 22) Nevertheless, such specialized ministries specifically for Latino/a teens

are still few and far between.

In our conversations around the country, we have often heard youth ministers say that

either they or their pastors believe that creating a separate youth ministry program for the

Hispanic teens would “divide the Church” or “create a parallel Church,” and that it

simply is not necessary because they all speak English. Even if it were true that they all

speak English—and it is not, at least not in all places—we believe the real division of the

Church occurs when the limited options in our parish programs result in a de facto

separation of the teens into two groups: those who are offered the experience of a socio-

culturally accessible peer group in which to grow in the faith, and those who are not. Far

too often, the young Latino/as are relegated to the group of those who are not.

As an alternative to the “one size fits all” model of youth ministry, Pathways of Hope

and Faith Among Hispanic Teens describes a way to develop a “community of

communities” model for parish youth ministry that is consistent with the Bishops’ vision

for youth ministry and the conclusions of the Encuentro:

• In small communities, teens are empowered to reflect on their faith from their

own sociocultural perspective with others who can relate to their experiences.


• The various parish youth groups come together periodically in a context of dialogue,

liturgical celebration, or for other events of interest to the entire youth community.

• The leadership team is composed of adult and teen leaders whose diversity

reflects that of the whole parish, united by a common vision for their ministry.

13: Youth Ministry in a Community of Communities Figure 13 demonstrates

what this would look like in

practice. The leadership team

in the center includes the adult

coordinators and youth leaders

of all the parish’s youth

ministry communities, and it

should reflect the cultural

diversity of the whole parish.

These leaders gather for

training, planning, socializing,

and supporting one another’s ministries. The actual communities may be more or less

multicultural, depending on the language they use, the needs they address, and the time

and place their meetings are held.

Even though they do not regularly meet together, the various communities do not form

isolated groups, but rather a network of communities that collaborate and serve one another

for specific purposes throughout the year. The major responsibilities of the parish’s staff

youth ministry director/coordinator (whether volunteer or paid, part-time or full-time) are

to recruit, train, and support the adult and youth leaders in each of the small communities,

and to facilitate a process of needs assessment and pastoral planning with them to provide

pastoral care and accompaniment to all of the parish’s adolescents. He or she may also

serve as coordinator of one or more of the communities as time allows. It is worth noting

here that this method of structuring a parish’s youth ministry can also be scaled up as a

model for the overall ministry in a multicultural parish.


Part 3: Pastoral Issues and Research Questions

In this third section of my presentation, I will identify seven pastoral issues and research

questions that I think are important for us as sociologists and pastoral leaders for

Hispanic ministry in the years ahead.

1. Educational attainment

We cannot overstate the importance of increasing the educational attainment of our

young Latino/a Catholics for the future of our Church and our country. Young Hispanics

have over twice the high school non-completion rate of blacks, and nearly four times that

of whites, and similarly low college completion rates. At the same time, our Church

oversees the largest network of private schools in the country, and thousands of our

parishes have full-time youth ministry coordinators, part of whose ministry is to advocate

for the needs of the teens in their parish. How can we leverage our Catholic schools and

parish youth ministry programs to encourage and support the academic achievement of

young Latino/a Catholics?

2. Leadership development

Figure 14: Ratio of Hispanics Among Catholic Leaders Figure 14 demonstrates that

Hispanics are drastically

underrepresented at all levels

of church leadership. An

increased emphasis on the

education of Latino/a

Catholics at all levels is

urgently needed, including

pastoral and theological

formation. We need a

comprehensive national strategy to ensure greater representation of Hispanics in ministry

as the young generation grows into adulthood.


3. Religious switching

The generational trend of more Hispanics abandoning the Catholic Church the longer

their family has been in the United States is clear in all of the major surveys of Hispanic

religious identification. Nevertheless, a comparison of Wave 1 and Wave 2 data from the

NSYR tells a different story—one of relatively stable religious identity in early young

adulthood, despite the religious illiteracy of most young Hispanic Catholics. Only 9% of

the young Hispanics who identified themselves as Catholic in the first survey had

changed their religious affiliation or had no affiliation by the time of the second survey

(conducted in 2002-2003 and 2005), compared to 19% of the young white Catholics and

16% of the young Hispanic Protestants. This stable identity is an asset we must learn to

leverage in order to increase their religious literacy, Mass attendance, and participation in

the life and mission of the parish.

4. Evangelization and catechesis

The pervasiveness of Moralistic Therapeutic Deism (MTD) in U.S. culture presents a

serious challenge to effective catechesis for all ages and ethnic groups, especially

adolescents. For Catholics, this challenge is compounded by the fact that 75% of our teens

do not regularly participate in youth ministry, and most of them have already filled their

lives with other priorities, often with their parents’ encouragement. Among young Hispanic

Catholics, the social, cultural, and religious differences they experience in groups with

Catholic teens of other backgrounds provide further impediments to participation.

In the last year, I have analyzed the population data for three dioceses in California,

and I found that in all three, the average parish had about 1,000 high school-aged

Catholic teens, ranging from 60% to 83% Hispanic. At the same time, the U.S. bishops

are pushing for a four-year catechetical curriculum for all adolescent Catholics as an

effective response to the challenge of MTD. The question is: how do we implement that

curriculum in a way that reaches all of our young people, especially those on the margins

of parish life, as many Hispanics are?

One possible solution, promoted in the conclusions of the Encuentro, is dynamic

differentiated youth ministry, incarnated in the culture(s) of the young people, that


mentors and empowers teens to become evangelizers of their peers. The emphasis on

engaging Hispanic teens as evangelizers of their peers is urgently needed because the

adult leaders in the parish have no way to connect with the vast majority of Latino/a

Catholic teens who are not regularly coming to Mass or youth group—but their peers can

do it. If we do not engage them as young evangelizers and mentor them in reaching out to

their peers, all the effort we put into developing the content for adolescent catechesis will

never benefit the majority of our young Catholics.

5. Theology of the parish

As I mentioned earlier regarding the two approaches to youth ministry, there are two

competing visions of ministry in multicultural parishes today: the “one parish, one

community” model and the “parish as a community of communities” model. Too often,

the ability of our parishes to respond in ministry to more Hispanic Catholics of all ages is

limited by a pastoral vision that does not allow for a diversity of ministries to meet the

needs of diverse members. This is especially true in youth ministry.

We need to ask ourselves, what are the pastoral implications of our understanding of

the parish for ministry with the dominant cultural group in the parish, as well as for

ministry with the minority groups? How can our theology guide us in the development of

pastoral structures that enliven the parish community and foster a commitment to Christ

and to the mission of the Church among all Catholics?

6. Meaning and role of the apostolic movements

The Encuentro two years ago identified about 50 apostolic movements that currently

serve Hispanic youth and young adults in dioceses across the country. In addition, there

are many other apostolic movements that work primarily with adults, that never heard

about the Encuentro process, or that simply opted not to participate in it. For many

Hispanic Catholics, the apostolic movements provide more meaningful pastoral

accompaniment and faith formation than their parishes.

Nevertheless, the level of collaboration between diocesan Hispanic ministry offices,

schools of ministry, and the leaders of the apostolic movements is generally very

limited. This isolation often means that the Hispanic leaders who generously give their


time and enthusiasm to the mission of the Church through the apostolic movements,

have little theological-pastoral formation. In many cases this prevents them from being

recognized, validated, utilized, and compensated in ministry beyond their movement.

What can our parish and diocesan communities do to be better stewards of the gifts of

these human vessels?

7. Quantitative and qualitative research

To close, I have a few comments to make regarding research. As we have already heard

here today, good survey research on the religious lives of Hispanic Catholics is hard to

find, and even harder to design, validate, and carry out. Nevertheless, it is critical to

understanding the pastoral issues our Church must address in the years ahead. Because of

the size of the Hispanic Catholic population today, quantitative research on U.S.

Catholics that includes a representative sample of the full spectrum of the Hispanics who

live here and proudly call themselves Catholic is required.

At the same time, we must recognize the limits of quantitative research and do

qualitative research to fill out our understanding of the Hispanic community. Below are

listed a few of the research questions that have interested me in recent years. You can add

your own to that list and perhaps together we can begin to generate a collaborative

research agenda to carry Hispanic ministry forward in the U.S. for the rest of this century.

� How has the “American” cultural ethos of most U.S. Catholic parishes impacted

the religious lives of Hispanic Catholics of all ages?

� For immigrant parents, what new understanding or skills are needed to more

effectively pass the faith to their children in the U.S. cultural context?

� How do young Hispanic Catholics interpret and integrate (or reject) the

charismatic spirituality, popular Catholicism, or indigenous syncretism of their

parents and other family elders, and how does that shape their sense (or lack) of

Catholic identity?

With that, I hand the floor to my colleague Georgina Vaca.

Documents

CARA Symposium on Hispanic/Latino(a) Catholics in … parents, one might expect the Latino/a Catholic teens to be more engaged as well. However, in our research we found that Hispanic