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BY GRETCHEN KEISER
Staff Writer
ATLANTA--A unique immersion experience for Atlanta seminarians in
El Paso, Texas, inaugurated in 1999, has been affirmed as vital to their
formation and will be intensified based upon an evaluation of the pilot
year.
The bilingual and cross-cultural reality of the Catholic Church on
the Mexico-Texas border helps prepare men who will be future priests in the
Atlanta Archdiocese, the vocations director said in an interview in
December.
 The Catholic Church is made up of lots
of different types of people... it will be a church of many colors, like
Joseph's coat
Father David Talley
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"The men who grew up in small, monolithic churches have to know
that the church of Atlanta is a much more complicated church with many cultures
that incarnate the faith," Father David Talley said.
"The Catholic Church is made up of lots of different types of
people and we see it every day -- Vietnamese, Koreans, Thai, Africans ... It
will be a church of many colors, like Joseph's coat."
The El Paso experience immerses seminarians in Spanish and in the
Mexican and Mexican-American culture, a focus which is designed to prepare
priests to minister to the huge Hispanic population already in the Atlanta
Archdiocese. Bilingual priests are critical to the church now; more are needed
and, in the future, to be bilingual and fluid in different cultures will be
essential.
In cooperation with the El Paso Diocese, Atlanta sent one of its
pastors, Father Frank Giusta, to serve as pastor of an El Paso parish for
several years. That parish serves as a base for the seminarians who come for
eight weeks in the summer and Father Giusta is in charge of the formation
program. When his assignment concludes, another archdiocesan priest will be
sent to continue the process.
The initial El Paso experience included classes in Spanish and
theology for seminarians, meetings with El Paso pastors and lay leaders who
minister in a thoroughly bilingual environment, field trips to see rural and
urban neighborhoods, including the poorest colonias, and a day spent with a
family. The seminarians lived together for the eight weeks in order to begin to
form a brotherhood among the future priests.
After the first summer's experience concluded, Father Talley held
a meeting for all priests who minister to Hispanics in North Georgia, and
invited Father Giusta and the program's El Paso architect, Msgr. Arturo
Bañuelas, a pastor and Hispanic theologian, and Gonzalo Saldaña,
head of the archdiocesan Hispanic Apostolate. The meeting was to report on the
first summer and to dialogue with priests here about strengthening the program
and applying it to the challenges of ministry in North Georgia.
"Each year we hope it will become a more cohesive program," Father
Talley said in December. "We're mandating Spanish for all our seminarians for
whom English is the primary language. Every seminarian will go down to El Paso
for that experience."
Based on the recommendations of archdiocesan priests, the program
for the summer of 2000 will have two tracks, Father Talley said.
The first-year track will send eight to 10 seminarians to St.
Charles Borromeo College in El Paso for five weeks where they will live
together and study intensive Spanish.
The second track, for two to six men who have already been in El
Paso the prior summer, will place the seminarians in a parish in Juarez,
Mexico, for eight weeks for a total immersion in the Mexican culture. Juarez is
just across the border from El Paso.
The two groups will get together two days a week for community and
fellowship. After five weeks in El Paso, the first-year group will also move to
Juarez for three weeks, living in a home provided by the local bishop, Father
Talley said. If funding permits, the two groups will end the summer with a
pilgrimage to the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City, Father
Talley said, since devotion to Mary under this title is at the heart of the
Catholic faith of Mexico and much of Latin America.
In the September meeting with archdiocesan priests, clergy agreed
that future priests must become capable of moving out of their own culture and
into a pastoral role with people of many cultures.
Father Guyma Noel, a parochial vicar at Sacred Heart Church,
Atlanta, said in his first assignments there and at Holy Trinity Church in
Peachtree City he has ministered to Cubans, Colombians, Guatemalans and
Mexicans. "I had to challenge myself to be multicultural," he said.
"The primary goal has to be to inculcate an appreciation for other
cultures," said Father Paul Williams, pastor of Sacred Heart Church in Griffin,
a Georgian who has learned to celebrate Mass in Spanish.
While the El Paso program is providing immersion in one Hispanic
culture, that of Mexico, the fluidity to move out of one's own cultural
experience to better understand and serve others is what is essential, priests
said. Father Jaime Barona, a parochial vicar at St. Benedict's Church, Duluth,
said, "It is important for Hispanics also to be able to move in other cultures
... to serve the people of God."
Those observations were taken to heart by the program's designers,
Father Talley said in December.
"We are hoping to build classes that show men how God uses
cultures to make up our universal Catholic Church," he said, so that
seminarians can "learn ways of understanding Christ through the lenses of
different cultures."
"This year should be better with the immersion in Juarez," he
said. "(Seminarians) should have a clearer taste of Mexico and the cultures of
Mexico."
Father Talley said he, his administrative assistant Kirial Gamboa,
Saldaña and Father Giusta continue to work on aspects of the program.
The archdiocese currently has 56 men in various seminaries.
The 13 seminarians who went in the summer of 1999, who ranged from
18-year-olds to men in their fourth year of theology, came through an intense
and sometimes difficult experience in a way that surprised and pleased their
mentors.
"El Paso is not ... U.S. culture. It is not Mexican culture. It is
a mixture of the two," Father Giusta told archdiocesan priests. "The
seminarians went through a culture shock which, in the long run, was very
productive ... Almost to my amazement, because they complained all the time,
the seminarians had their lives transformed."
Msgr. Bañuelas said one of the strengths that became clear
after the first summer was the community aspect of the El Paso experience for
seminarians, who study at a variety of seminaries in different states.
"They liked the experience of being together in community. They
bonded ... The struggles were very healing. They got to a deeper level ... It
was very difficult, but it was very powerful. The experience of being away
together was very powerful."
A third-generation Mexican-American who was born in El Paso, Msgr.
Bañuelas said the community is an advantageous place for immersion
because it is completely bilingual, more Hispanic than non-Hispanic and
Catholics are a majority of the population. The reality of the church in El
Paso today will become more and more the reality of the church in the United
States, he observed.
"The Catholic Church is Hispanic. It will not get less
Spanish-speaking. It will get more Spanish-speaking."
In an interview following the meeting, Msgr. Bañuelas said
the archdiocesan program, while architects agree it needs strengthening, is
"unique and I think it is visionary."
"We lose about two million Hispanics a year in the Catholic Church
and one of the reasons is lack of pastoral care," he said. "The archdiocese (of
Atlanta) has looked at this situation very concretely by having seminarians
learn the language and the culture and how to respond to the pastoral needs of
Hispanics ... Then to have the pastors here ... it makes the program even
stronger."
He also expressed appreciation that Archbishop John F. Donoghue
had visited El Paso while the seminarians were there, making it clear the
importance of this training to the future of the church of North Georgia.
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