Print Issue: September 26, 2002

From Guatemala To Georgia Guatemalans Work To Deepen Catholic, Mayan Roots

By Priscilla Greear, Staff Writer

CLEVELAND - Norma Caporale knows firsthand the powerful Protestant presence among Hispanics in the Cleveland area, and the need for the Catholic Church to increase outreach to them. As a native of Mexico, she often gets invited - even at the grocery store - to non-Catholic, Spanish services.

And as leader of the Hispanic ministry at St. Paul of the Apostle Church, her biggest challenge is to build participation in the predominantly Guatemalan congregation. In towns across North Georgia like Canton and Cleveland, Protestant churches from Pentecostal to Methodist offer things like Spanish and even indigenous language worship services, transportation, English classes, sites for day laborers to gather and other social services.

(Clockwise, from left) Toledo Garcia, Jose Garcia, Jose Domingo, Simon Garcia Ramirez and Juan Jimenez conduct their Thursday evening rehearsal on the wooden marimba in the Canton home of Ramirez. Toledo, Jose and Simon, who are brothers, and the remaining band members all grew up in the Guatemalan village of Santa Eulalia. (Photos by Michael Alexander)

So Father Thad Rudd, when he was assigned to St. Paul's last September, immediately began a Hispanic ministry and hired Caporale as both DRE and to lead Hispanic ministry. "My being Catholic my whole life and always being surrounded by Catholics, it is so hard (to see Catholics leave the church). It's a big challenge," said Caporale, who moved from Mexico to Cleveland to marry an American. "These people they don't speak English at all so they just want to feel faith in a place and look for a church" with services in their language. She's grateful for the St. Paul community's warm support of the ministry, even when the Latinos aren't contributing to the church financially.

St. Paul's only had two Hispanic families attending English Mass before beginning the outreach, and now the growing Spanish ministry draws around 120-130 people to weekly Spanish worship.

While evangelization clearly isn't a game of interchurch competition, Catholic churches of North Georgia are now being challenged by other Christian churches to improve their ministries and commitment to Hispanics in order to simply keep their Latino flocks Catholic. Father Rudd, who doesn't know Spanish but reads the Mass in it, knows that most Latinos in Protestant churches come from Catholic families. "I think in this part of the state every church is going to have a Spanish ministry, certainly for at least one generation, or we'll lose them if we don't," he said.

A more mature Hispanic congregation founded in 1992 is at Our Lady of LaSalette Church, Canton, with about 225-250 people attending the Spanish Mass. About half of that number is from Guatemala. Ministry coordinator Antonio Marcos is deepening indigenous Catholic roots by leading a weekly predominantly Guatemalan prayer group drawing up to 80 people that focuses both on spirituality and Mayan heritage. And another weekly Bible study for about 50 youth and young adults is led by Father Sergio Anaya, PCP, parochial vicar at Good Shepherd Church, Cumming. The weekly Spanish Mass celebrated by Father Joe Fahy, CP, who has established Spanish ministries around the archdiocese, fills to capacity at about 250 and now has three choirs, including one with youth and young adults. "I like to think we're doing fairly well considering the circumstances," Father Fahy said.

The programs seem to be working. (Before) "the men as well as the young people and the married couples weren't united. We organized each other in this place in order to always stay close to our Catholic faith," said Marcos.

Strengthening Religious Foundation

The problem of Hispanics leaving for Protestant churches is not unique to this country. According to Father Fahy, Central America, like the United States, has a large priest shortage. Father Fahy recalled that when he lived in Honduras in 1988, there were 300 priests for five million people.

Part of the archdiocese's struggle to reach all Catholic Hispanics is also a limited number of Spanish-speaking priests, said Father Fahy. Currently there are about 25 Spanish-speaking priests in the archdiocese.

With mallets in hand, the musicians from Guatemala play the marimba during a practice session in the home of fellow musician Simon Garcia Ramirez.

Then there are the special challenges of evangelization in a region not traditionally Catholic or used to non-English speaking immigrants.

Father Rudd noted that many Guatemalans moving to Georgia have a weak foundation in religious education which makes them more prone to wander from their faith. He hopes that St. Paul's and other churches will begin partnership programs with Guatemalan parishes.

Currently St. Paul the Apostle offers children's religious education in Spanish and Caporale hopes to begin English classes for adults simultaneously. She has found her only barrier in relating to the Guatemalans is occasional difficulty understanding their Spanish, as it's their second language. Their first language is Mayan - and there are 22 Mayan languages - with six spoken in Canton. Despite the language barrier Father Rudd hears confessions in Spanish, although he estimates that half of his parish Guatemalans only speak the indigenous tongues. Hearing confessions in Spanish "is probably not good, but it's better than nothing."

As many people from Cornelia also come to church, the priest said the parish seeks the donation of a small bus, to help get people to church. "If we had a small bus we could triple our ministry."

Caporale also seeks help from the archdiocese to begin offering a monthly charismatic Mass to attract new members, "something that is extremely joyful, beautiful and happy."

St. Paul's Hispanic choir is improving, they just got a new Guatemalan lead singer, and each Mass ends with an indigenous song. "I feel they come to the church they feel like it's a big family," Caporale said. "I'm trying to build up more confidence between them and us. They know we will never do anything against them, but they are not giving any sort of information because of their legal situation."

A bus is also on the top of the wish list over at Our Lady of LaSalette to provide more transportation to the Spanish Mass-goers, said a ministry leader Efran Raen. He and Juan Cuyuch met with Marcos in the basement of his split level home to discuss the needs of the ministry, talking with a level of thoughtfulness and concern as if addressing how to better run a business. Marcos feels the biggest problem of the ministry is that most don't know English.

"Within the magisterium of the church we look for unity within the diversity of cultures . . . At the same time we are trying, making the effort to make a domestic church, our church, an indigenous one that can be understood by the people," said Cuyuch. Marcos, who has many Hispanic friends who've left the church, added that this means incorporating a sense of Guatemalan and Mayan identity and heritage. (Marcos is also president of the Projecto Maya Pastoral based in Arizona, which has 33 chapters around the country focusing on preserving Mayan heritage.)

"We put something of where we come from in Guatemala, and this covers our reflection. We take a reflection from Scripture that speaks of our life," said Marcos, who is soft-spoken and joyful.

For one Mayan spiritual practice in his home, he and his wife Maria carry an incense called pom, flowers and a candle throughout the house and then say a prayer outside, to rid it of any evil spirits. He noted that in Guatemala, families traditionally light a candle to present to God at the altar for all special occasions They also pray with their four children together in front of an altar with crucifixes and an image of Santa Eulalia in the living room, also decorated with wall hangings of Jesus and the Guatemalan flag. Antonio and Maria speak to each other in the Q'anjobal language, while their four children understand it but only speak English and Spanish.

Marcos, who fled the civil war in Guatemala, moved from Los Angeles with his family to Canton in 1998, and first got work at a poultry factory before he took work as an electrician. He has devoted his free time to the church for the past eight years, and continues to develop the Canton ministry, while also helping support a new one in Ellijay at Good Samaritan Mission. While he's grateful for Father Fahy he wishes the parish could have a priest available throughout the week to support his community and provide services like baptisms on Saturdays. He would also like to have more space made available to the Hispanic community at the church during the week to meet and offer social services.

"There is a part (of the congregation) that doesn't want to see the Hispanics. (Yet) we are preparing ourselves to work together united," Marcos said.

Marcos, Raen and Cuyuch all attended and helped decorate for a Mass July 30 at St. Joseph's Church, Dalton, celebrating the canonization by Pope John Paul II of Guatemala's first saint, Pedro de San Jose Betancur, a 17th century missionary from the Canary Islands known as the St. Francis of Central America for his work with the poor.

Raen, 21, expressed his gratitude for the canonization of the household saint. "For me what Betancur is is the one who worked above all helping the poor in his life. He did what God called him to do. And that is what we are trying to do in our lives today to help also our brothers who don't attend the church," he said.

Regarding his own journey to Georgia, "We came here for economic and social reasons. But my goal is to always be close to the church."