Posted on 01/05/2008 7:06:01 AM PST by NYer
WIMAUMA - Father Demetrio Lorden walks into the garage of a concrete block house, slips on his robe and vestments, and unpacks a gold chalice.
He tests a microphone, and as dogs howl nearby, a small group of Hispanic workers and their families launches into a discordant song of praise.
Lorden calls this his "evangelism Mass," the one he has every Monday night in houses and mobile home camps of the Wimauma immigrant community.
Like other Catholic priests with Hispanic members, Lorden is trying to fend off competitors for the parishioners in his pews.
Protestant evangelists - people just as dedicated as he is, but with a quite different approach to Christianity - are aggressively recruiting on his turf. Some target workers as they labor in the fields; others approach them in their homes or at local bodegas, grocery stores.
Catholic priests like Lorden are responding with outreach and Bible studies, hoping to hold on to this large and growing population.
"Hispanic immigrants need to know someone is there caring for them," said Lorden, pastor of Our Lady of Guadalupe church. "But one of the things that pushed me to do that fervently and constantly was because ... other churches and denominations are visiting them and proselytizing them."
Sometimes Lorden's home-based Masses are the only contact workers have with the Catholic church, said Alejandro Lopez, 34, a construction worker who attended Lorden's service on a recent Monday night.
For those who can't make Sunday Mass because of work, Lorden's service helps sustain their faith, especially during hard times, Lopez said.
"It makes you feel better," he said.
The majority of Hispanics in the United States, or 68 percent, still call themselves Catholics. Of those who leave the Catholic church, most become Pentecostal or evangelical Christians or they leave religion all together, according to a national study released this year by the Pew Hispanic Center.
Some Catholic priests acknowledge that Protestant sects like the Pentecostals have responded faster and more aggressively to immigrants with aid and tight-knit worship circles in Spanish.
On a recent Saturday afternoon, the Rev. Jose Luis Correa, a Pentecostal pastor in Dover, handed out pamphlets with some church members as they walked through the parking lots of small Hispanic grocery stores or food stores with Hispanic patrons.
Then, they visited a mobile home park nestled between strawberry fields and railroad tracks. Many residents did not answer the door or weren't home. Others politely took the pamphlets and said they would come to church.
Sometimes, Correa said, he approaches them in the fields with water. Often he brings them clothes and food.
"We tell them we believe God will provide for their needs," said Correa, of Assembly of God or Templo Cristiano. "You're not going to reach them by being on a pulpit or sitting in an office."
Correa tackles their personal problems: marital disputes, alcoholism - a service sometimes lacking in the Catholic church.
For some immigrants like Edin Gonzalez, a 25-year-old Guatemalan carpenter who left most of his family behind, the church has become an instant community.
"It's like my second home. It's my family," he said.
* * *
When Hispanic converts from the Catholic church join Protestant sects, they let go of their attachment to the saints, religious images and Mary, the mother of Jesus, Correa said.
"We don't worship idols," he said.
Catholic priests bristle at the accusation and say Protestant evangelizers are tearing Hispanics away from their culture and faith.
"There's almost like a whole campaign to bring down the blessed Mother like she's the anti-Christ," said Father Carlos Rojas of St. Clement Catholic Church in Plant City.
Rojas, of Puerto Rican decent, said Hispanic Catholics, particularly Mexican Catholics, are very devoted to Mary.
They believe Mary, known as Our Lady of Guadalupe, appeared to a Mexican Indian peasant named Juan Diego in 1531. Juan Diego's story contributed greatly to Catholicism's spread in Mexico.
Recently, in a mix of religion and culture, St. Clement held a three-day festival and a two-day vigil to mark the feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe that included Aztec dancers, mariachi bands and statues of the Virgin Mary.
The festival, which took place at the Plant City Stadium, drew 3,000 people, the first time it was held on such a large scale.
And it was yet another effort to cement the Catholic church's historical presence in the Hispanic community.
St. Clement, like other Catholic churches, started a Bible study for its Hispanic members in part to counter Protestant evangelizers, shifting from a tradition that left Bible readings and interpretations to priests.
"When you are entering into dialogue with other religions and people who are attacking the Catholic church, there is a need to have Bible studies," Rojas said. "If you are asked this question, here is a way you can respond."
Juan Gomez, pastor of the Church of God, a Protestant church in Wimauma, said his members don't attack Catholics. They just worship differently.
"We believe that (Mary) was a beautiful woman of God, but in terms of redemption, Christ is the one in terms of intercession, Christ is the interceder, not Mary, as they believe," said Gomez, who converted from Catholicism to the Church of God at 15 after immigrating to Ruskin from Mexico.
Gomez said he questions the Juan Diego story and the Catholic blending of religion with Hispanic culture.
But ultimately, newcomers aren't forced to stay in his church. If they don't like the spirited form of worship and Bible study, they go elsewhere.
"We try to bring people to a deeper relationship with Christ," he said. "It will always be up to the people."
Saundra Amrhein can be reached at amrhein@sptimes.com or (813) 661-2441.
Clear differences between the two
The battle for Hispanic faithful continues to brew between Catholics and Protestants, with both sides increasingly stepping up their recruitment efforts. Among the Protestant denominations, the Pentecostals have been particularly aggressive. Here are some major differences between Catholics and Protestants.
| PROTESTANTS vsCATHOLICS Believe the sacrament, or communion, is symbolic. Believe the sacrament istransformed into the body and blood of Christ. Have no supreme hierarchy such as a pope. Believe in the infallibility of the pope. Many churches, particularly Pentecostals, embrace aspirited worship style. Embrace a liturgical worship style. Allow women to pastor and become bishops. Allow only men to become priests and bishops. See no need for a priest to serve as a mediator between them and God. Revere Mary and the saints and ask them for intercession. Require confession before a priest. |
Source: Roman Catholic Diocese of St. Petersburg
You know, I’ve never really thought to ask this, so I’ll ask it here - why is the Catholic Church the only one that puts so much emphasis on Mary? When Protestant churches split off from the Church, why did they leave that part behind?
Not trying to start a religious war here, just realized how ignorant I am of this major difference. For the record, raised Protestant but have attended Catholic mass.
Never mind.
“Less this source mischaracterized official Church teaching.”
Here is the first paragraph of your source:
“HELL is a place where sinners really do burn in an everlasting fire, and not just a religious symbol designed to galvanise the faithful, Pope Benedict XVI has said.”
That would seem to indicate that the Catholic Church teaches, and with the exception of the Modernist Heretics, always has taught, that Hell is a place.
“You know, I’ve never really thought to ask this, so I’ll ask it here - why is the Catholic Church the only one that puts so much emphasis on Mary? When Protestant churches split off from the Church, why did they leave that part behind?”
Martin Luther himself put the same emphasis on Mary. My belief is that Satan was able to deceive protestants into accepting many of God’s blessings because they were weakened by their refusal of the eucharist.
It’s not just the Blessed Virgin. There are many other blessings that God, as the Good Shepherd, as most loving of fathers, wishes to bestow on us, and which protestants scorn.
I think some of them already do. I've heard of some who claim to accept both the Koran AND the Bible. Now I don't know how they manage this since the texts make mutually exclusive claims about the Old Testament Patriarchs, and even more importantly about Jesus himself. It just sounds like the silly postmodern "multiple truths" brand of syncretism to me, but what do I know?
Like all honors, this one is a nuisance. Unlike many honors it is frightening. If you want to know what frightens me, check out this thread. Asbestos underwear recommended.
I think that since the Reformation there has been a certain counter-dependency to it, to tell you the truth. I don't know all the whys and wherefores of the Protestant depreciation of Mary (as one might say), but I do think we calflicks responded by saying, "Well you can't tell ME what to do. Gimme my Rosary, hold my Bible, and watch THIS!"
And, and the Protestantss will say this is delusional or demonic, for some of us it's experience. I won't say that Mary "brought me to Jesus", but I will say that she brought me closer to Jesus.
My own personal thinking, as an Episcopalian seminarian (in a virtually Calvinist seminary) was that I wanted to be at least analogically like Mary in that I wanted to offer all of myself to God and to bring God's love into the world. Of course, I say "analogically" because Mary already did that. But we still speak of people bringing the gospel to others or of them bringing people to Jesus, and we don't intend to lessen in any way God's role in any of that. (But after a couple of sleepless nights of sermon prep or after tears shed at the death of a child whom one didn't know 12 hours ago, one does feel brought into the "work of Christ", as a sharer or fellow-traveller, or something.)
Then, well, the Rosary is like vitamins. I mean I don't even know I feel bad when I don't take my one gazillion supplements (recommended, I hasten to say, by my physician.) I just sort of plod along.
But when I DO take my pills, if I look back, I say, "Woah, I have some energy! Looka that!"
Similarly, while the Mass, the Liturgy of the Hours (which, when all is said and done, is mostly psalms) and the Bible are at the heart of my daily life as a Calflick, I can sure tell -- if I think about it -- when I skip my Rosary.
Mind you, the Rosary mysteries (if you don't know them, ask. I'll provide a link) are mostly about the life of Jesus. But still, on the sort of childish and schematic basis that "Hail Marys" plus meditating on the life of her Most Holy Son are things pleasing to her, we consider the whole thing a kind of gift to her, as I might try to befriend a king not only for his (and my) sake, but also to ease the heart of his mother.
Anyway, if you say some couple of hundred Rosaries and have the experience I have had of growing closer to IHS, you tend to want to thank Mary.
As to my tag line:
That is part of a revelation less than 200 years ago to a "sister". The famous consequence of that revelation is what's called "The Miraculous Medal", a thing which in my protestant days and my early Catholic days gave me the heebie-jeebies.
But I was favored with a little revelation (NOT a vision, but there were tears) on April 15th of last year, and it had to do with our Lady, St. Catherine Laboure (the visionary of the medal), and with making a new attempt to give myself to the Lord.
And there really are miracles of conversion -- and conversion to Jesus, and only tangentially to our Lady -- associated with the medal. (I choose the word "associated" carefully.) So as I still hope to help people come to where they can see how much Jesus loves them, now I ask the Lady who told the servants, for her last recorded words of Scripture, "Do whatever he tells you," for her prayers
Also, it tends to sort of lay on the table my, ah, denominational predilections to have that tag-line.
Also, you say we put a big emphasis on Mary. You should see the Byzantine Church!
And you say you've been to Mass. How much emphasis was placed on Mary there? I would venture to guess that in by far most of the Masses I've been to she's mentioned maybe twice.
Accuacy implies precision, but not conversely: A statement can be precise without being accurate, but it cannot truly be accurate without being precise.
(Actually,you're quite right. Parts of NJ are wildly beautiful. But I'll never admit it.)
But I acknowledge, albeit reluctantly, that some people use the words as you say.
I would say, "Trenton is on the planet Earth (despite the evidence of our senses)," is accurate, but not precise. While saying "the North east corner of Trenton is a Latitude 10 (little round thing) 30' 45" S, Longitude 45 (little round thing) 21' 30" E." is precise as all get out, but woah is it inaccurate.
But, as I say, YMMV.
But Protestant churches do have the Eucharist - maybe not in the same way the Catholic Church does, but they have some kind of Communion.
You win people to Jesus with love...not by attacking them and their beliefs.
Huh? Prove it! Scriptural references, please.
Jesus wouldn't hear it anyway...Because you pray to Mary or a dead person instead of God and you don't even have a clue whether that dead person is in heaven or hell...And you don't believe in a literal heaven or hell anyway...
Where do you come up with these falsehoods?
Bravo! Great response.
Islam is one of the many offshoots of Arianism, a heresy that the Church has fought against since the beginning (essentially, it denies the Trinity and says that Jesus is not the Son). Oddly enough, Protestants frequently hold up Arians and other Arian-influenced heretics as what they refer to as the true (but submerged) Church that limped along in the shadows and didn’t emerge for 1400 years until the advent of Luther.
Islam a syncretist cult. It is a distortion of both the Old and New Testaments, but it says it “accepts” them. Incidentally, Muslim doctrine is that all people are “born” Muslims and therefore Islam predates Christianity and Judaism. Obviously, this is no more true than the loony ravings and historical theories of Joseph Smith, but it’s what Muslims use to convince the ignorant.
Thank you for all the information and links. You’ve given me a lot to think about.
I know the Catholic-Protestant differences can get people stirred up. I didn’t want this thread to turn into a bunch of rants: “Because they’re WRONG!” “No, YOU’RE wrong!” I was just intellectually curious about the difference.
I just meant that Catholic services mention Mary more than Protestant ones do. I’m most familiar with the Episcopal church, and I have seen a statue of Mary in one Episcopal church, but only one, and not seen statues of Mary in any other Protestant churches (except Nativity scenes at Christmastime). That’s what I meant about “more emphasis on Mary.”
I will follow Christ. I will pray you lay down your twisted hatred and come home to Christ and his Church.
CC, thank you. You were the only person to simply ask a reasonable question.
I agree that for folks brought up in Protestantism, there will be puzzlement over Mary. And I think it’s wonderful that somebody just asks about it, and somebody else just answers it.
Thank you!
Only in the mind of (some) Catholics...
Among the problems that Protestants have is that they do not understand the difference between truth and the expression of truth, between accuracy and precision, and they do not understand the notion of context.
Ha...So marshmallow was accurate but not quite precise, eh??? Nice try...But no cigar...
Here it is Saturday, and my guess is that marshmallow was understandably careless in his or her choice of words.
We haven't heard again from marshmallow so I doubt that is the case...
Make the most of it. I stopped using that sort of gambit in adult discussions back in 1962 when I was 14.
I find it interesting as well as typical, the length at which you guys will go to defend yourselves, even when you know one of you is wrong...And then you resort to insults when you can't defend yourself...
And that's typical as well, isn't it...
You are very welcome. Running my mouth (or keyboard) gets me out of taking out the garbage. ALWAYS a good thing!
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