Let us build the first home
for Blessed Juan Diego in Colorado

May 15 , 2002

Most Reverend José H. Gomez
Auxiliary Bishop of Denver

On Tuesday, April 16, the Hispanics of northern Colorado undertook an ambitious task to build Centro Juan Diego: Hispanic Institute for Family and Pastoral Care. We are confident about this task because it was started under the patronage of Our Lady of Guadalupe with the intention of honoring the one she called "the littlest of my children" — our brother and future saint Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin.

The project intends to build a home for Juan Diego. A home which the future saint does not want to keep for himself, but wants to share with the growing Hispanic community of our archdiocese. Centro Juan Diego will be a formation institute that will serve the Hispanic population's pastoral and family needs.

Because of their numbers, Hispanics have become the most important immigrant group in the United States. They are especially significant in the Church, as in a few years Hispanics will comprise the majority of Catholics in the nation.

This means we Hispanics have a great responsibility to provide energetic leadership to the Church in the United States to achieve the new evangelization Pope John Paul II envisions for this millennium.

But we Hispanics will not be able to serve the Catholic community in this way without well-formed leaders — and there is no leadership without formation.

The goal of Centro Juan Diego is to offer resources and formation to the Hispanics of northern Colorado and beyond to achieve our evangelization mission.

The Lord has mysterious ways to carry out his plan of salvation for the world. Throughout the years merciful God has willed groups of immigrants to come to this great nation to help the Church set roots and grow. In this way Catholics from Ireland, Italy, Poland and Germany arrived successively. In recent decades, Hispanics have become the fastest growing Catholic group.

In the beginning, Hispanics arrived at the southwest regions — lands that had belonged to the king of Spain and then to Mexico, and which had been previously evangelized. Today Hispanics arrive at all corners of the United States: our brothers and sisters stretch from the agricultural fields in Florida to the fishing waters of Alaska.

It is important that our brothers and sisters not only keep the precious gift of faith — which Pope John Paul II called in 1984 "richness amidst poverty, which no thing or person should take away" — but that they strengthen and share it.

This is precisely the importance of this initiative we have embarked upon in the archdiocese: to create a home where Juan Diego continues sharing the truth of faith. A place where he continues showing the blessed image of his tilma to Hispanics of today and of the future, so that it may remain in their minds and hearts, and that it may be in many more minds and hearts throughout the United States.

This project is a blessing, but as with every blessing it needs human cooperation to be achieved. All Hispanics have the responsibility of contributing in any possible way for this project to be realized. All aid is welcome; no contribution is too little. On the contrary, the sum total of small contributions is what has really made the difference throughout history.

Archbishop Chaput has donated the former Sacred Heart of Jesus School, a large, historical building from the 19th century, to this project. We need to renovate the facility to respond to the needs of the Hispanic community.

As the future saint himself would have wanted, Centro Juan Diego will be everybody's home. There Hispanics will be able to receive material assistance, and family counseling and formation to provide Hispanic ministry to parishes. Hispanics who want to hold retreats and meetings will find there an open door that says with Juan Diego: "My home is your home."

We Hispanics already comprise 32 percent of the Denver population — and this number is still growing in the archdiocese. Let us try to make our presence known not only in numbers but also in witness of faith and unity. Let us carry out projects for the good of our community and of the Church.

If we accomplish Pope John Paul II's dream of creating exemplary leadership the fruits will not be limited to our community but will multiply and enrich the entire Church and the nation.

We entrust the success of our project to holy Mary of Guadalupe and Blessed Juan Diego.