Seminar Timing May Be Perfect For Our Diocese

In about five weeks, the Diocese of Evansville’s Office of Hispanic Ministry will host “Best Practices for Shared Parishes” – on April 29 in English and April 30 in Spanish. Alejandro Aguilera-Titus, Assistant Director of Hispanic Affairs for the U.S. bishops’ Secretariat of Cultural Diversity in the Church, will lead the workshops. They run from 9 a.m. Central Time to 2:30 p.m. Central Time each day, with Mass celebrated at 8 a.m. for those who wish to attend.

When one takes a deeper look into the “cultural demographics” of our 12-county Catholic community, it appears that the timing for this seminar couldn’t be better. Make no mistake – our geography says Southwest Indiana; but our cultural diversity says, “we are from many lands.”

“We have members of our diocesan community from many nations,” said Sharon Burns, Diocesan Director of Hispanic Ministry and Director of Catholic Charities for the Diocese of Evansville. “They include Mexico, Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Venezuela, Colombia, and Guatemala from Central and South America, and Cuba and Puerto Rico from the Caribbean region. We also have a Haitian population in Daviess County.”

Burns said there are 400-500 Haitians in Daviess County, almost all here alone.  Almost all left family members behind, either in Haiti or Miami, Fla. A few of them have family members in New York and New Jersey. Most work in manufacturing and agricultural processing plants to support their families back home.

Of course, the Diocese of Evansville’s Catholic community grew on the backs of German immigrants who settled in this area. “There may be a fair number of Irish descendents<” Burns noted. “However, the population of individuals of German descent is predominant. There is also a small-but-slowly-growing population of Russian immigrants in the Evansville area.”

There also is a dynamic and vibrant Filipino community in the diocese. It’s not difficult to conclude that the Diocese of Evansville has been multicultural for quite some time. And Burns is quick to point out that the trend of “shared parishes” that Aguilera-Titus will focus on will only continue here.

“In addition to people from other countries immigrating to the Southwest Indiana area, there are immigrant individuals and families migrating from cities within the United States,” she said.  “For example, the Cuban people who are migrating here are arriving from the Miami area – primarily for work opportunities.

“As the second and third generations of immigrants from other cultures form their own families, they will be dispersing among the parishes around the diocese,” Burns added.  “In addition, the immigrant children will meet and marry spouses from other cultures – including Americans – and relocate to other areas around greater Evansville and across the diocese.  This process inevitably results in a more diverse parish family throughout the diocese.”

In an interview with The Message earlier this year, Aguilera-Titus explained that a “shared” parish is a community with multiple cultures represented. In our diocese, as noted above, those cultures could be Latino, Anglo and Asian. “We know that there are three thresholds involved in the process of developing cultural integration,” Aguilera-Titus said. “First there is welcoming, or hospitality. Next is developing a sense of belonging; finally is ownership.

“This workshop provides a step in the processes of understanding the issue of diversity and learning inter-cultural competency,” he added. “Nobody is born with this competency,” he added. “We all need to attain it; it involves learning skills and developing attitudes ... gaining knowledge. It involves building relationships, and that is a developmental process … a very human process.”

Registration for the seminar is $20 per person or $80 for five people from the same parish or organization. Registration includes a copy of the book “Best Practices for Shared Parishes,” workshop materials and lunch. For more information or to register, call the Office of Hispanic Ministry at 812-683-5212 or visit www.evdio.org/multicultural-leadership-event.html.