By Thea Jarvis

“Our church is one that believes in unity and pluralism,” George Gonzales said during a workshop on “The Young Hispanic Presence in the Catholic Church Today,” part of the 1984 Archdiocesan Youth Rally held at Marist High School last weekend.

Characterizing the church community as “a salad, not a soup,” Gonzales, a deacon serving in Hispanic Youth Ministry for the archdiocese, encouraged his young audience to be particularly open to the gifts people of different background can bring to the church.

“Christ loves us as we are. He doesn’t want to change us,” he reassured them.

Across the hall, in another Marist classroom, Father Bruce Wilkinson and four enthusiastic teenagers expanded on “Brothers and Sisters to Us” – the Black presence in the church that is so little understood and sometimes unaccepted.

“We are centering on sharing the gift of being Black and Catholic in the Archdiocese of Atlanta,” said Father Wilkinson, priest-secretary of the Archdiocesan Commission for Black Catholic Concerns and assistant pastor of Sts. Peter and Paul Church.

Both workshops, two of 21 offered to over 800 teens and young adults present at the rally, affirmed that strengthening the identity of Black and Hispanic Catholics actually strengthens the church itself.

Both workshops, new additions to the heady list of sessions available throughout the weekend, agreed that integrating rather than assimilating minority members was an effective way to enrich the larger church community.

Reggie Ealy and Waleuska Barron of Sts. Peter and Paul, Zandra Mencer of St. Anthony’s, and Fred Singleton of Our Lady of the Assumption, all members of the Archdiocesan Youth Advisory Board which helped plan the rally, joined Father Wilkinson in developing the theme of Black Catholic identity. A group of 35 Black and white youths viewed “The Search for Black Catholic Identity: If Rivers Can Speak,” a filmstrip chronicling the ways in which Blacks have shaped the history of the church since its founding.

“We’ve been around since the beginning of the church,” Zandra Mencer pointed out, referring to church leaders like St. Augustine, St. Cyprian, St. Felicita, St. Perpetua and St. Martin de Porres, all of African descent. In the first three centuries after Christ, the group learned, no fewer than three African popes ascended the throne of Peter.

Reggie Ealy, admitting his own ignorance of Black influence on the life and history of the church, beamed as he shared these new insights with his listeners. “We are something special and we are becoming more and more prevalent every day,” he smiled.

At the workshop on Hispanic Catholics, Maria Salgado, youth minister at Holy Cross Church, narrated a historical slide show which revealed that Hispanics were among the earliest Catholics in the New World. Starting with the 15^th century Spanish discovery of America and continuing through the 20^th century “Encuentro” which finally gave them a name and face in the American Catholic Church, Hispanics have had a deep influence on the life of the church in the United States.

“We have been here for four centuries, but our presence has been ignored,” Ms. Salgado pointed out.

Strengthening this position, Georgia Gonzales cited statistics covering the growth of the Hispanic community in America. The United States is now the fifth largest Spanish-speaking country in the world, he said. Currently, there are 48 million Catholics and 23 million Hispanics in America. Atlanta tallies 60,000 Hispanics in its population, but Gonzales estimates that only 2,000 are active in the church.

“We have to get at these people and bring them home,” he said, a job especially suited for Hispanic youth, who represent a large part of the future of the American church.

Recognizing that Hispanics must be reached within their own language, culture and theology – the latter having a strong Marian orientation – Deacon Gonzales encouraged young people to be accepting of Hispanics who seek “to become Christ-like, but within (their) own culture.”

Throughout the rally weekend, the language and culture of youth prevailed, focusing the energies of hundreds of young people representing 48 parishes and three states on what Maria Salgado called “creating the kingdom of God on earth.”

Under the leadership of Archdiocesan Youth Ministry Consultants Dolores Waters and Kim Larsen, with the help of the Archdiocesan Youth Advisory and Adult Youth Consulting Boards, the rally once again met with an overwhelming response and unequivocal success.

New additions to the 1984 rally, tagged “Companions: Sharing Gifts for the Journey,” were Brian Reynolds, staff member of the Northeast Center for Youth Ministry in Paterson, New Jersey an Steve McCoy, popular Z-93 disc jockey and parishioner of St. Ann’s Church in Marietta.

Reynolds, who will be in Atlanta again this fall to conduct a Christian Leadership Institute, led general sessions and a special workshop for young adults, while McCoy emceed the “Top 40” dance which has been the rally’s traditional closing.

“As a family of God there is a certain giftedness that comes from every member of the community,” Dolores Waters offered. Helping young people recognize this giftedness in themselves and letting the church recognize its young people, she added, are what the rally has always aimed to do.