A Schism Over Language and Religion

Arlington's Roman Catholic Diocese Seeks Best Way to Educate Hispanic Children

For the last six years, Hector Contreras and his family felt at home in their church, St. Thomas More Cathedral in Arlington. They went to Masses celebrated in Spanish, and the children attended Sunday school classes taught in Spanish.

Then last summer, the English-only signs went up. The parish priests wanted to help Latino children fit more easily into American society by encouraging them to speak more English. Although the parish’s weekly Spanish-language Mass was continued, the Spanish religious classes were eliminated.

And the Contrerases, along with what they estimate are dozens of other Latino families, left.

“Who knows best the good of the children — the parents or the priests?” asked Contreras, 34, of Arlington, who came to the United States 15 years ago from Guatemala. “We want to keep their heritage alive. . . . Faith is not just going to church. What you’re doing is what is in your heart. And my heart is Hispanic.”

The issue of cultural assimilation vs. cultural preservation is perplexing the Roman Catholic Diocese of Arlington — where officials estimate that one-third of the Catholics are Hispanic. It is an issue that has burned nationally in debates over bilingual education and over calls to make English this nation’s official language.

On one side are Latino parents such as the Contrerases, whose desire to preserve their cultural heritage is so great that they have switched to a parish where their children can study religion in Spanish. On the other are priests, such as the Rev. Dominic P. Irace of St. Thomas More Cathedral, who believe that emphasizing English makes sense in a country where it is the dominant language.

Irace, who, like other priests in the Arlington Diocese, is given autonomy in deciding how religious lessons are conducted, said that the first language for many of the children of Latino immigrants is English.

“We’re doing, in a way, a disservice to the young people who speak English to teach them in Spanish,” he said. ” . . . I don’t think keeping your culture necessarily means you have to keep your language.”

Bishop John R. Keating, who speaks fluent Spanish and has seen Latino communities in the diocese burgeon during the last decade, said, “It’s not a question of, ‘We want to force Spanish on people,’ or, ‘We want to force English on people.’ There are perfectly reasonable foundations for both sides of the argument.”

The diocese has no firm count of how many Hispanics attend church — some church officials estimate about 150,000 — and has not counted the number who have moved from one parish to another. But diocesan officials acknowledge that “a good number” of families have left St. Thomas More, one of four parishes in the diocese pushing English-only religious education.

Eleven other parishes in the Arlington diocese offer Spanish-language religious instruction, a trend that began more than a decade ago, when a wave of immigration from Central and South America began to hit area Catholic churches. Spanish-language services and classes were seen as a way to reach out to the immigrants, but now some church officials are placing more emphasis on assimilating immigrants into American culture.

The issue is important enough that the diocese has formed a committee to try to decide the best way to provide religious education to Latino children.

“We’re all trying to help them as much as we can,” Irace said. “I fear that if we teach them in Spanish, as they go on in American culture — you know how American teenagers are, they want to blend in with their peers — they’re going to leave behind their teachings.”

Far from being anti-immigrant, he said, he wants to see Latino children succeed in the United States. “Their future is going to be in adapting to the culture,” he said. “The Italians did it. The Germans did it. . . . When you want to advance in whatever country you’re in, you speak the language of that country.”

Such arguments cause resentment among some Latino families. “We feel we are being pushed out, discriminated against,” said Florencio Garcia, 36, of Reston, a native of Mexico who left the cathedral so his 10-year-old daughter, Erica, could attend Spanish religious classes at another church.

The cathedral continues to offer a Sunday Mass in Spanish, but religious instruction has been moved to Wednesday and is in English. At a recent Sunday Spanish Mass, the cathedral was less than half full. In Falls Church, 1,200 people packed St. Anthony’s Catholic Church, which offers more than a dozen religion classes in Spanish for children and adults. The Contreras and Garcia families now worship there.

Garcia’s daughter speaks fluent English, but prefers speaking Spanish in church lessons. “My mom, my dad are Spanish,” Erica said. “We pray at home in Spanish. I have to take time to remember how to say the Hail Mary in English. In Spanish, I know it all — Dios te salve, Maria, llena eres de gracia. . . .”

For families like the Garcias and Contrerases, the issue is more than one of language. Faith is deeply personal, and words, gestures and customs — from the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe to posadas, plays about the events surrounding the birth of Jesus — are important aspects of that, they say.

“Speaking the prayers in Spanish, you feel better,” Contreras said. “You’re not just repeating what you hear. You’re saying it with your heart.”

The Rev. Ovidio Pecharroman, director of the diocese’s Hispanic Ministry, acknowledges the tension between English-only and bilingual proponents. But he said it is a conflict that is played out across the country and one with roots deep in history.

Pecharroman said he believes religious instruction for Latino children should be in Spanish with a bilingual text, enabling children to learn Catholic teachings in English and parents to follow along. But the diocese allows individual parishes autonomy in running their education programs, he said.

At All Saints Catholic Church in Manassas, the largest parish in the diocese, some children have expressed a preference for English, Associate Pastor Donald Rooney said. The problem is that their parents, many of whom do not know English well, want their children to learn in Spanish, he said.

“There’s a phobia, a very definite fear that these people are going to have their culture taken away,” he said. “Where do you draw the line between teaching the children more effectively and teaching the customs of their heritage?”

In the Archdiocese of Washington, which covers the District and five counties in Maryland and whose Latino population exceeds 250,000, parishes with sizable Latino communities offer Spanish-language classes, said Sister Joan Williams, coordinator for Hispanic Catechesis. Williams said the archdiocese’s policy — which she said follows church doctrine — is to teach people in the language in which they are most comfortable. The decision is made mutually between the parish priests and the archdiocese, she said.

“We do whatever is necessary for our community,” she said. “If people share their faith in Spanish, then the [religious teaching] ought to be in Spanish. . . . We believe the faith is handed down from family to family, person to person, generation to generation.”

Hector Contreras Jr., 12, said he likes speaking English; he was born here. But like Erica Garcia, he prefers to pray in Spanish. Hector said one day his children will learn to do so as well.

“Remember the church from Sunday?” he said. “They will teach them to speak Spanish and learn how to say the prayers in Spanish. . . . So they’ll know who is God, and they can speak to Him in the Spanish way.”



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