The History of the National Encuentros: Hispanic Americans in the One Catholic Church by Mario J. Paredes (review)

Hispanics are a majority in many dioceses in the United States and will soon be a national majority in the Catholic Church here. That they present an unprecedented pastoral challenge and opportunity for the church is well known. Mario J. Paredes was an architect in developing the church’s response to this challenge, planning and holding, to date, three National Hispanic Pastoral Encuentros (encounters).

The encuentro was pioneered in the 1960s by the Council of Latin American Bishops, following the call of the Second Vatican Council to develop new consultative bodies allowing participation of the entire church from the grass-roots to the hierarchy. Supported by a lengthy and rigorous preparatory process, these encuentros employed the “see, judge, act” method developed by the Catholic Action movement. Originally led by a coterie of mostly English-speaking priests who mastered Spanish, immersed themselves in Latin American cultures, and developed the first diocesan Spanish-language pastoral programs, the United States Catholic Conference adopted this encuentro strategy to develop national pastoral plans to serve U.S. Hispanics.

Paredes proceeds to survey and analyze the three Encuentros. The first one met in 1972. It was planned as a series of workshops which attempted to lay out the manifold and major challenges facing U.S. Hispanic Catholics. Themes focused on Hispanics’ full participation throughout the church, including base communities within parishes to practice their cultural instantiation of the Catholic faith, including Spanish, bilingual, and multilingual liturgies. Also discussed were the education and formation of Hispanic priests, deacons, religious, and lay ministers, the promotion of lay apostolates, the ability of Hispanics to afford Catholic schools, and developing measures against the political and economic marginalization of Hispanics in society. These workshops developed the first pastoral plan of action that, despite limitations with whom it actually represented and what was concretely accomplished, did lay the groundwork for future meetings.

The Second Encuentro met in 1977 and had as its goal the pastoral integration of U.S. Hispanics into church life. That meeting focused explicitly on evangelization. Themes included the development of a diversity of ministries serving the people, addressing human rights concerns specific to Hispanics, the integral education of the whole Hispanic person to combat exploitation and exercise political responsibility, as well as the recognition of the diversity among Hispanics and how that could inform both church and national unity. Led by a new national secretariat for Hispanics at the USCC, this exponentially larger meeting consulted and received detailed feedback from every region across the country. Despite this achievement, Paredes criticizes the second Encuentro as ideologically straitjacketed by leftist thinking and liberation theology in a way that excluded other views within the church.

The Third Encuentro that met in 1985 continued the work of the first and especially the second meeting. There, the focus was a vision of Hispanics as a community in the church performing a prophetic role of modeling how the church ought to commit to its mission of salvation. This prophetic role was articulated along pastoral lines that focused on the family, a preferential option for the poor, marginalized, and youth, the recognition of women’s contributions to church life and ministry that included a defense of their equality and dignity, integral education, and, on every level, an authentically enculturated church that is dedicated to justice. The book concludes with a call for a new national Encuentro, and an appendix containing information which influences pastoral planning for Hispanics.

Paredes’s book is more than a history of these Encuentros, it is an argument for the church in the United States to sustain and intensify its efforts to consult and better understand and engage the pastoral needs of U.S. Hispanics. These needs continue to be grossly underserved despite the progress already made. Paredes packs in so much data, the narrative does not flow as one would expect in a...