National Hispanic Heritage Month

On September 17, 1968, the Congress of the United States authorized the President of the United States (then Lyndon B. Johnson), to proclaim National Hispanic Heritage Week. This proclamation urged the people of the United States, especially the educational entities, to observe the week with appropriate ceremonies and activities. President Gerald R. Ford, in 1974, issued a proclamation that particularly urged schools and human rights organizations to participate fully in the celebration of National Hispanic Heritage Week.

Twenty years later, on August 18, 1988, President Ronald Reagan reiterated Ford’s call for a broader recognition of all residents of Hispanic origin. To this end, the Congress approved Public Law 100-402, extending the celebration for a period of 31 days, to be known as NATIONAL HISPANIC HERITAGE MONTH, (from September 15 to October 15 of each year). The United States continues that month-long celebration of the culture and traditions of the residents of this country who have roots in Spain, Mexico and the Spanish-speaking countries of Central America, South America and the Caribbean, and honors the accomplishments of the Hispanic or Latin community who reside in this nation.

As a Hispanic community, we remember and enjoy festivities revolving around our origin, history, culture, the values of our identity and reality in this nation. It is a privileged time each year in which we review our Hispanic state in this nation: our common objectives (where they exist), our efforts, activities, desires, longings, and ideals; our participation in the history and progress of the country; and, above all, the accomplishments that our Hispanic presence has achieved in the overall concert of this great nation’s life.

The Hispanics of several generations have proceeded from the many different corners of Latin America. We have brought with us the richest and most varied cultural expressions, (originating from our historic associations with Spain or Portugal), and most especially, our Catholic faith. We constitute a veritable multitude in this nation. The National Census of the year 2000 found 56 million persons of Hispanic origin living in the United States, making us the largest minority, representing 15% of the total population.

Our numerical growth greatly increases, at the same time, the problems that we as a community must face and resolve equally increase. Looking beyond ourselves to the rest of the very diverse population of the United States, we see the issues that result from our multiculturalism in every field of life: academic, economic, political, cultural, artistic, athletic, religious, etc.

Some of the great problems we face include: a lack of understanding of our own inner being; a knowledge of who we are and of our Hispanic communities (which lack integration and unity); our limited or absent sense of belonging to the Hispanic community present in the United States; our lack of leadership and of interrelationship between the leadership of our varied communities; our lack of common objectives (especially political); the absence of a common vision which could give strength in a unified struggle to reach common goals and achievements in the life and growth of this nation. We don’t even share a common name to define and identify us as a community in relation to the rest of the nation.

Consequently, the recent study done by the PEW Hispanic Center reveals that:

Most Hispanics or Latinos prefer not to be called either “Hispanics” or “Latinos”.

• Approximately 51% of Hispanics in the nation prefer to be identified according to their country of origin.

• Only 49% of those surveyed said that they identify themselves as a Hispanics and/or Latinos.

• Barely 21% said they preferred to be described as Americans.

• 79% of those surveyed said that if they had to do it again, they would come to the United States.

Moreover, in the last five years, in particular, the immigration debate in the United States has been poor, embarrassing, unfavorable and unfair to the Hispanic community. We have been mistreated, legalization processes have been hindered, and social opportunities have been denied, preventing the Hispanic community from being integrated into the national life of this country.

This failure in immigration policy, especially with regard to the Hispanic community present in this nation, gives rise to many different theories, but is due in large measure to our lack of unity, internal understanding and cohesion, as well as the shortage of Hispanic leaders who should represent our needs, concerns, longings, urgencies, and desires.

Given the large number of Hispanics, it is of the utmost importance to both the Hispanic community and the nation, that we not be assimilated, thus losing our identity, but to be integrated with all of our historic riches and our cultural and Christian values within all the fabric of the United States.

The Catholic Church in the United States is being enriched by the increasing number of faithful Hispanics. The nation’s current debate of the immigration laws offer the Church to be “Mother and Teacher” to the Hispanic community and is given the opportunity to advocate for a reform of the laws that are more just and humane. The leadership offered by Archbishop Jose Gomez of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, and Chairman of the Immigration Committee of the United States Catholic Conference of Bishops, is most promising in helping to achieve a body of laws that will reflect the values of liberty and justice which are the foundation of our nation.

“That they might have abundant life”

With the solemn reality of the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, as Christians we commemorate the principal confession of our faith. We celebrate the fact that although “you killed him by letting sinful men crucify him... God raised him from death, setting him free from its power” (Acts 2,23-24). For if Christ did not rise from the dead our faith is vain, our preaching is vain and our hope is also vain (Cf. 1 Cor 15,17).

This confession of faith is that which connects us and identifies us with the apostles, with the early disciples, with the first century believers and with Christian of all ages and all parts of the earth. This confession of faith is what determined the character and the identity of Christians in the world as men and women of hope. For in the resurrection of Christ life triumphed over death and –for that reason– we know that the final and definitive destiny of man in the Father’s plan is not death, chaos, nothingness, absurdity, or failure, but life… and not just any life, but abundant life (Jn 10,10).

But this confession of faith, in order to be authentic (and not just from our lips) must be born today out of the same vital experience that was born in yesteryear among the first Christians: a transforming experience in their life through which they bore witness as new men and women (Cf. Eph 4,24; Matt 9,17), renewed in their mind (Eph 4,23); that is, with new criteria, with life based on the logic of the gospel and the wisdom of the cross, and not on the world’s logic (Cf. 1 Cor 1,21; Jn 8,23; Jn 15,18-21)… a transforming experience that caused them to proclaim throughout the world that He who was dead is now alive, he rose again and lives today among us.

Such a vital and transforming experience was evident among the early Christians and must be experienced, proven, manifested and preached today in the life of those who –like Christ himself– address God as their Father, (Gal 4,6; Rom 8,14), see themselves as his children and the brothers of all, by fulfilling the Father’s will, his mandate to love.

Today, the same as two thousand years ago, Christians are asked: What have we done with the One who rose from the grave? (Cf. Jn 20,2ff). Where can the world find Jesus Christ, the One who lives forever? This is the reason the confession of faith in the resurrection requires and commits us to present the living Christ in the world through the testimony of our transformed lives, according to the gospel of Jesus Christ. In this way, the presence of the One who rose again becomes a reality in the world today through Christians that bear witness to the life of Christ within them and who cry out with Paul: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Gal 2,20).

Society around us today seeks for possibilities and spaces of life in the midst of a “culture of death”. Such a search challenges us as Christians, all men and women who believe in the God of life that is eternal, full and abundant (Cf. Jn 10,10), believers in God who triumphed over injustice and death and offers us endless possibilities of new life.

Resurrection is the meaning of Easter. Paschal is a Hebrew word that means “passage”, transformation, change, conversion.

· Passage from death to life when we love each other (1 Jn 3,14).
· Passage from hate to love.
· Passage from sadness to joy: “A joy that nothing and no one can take from us” (Jn 16,22).
· Passage from selfishness to service and solidarity.
· Passage from egotism to a generous surrender of our life for the gospel (Lk 9,22-25).
· Passage from anger to forgiveness.
· Passage from iniquity to justice.
· Passage from competition to friendship.
· Passage from darkness to light.
· Passage from slavery to the freedom that belongs to the children of God.
· Passage from sin to grace.
· Passage from the old to the new.
· Passage from the condition of a slave to the life of a son.

Finally, if resurrection is abundant life (Cf. Jn 10,10, eternal life (Jn 3,16) and salvation, and if that full life and salvation is synonymous with happiness that every man and woman desires and hopes for, then Christ, his gospel and the entire saving, paschal and Christian reality is integrated in our life and responds to the fundamental question of humanity: the incessant search for happiness.

Christ saves us because he brings us happiness, teaching us to live his very life: the life that belongs to the children of God and the brothers of all, that enables us –in love- to enjoy a more friendly and just society, with justice and solidarity, equity and peace. There is no divorce between faith and life, between Easter and our daily experience, because the resurrection of Christ –and that for which all of us hope in Him- is the happiness that we seek and find in the everyliving One. Happy Easter!

Why did he call God “Father…”

“…Now the leaders wanted to kill Jesus for two reasons. First, he had broken the law of the Sabbath. But even worse, he had said that God was his Father, which made him equal with God.” (Jn 5,17-30). With this phrase, John the Evangelist sums up the conflict that Jesus faced with the Jewish authorities of his town and of his times (high priests, scribes, Pharisees, elders, etc.). A conflict that in the end issued in his passion, death and resurrection. Thus this phrase also introduces us to the celebration to the most holy week of the Christian calendar and specifically to the celebration of the Easter weekend.

He said that God was his Father: All the deeds of Jesus, all his words (parables), all his ministry together constitute good news for men and women of good will: the creator and God of the Old Testament is a compassionate and merciful Father “who takes no pleasure in the death of the sinner but desires that he be converted and live” (Cf. Mt 22,32-???), who “makes the sun rise on both good and bad people” (Mt 5,45), “who gives good things to people who ask” (Mt 7,10-11) and who – in Jesus – is the one who has come “to call sinners rather than good people to himself” (Mk 2,17).

Which made him equal with God: Jesus is the Son in the image and likeness of his Father. He is absolutely divine as well as profoundly and totally human. All his humanity is pure divinity. God’s perfection is realized in him, the perfection to which we are all called: “You must be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect, compassionate and merciful, as the Father in heaven is compassionate and merciful” (Mt 5,48). Those who saw him, saw the Father (Cf. Jn 14,9).

He broke the law of the Sabbath: From his filial relationship with God, Jesus derived all the consequences for his own life and that of his disciples in all ages: We are all brothers (Cf. Mt 23,8), 4,11), with deeds, especially toward those who are most needy (Cf. Mt 25,31ff). With such certainty, he gave preference to his Father’s will, which consists in our loving each other (Cf. Jn 13,34) and he denounced and broke with a relationship with God that was only ritualistic, legalistic, external, cultic and sacrificial that pretended to honor and worship him while despising the less fortunate. For that reason, on many occasions, he spoke in that way, especially against scribes and Pharisees, who in their fulfillment of the law and their worship in the temple despised and avoided their fallen brothers (Cf. Lc 10,33ff):

• “You hypocrites! You give to God one tenth even of the seasoning herbs, such as mint, dill, and cumin, but you neglect to obey the really important teachings of the Law, such as justice and mercy and honesty.” (Mt 23,23).




• “Go and find out what is meant by the scripture that says: It is kindness that I want, not animal sacrifices” (Mt 9,13).




• “Leave your gift there in front of the altar, go at once and make peace with your brother” (Mt 5,24).




• “Whenever you did this for one of the least important of these followers of mine, you did it for me!” (Mt 25,40).




• “We cannot love God, whom we have not seen, if we do not love others, whom we have seen (1 Jn 4,20; 1 Jn 3,15).



• “You should have had mercy on your fellow servant, just as I had mercy on you”(Mt 18,33).
  

For that reason, Easter in Holy Week is the commemoration of the Son’s life surrendered completely to the Father’s will: for the establishment of God’s kingdom, as we see ourselves as children of the same Father loving each other as brothers and sisters.

For this reason also, the reading of the Gospel accounts of the passion and death are the realization of the unjust process carried out against Jesus as a consequence of his options: to suffer and die in the same way (Cf. Jn 1,29; Acts 8,32) and due to similar conflicts and motives for which centuries earlier the prophets of his people gave their lives and for those who today continue to die: all those who – like Jesus – offer their life to the cause of truth, of life, solidarity, justice, liberty, peace.

For all that has been said, Holy Week is the commemoration and realization of the life, passion, death and resurrection of the One who understood and taught us that life is won when it is lost, is given as a donation, surrendered, yielded, spent in favor of others and is lost when hoarded selfishly (Cf. Mt 16,25).

Today, as disciples of Jesus, we can experience Holy Week as the remembrance of some past deeds that have little relationship with our present, or as the remembrance of occurrences that today are realized in our own life and in the life of a world that needs men and women who are able to wash the feet of their brothers, sharing the same bread, bearing the cross of others, washing the face and consoling those who suffer the most, in order to provide a space for abundant life (Jn 10,10), resurrection life.

SIN AND LENT

Lent is a privileged liturgical season for reflecting upon our human nature: the fragile and vulnerable nature of human existence and, especially, upon the experience of evil (and good) in which we live and develop throughout our historical existence, both personally and in community. We refer to the experience of evil that is lived, evidenced and manifested in conflicts (whether personal, family, social, national, international, natural disasters, etc.) and which, in our Christian theology and worldview, we know as “sin,” as contrasted with other worldviews and theological systems in which evil is called fault, guilt, stain and taboo.

As the Gospel informs us (Cf. Mt 4. 1-11; Mk 1.12-15; Lk 4.1-13, passages appointed for the First Sunday in Lent in the Liturgical Cycles A, B and C) Jesus experienced the temptations of evil and sin illustrated through the three significant appetites of every human being: power, pleasure and possessions. The reality of sin comes to all humankind in the form of temptations, which none can escape: “He that is without sin…”(Jn 8.1-11). However, in the Gospel account of the temptations, Jesus overcomes, and with his victory he shows us the possibility and the pathway of triumph over evil, over sin, in this world.

Therefore, Jesus is, for Christians. “the Way, the Truth and the Life” (Jn 14.6), the new well from which springs eternal life (Jn 4.5-42), the light of the world (Jn 9.1-41), the Savior (Jn 3.14-21), life that confronts the reality of death (Jn 11.1-45) and, finally in the unique sinless person, the One: “being made in human likeness” (but without sin) (Phil 2.7).

Yet the subjects of “sin” and its counterpart, “forgiveness,” are dealt with differently in the Old and New Testaments. In the Old Testament sins are mentioned (in the plural) as faults and transgressions. The law of forgiveness includes punishments (and in later Judaism: rites) for the purpose of healing, vindicating, harmonizing, balancing the life and repairing the damage done, in order to reintegrate the person in the life of the community. The New Testament speaks of sin in the singular (using the Greek word hamartía) as a deliberate human act (conscious and free) against all that is divine in the sinner, as a denial of the divine aspect in man. Sin is understood as an interior detour, as a “fundamental option” of humankind to deny their Creator and Father. It is a denial of our primary vocation -- that of becoming like our Father, that is, perfect, compassionate and merciful. In the New Testament sin is a diabolical posture (not divine), sinful (an irrational act, like that of an animal), inhuman (not divine) through which human beings disseminate evil fruit, sins (now in plural).

In order to correct, straighten out, erase, heal and save humankind, Christ, with the Good News of his life and proclamation, with his surrender to death on the Cross and his resurrection, conquers evil, liberates, redeems, justifies the human being from within (Mt 15.19), like the good tree with good fruit (Mt 7.17). Therefore, the forgiving and saving work of Christ is not one of cleansing sins but of healing sin, healing humankind from within, structurally and integrally so that sin is no more (1 Jn 3.6).

If the objective of the disciple, of the son, is to become like the Son (Eph 5.1) and, through Christ, be with Him and in Him, in his understanding and following, to be made in “the image and likeness of the Father”, then Lent reminds us also of the need to live in a permanent state of conversion, of a change of life, of transforming our life to be like Christ’s life, as well as our principles, criteria and attitudes like the criteria of the Gospel. The logic of the world must become God’s logic, or the wisdom of the cross, until we can exclaim with Paul “where sin abounded, grace abounded even more” (Rm 5.20), “I no long live, but Christ lives in me”. (Gal 2.20). Conversion, especially during the Lenten season, is equated in the liturgy with the Transfiguration (Mt 17.1-9), since to be converted is to be worthy to hear —as Jesus did— the voice of the Father that tells us: “this is my Son, the beloved, listen to him.”

Lent, therefore, reminds us of our sin, our need for conversion, but above all, it reminds us of our need to return to the Father’s house where there awaits for us the compassionate and merciful embrace of the Father who does not deal with us as daily workers or as servants, but as his children (Lk 15). Thus, Lent is also a season for joyful confidence, for gratitude, for humble hope in God’s compassionate love. Conversion and joy, are clearly are part of the entire life of the disciple, involving the Christian’s entire objective.

A New Year and Challenges for Christians

As Christians, we tend to agree with the Greek philosopher Heraclitus that “no one bathes twice in the same river”. As believers in Christ we live as pilgrims on our way to our Father’s house, according to a historical conception that is neither cyclical nor spiral. Nor do we live as if in a permanent reiterative happening, in a boring eternal return to things of the past, monotonous and meaningless. Rather, we understand that history is linear: as a successive and uninterrupted series of occurrences, not repetitive, leading us to the “eternal mansions” (Jn 14,2).

The conclusion of another year of the Christian era presents a unique opportunity for evaluation, and such an evaluation, for Christian disciples, has fundamentally two aspects:

• Thanksgiving for life, for all that we are and have, for all that has happened. This includes gratitude for all that is good, for all that we enjoyed and appreciated and, at the same time, gratitude for that which was not so good, for what could have been better, for all that brought with it suffering and pain. This is the case because, thanks to our unfortunate experiences and conflicts, we had the opportunity to learn, to overcome, to struggle and advance… In addition to identifying with the Crucified One, his passion and surrender, we become his disciples in the measure that we interpret and experience our pain in the light of the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.



• An occasion for projecting our future, of the way we will live the new year of 2012 that is upon us. Projection and planning, which for the Christian always involves the need for conversion, that is, of being transformed so that our life is like the life of Christ, with his principles, criteria and values of the gospel. Conversion and adaptation that not only involve our individual life, but —beginning with that— also include the transformation of the structures and institutions that make up our society.

A quick look at our present reality challenges us, and involves us. This particular historical, social and cultural moment calls upon all of us who make up the Church of Jesus Christ to commit ourselves to the criteria of the Kingdom as opposed to the worldly realities. A commitment to make possible, visible, livable and believable the realities of justice through peace, peace through forgiveness, solidarity through fraternity and life in all its forms and manifestations as opposed to a culture of materialism, consumerism, individualism, egotism and immediate gratification.

The great problems of individuals (living without meaning) and of humanity at large (inequity and injustice, corruption, hunger, violence and conflicts, hate and wars, as well as mistreatment of the planet) call believers in Christ to a life style and authentic experience of what it means to be Christians, a religious experience more centered in right practice than in right ideas, less pietistic and individualistic and more interested in those who are poor (“whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me” Mt 25,40), a religion that is less individualistic and habitual and more social and public, less sacramentalist or ritualistic and more pastoral…

Over these days and in all corners of the earth we desire for each other a happy new year. May it be so. But as believers in Christ we know that it will not be prosperous without our involvement. The God of Jesus Christ, in whom we believe and hope, requires the work, effort, support, intelligence, honesty, generosity, and commitment of us all. May the year 2012 be full of blessings!

“I bring you good tidings of great joy..."

Christians always live in the season of advent because they live in expectation of an encounter with the Lord. Christians expect, beyond biological death, a personal and definitive encounter with God. Yet even more, they live in the expectation of permanent, daily and surprising encounters with his presence, which the Lord reveals in a thousand ways and in the most diverse circumstances. In joy, in sadness, through an accomplishment or a failure, in health or in sickness, with a friend, in personal prayer, in worship, with a book, a counsel, in all that we are and have… we are able to discover God’s presence in our life. We also expect and prepare ourselves every year for an encounter with the Lord through the liturgical season of advent which in turn prepares us for the liturgical season of the nativity: Three advents that are summarized in a unique advent: that of the entire life of the Christian Community awaiting the soon-coming Lord, who approaches us, makes himself available, is with us… a presence whose timing we cannot determine, for which Jesus urges us in the gospel to be alert, awake, prepared…

Christmas, then, is an encounter with God who, in the birth and life of his Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, wants to be with humans, with us, throughout the year and always… Precisely Emanuel, which means God with us, is the name that the Old Testament prophets gave to the Messiah, the one who would finally restore in the world God’s reign.

For believers in Christ, for those of us who recognize in the person of the “infant wrapped in swaddling clothes… in a manger” (Lk 2,12) the long-expected One, the Son of God, the one who was to “come into the world” (Jn 6,14), his birth is remembered every year at Christmas. This constitutes the best, the greatest news that has ever been heard or known in human history: “Fear not for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, that shall be to all the people: for this day, is born to you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord” (Lk 2,10-11).

That good news that was first given to some shepherds is still good news for all men and women of good will, for everyone. This is because all human beings seek happiness, that is, they are seeking salvation, eternal life, a full and abundant life: precisely the kind of life that Jesus lives and teaches us to live.

This is so in spite of the social structures of sin and evil that generate inequity and unfairness. Although there are personal and social sins that vilify human togetherness and sadden our hearts, although there are walls, selfishness, anger, rancor, envy and divisions of all kinds, although hunger abounds, as well as loneliness and suffering, although efforts are continually made and in a thousand ways to conclude with peace, agreement and life, although there are desperate and hopeless people who wander without meaning… Christmas is the festivity of those who “hope against hope” (Rom 4,18) because God is with us and because all the life, deeds and words of Jesus encourage us and involve us in the construction of a present and a future where right conduct causes peace to reign, peace that comes through forgiveness, life that springs out of love, respect and solidarity because —taught now by Jesus himself— we come to know that all of us are brothers and sisters, children of the same Father.

This good news is the foundation of the joy of believers always, but in a special way, at Christmas. Thus, there are those of us that rejoice in this time of the Nativity for all that the birth of Jesus means to us: God’s plan of salvation for us through his Son. But there are also those who are happy without knowing or celebrating the true sense of the Nativity.

During the Christmas season we make more purchases, give more gifts, we share, we travel, we relax, we send messages, we reunite with loved ones, we adorn our homes and streets, make more music and hang more lights… How great it would be of all these social manifestations had as their background joy over the birth of Christ; otherwise, everything is reduced to the profane and pagan manifestation of a consuming and materialistic society in which the meaning of this season is diluted and distorted; like an empty purse the season winds up empty, without heart.

Yet, thanks to Christmas, hope does not die; it comes to life again every year, and should be born every day. Against all our errors and selfishness, against all evil and pessimism, at Christmas every year, always, even stubbornly, Hope is born, our Hope: our Lord Jesus Christ.

A Heritage that Involves All of Us

In each decade, by order of the Congress of the United States, a national census is taken of the population. The most recent census from the year 2010 resulted in figures which especially catch our attention in this month of Hispanic heritage. This involves all of us; the entire society of the United States of America with all its political institutions, as well as the cultural, social, economic, religious entities, etc…, the Hispanic residents in this nation and the Latin American nations from which we have come.

According to this census, 50.5 million Hispanics reside in the United States, without counting the undocumented Hispanics. A figure that means that the Hispanic community resident in the United States make up 15% of the total population of this nation.

Let’s take a look at the growth of the Hispanic American Community in the United States, since the census of 1990 which counted 22.4 million Hispanics; that of the year 2000 counted 35.3 million Hispanics, and now the current census shows an increase in Hispanic American Citizens to 50.5 million, indicating rapid and massive growth – since the last one - of 43%.

In addition, the average age of the Hispanic population is 27 years, whereas the average age of the rest of the United States population is 47 years, which indicates that the Hispanic population is an obvious injection of youth – and with it, strength for work and progress - for the entire society of the United States.

Here are some other figures from the last census (2010):

• In California there are 14 million or more Hispanics.
• In New York there are 3 million or more Hispanics.
• In Florida there are 4 million or more Hispanics.
• In Texas there are 9 million or more of Hispanic origin.

Breaking this down into nationalities gives us the following:

• Mexicans total 31.8 million, the equivalent of 63 % of the Hispanic population resident in the United States.
• Puertoricans make up 4.6 million, or 9.2 %.
• Cubans are 1.8 million, or 3.5 %.
• Those from El Salvador are 1.6 million, or 3.3 %.
• Dominicans are 1.4 million, or 2.8 %.
• Guatemalans are 1.0 million, or 2.1 %.
• Colombians are 0.9 million, or 1.8 %.
• The rest of the nationalities not specified here make up 14.3 % of the Hispanic population that resides in this nation.

What do these statistics mean –these numbers and percentages, enormous, important and striking in themselves-– in the overall picture of the United States, society in general (with all its institutions), as well as for the Hispanic American Citizen here and for those citizens of Latin American nations?

For the United States of America, the increased Hispanic presence represents a great challenge bringing with it unsuspected índices of progress in all fields of this great nation if –from all the social institutions— there is an adequate response to the enormous challenges that this presence demands. Yet at the same time, the presence of the Hispanic community in the USA can imply great problems if the societal responses from the USA to the challenges of what we could call “the Hispanic phenomenon” are not prompt, worthy, accurate, just or respectful.

If in fact there is general agreement that it is necessary to integrate the community of Hispanic origin within the United States society, it is also true that the institutions (political, religious, cultural, economic, etc…) of this nation, should avoid interpreting “integration” as meaning “assimilation” and “absorption” by the “dominant culture” in order to achieve uniformity of all in such a way that the Hispanics lose the riches of our own identity, our own culture, our own roots, our social and historical origins or, the other extreme of those who oppose the concept of integration, giving place to discrimination, a ghetto mentality, exploitation, persecution and other social evils contrary to a Christian, democratic and liberal view of society, the principals of which have been honored in this nation from its historical beginnings.

The Hispanic American Citizen, while growing in the number of residents in this nation needs to grow in social awareness and in participation, in education and in social and political formation, and should grow in leadership and in all aspects that allow it to have voice and vote in the decision making processes that determine the present and forge the future of this nation.

The institutions, communities and religious denominations in general, and of the Christian churches in particular, present in the United States of America, should work to promote the Hispanic presence as a blessing, a sign of enrichment and growth in the faith, in fraternity, in unity, in justice, in solidarity, in equity, in fellowship and in participation.

For the Hispanic community is called to contribute to the development of this nation, not only with economic growth through work or taxes, but also – and above all – with the values of the Gospel and Christian humanism within our being, in our identity and our history, since the earliest Catholic evangelization present in our origins as Hispanic-American nations. Values, that are completely contrary to individualism, to selfishness, to utilitarianism, to an emphasis on appearances, to an easy way out, to pragmatism, to relativism, to subjectivism, to comfort, to consumerism, to hedonism, etc., all of which are so much a part of the current postmodern and “light” mentality.