Roots and Wings: Exploring Hispanic
community's past and future

June 26, 2002

Most Reverend José H. Gomez
Auxiliary Bishop of Denver

During the first days of August, the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind., will be the site of an important meeting of Hispanic leaders of the United States. This Hispanic summit, which will plan the future of the community, has chosen the evocative name "Roots and Wings." The name refers to the event's two goals: to look to the past — to our roots — and to explore the future in which the Hispanic community can take flight.

Those are worthy, well-focused intentions. A German philosopher once said that what differentiates men from animals is that men are able to remember their past and plan their future.

The Hispanic community has trod a long path in the U.S. Although the great majority of Hispanics are relatively new immigrants, the roots of our community are deeply sunk in the history of this land, which was discovered first by the Spanish and populated — particularly in the southwest — by colonizers and missionaries, and nurtured with Hispanic-Catholic traditions.

Since the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, Hispanics in the U.S. have suffered a course of submission to the Anglo-Protestant culture, which determined that history be rewritten. Most Americans saw the far West portrayed as a wild region populated by Indians, to which cowboys arrived to bring civilization and order. The truth is that prosperous communities already existed in the West. They were remarkably well organized with an outstanding cultural level, the legacy of Spanish colonizers and missionaries.

That is why two states — New Mexico and California — have chosen Catholic missionaries to represent them in congressional galleries: Father Eusebio Francisco Kino and Blessed Junipero Serra, respectively.

To preserve this culture for the future, Hispanics need to recover their history by going back to their roots. In this endeavor we must not forget a fundamental characteristic of our identity: our being Catholic.

Some Hispanic leaders are afraid to emphasize the Catholic character of our community — often because they fear rejection in pluralistic American society. But this is a mistake. Respect for pluralism does not mean we should renounce who we are. Today, some Hispanics belong to other religions or declare themselves nonbelievers. Nevertheless, religious freedom does not change the fact that Hispanic culture was born and developed in the Catholic faith and was responsible for bringing about a new birth in the history of humanity.

Hispanic art, customs, feasts and cultural expressions are profoundly tied to the Catholic calendar. Can anyone imagine Mexicans without the Virgin of Guadalupe, the feast of "los muertos" (the faithful departed) or "las mañanitas" (little mornings), which remind us of the baptismal font?

Whoever renounces their past will not be able to carve out a future for themselves. Recognizing this, the Hispanic summit has invited a prominent representative of the Hispanic community, Archbishop Roberto Gonzáles of San Juan, Puerto Rico, to give the opening talk.

Hispanics are the fastest growing minority in the country; this places into our hands immense responsibility for the future of our society and for our role in constructing the future of the United States. Each immigrant community has left its indelible mark on this nation. Now it is the Hispanic community's turn. Our faith —inherited from our parents at the cost of the blood of heroic missionaries and martyrs — must not be pushed into second place.

Roots and Wings 2002 will be a new call to our Hispanic community to share our faith with North American society. I ask your prayers that this meeting may be a moment of grace for the Catholic Church in the United States.