Buliding a Hispanic Heritage

Between September and October of each year and coinciding with the holiday of Mexican Independence and ending with the celebration of the “Encounter of Two Worlds”, in the United States, we celebrate “NATIONAL HISPANIC HERITAGE MONTH” a nationally recognized observance which has been enacted into law.

Today, to speak of the significant Hispanic presence in this country is to speak of something obvious. The National Census Bureau indicated that there are close to forty seven million Hispanics residing in this Nation in addition to the three million people residing on the Island of Puerto Rico.

Hispanic presence in the life of this Nation is not a recent phenomenon. In fact, Hispanics have been here even before the arrival of the pilgrims. Since 1550, men like Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, together with other explorers, travelled and explored the width and length of the territories which today constitutes the American Union. Hispanics had established themselves in what today is called “Florida”, many years before the British founded Jamestown. Without a doubt, Hispanics have made a mark in the history of this Nation. We have participated in many of the heroic deeds during its formation and have greatly contributed to the overall development of the United States.

Because of our substantial and growing numbers, subjects such as immigration or the legalization of undocumented immigrants are today on the front pages of the media; and rank amongst the principal preoccupations of the institutions which have in their hands the destiny of this Nation.

It is important to note that there is one U.S. Senator and thirty two House representatives of Hispanic origin in Congress. This speaks loudly to the undeniable Hispanic contribution in today’s North American society.

Our presence here is a reality, but the mere simple existence of a large population does not give authority. Authority comes from authorship of our own destiny; we must be protagonists and not simply spectators of our own historical and social destiny within this Nation. Only then would we have gained respect and recognition from others.

It is not enough that we are many, big numbers give not true rights; what is needed and urgent is for us to shape the quality of our contributions.

We must define our existence as Hispanics in this Nation in a meaningful way by integrating the Hispanic Community into the greater American Life and to have social, religious, political, economic, cultural and academic influence in the life of this Nation.

During the celebration of HISPANIC HERITAGE MONTH, we allow ourselves the opportunity to reflect and truly understand our present situation and its challenges; and to be on the alert about the best way we can develop a future as a Hispanic Community and be of influence and contribute to the everyday life of the American Union.

Some of the questions we must ask of ourselves are as follows:

• Why can’t we have a well lead, organized, reasonable and respectful debate on immigration?


• What relationship (and recognition) is there between our enormous purchasing power (nine hundred billion dollars a year) and our competent and competitive presence in the economy and the commercial life of the United States?


• Knowing that the future is formed in the years of childhood, what can be done about the high percentage of drop-outs amongst the children and youth of Hispanic origin? At the same time, what can be done to address the many Hispanic youth also plunge into the world of gangs, the use of drugs and alcohol, and other forms of vices and violence in very large numbers?


• While academic preparedness amongst Hispanics born and raised in our country is on the increase, great numbers of us still have very low standards of living and live in poverty. How can this be addressed?


• How do we integrate into the working world of this Nation the massive influx of illiterate youth who are in the possession of little formal education in Spanish, let alone English? These youths have arrived from extreme poverty in their home countries and become easy prey to the culture of consumerism and materialism and can easily cast aside their altruistic or transcendent values resulting in truncated ideals. How do we keep our youth from becoming perfect targets for those who traffic in human misery?


• It is important today to raise the question of where are the Christian values that have inherited. Such as humanism, integral development, solidarity, spirituality.

The work that is in front of us is difficult and requires conscious, responsible and generous participation of all Hispanics. Hispanics need to develop internally the required leadership to thrust ourselves as a voice in the building of the present and future of this Nation.

This effort implies a focus on encouraging our youth to obtain a higher degree of education; to develop skills in organization and respect for one another and the ability to develop a higher degree of communication with the dominant culture, so that together we can make this society more viable and humane.

In a Nation which proclaims freedom, there are still many situations of slavery and licentiousness. In a Nation which claims to be the empire of rights and law, there are many situations of injustice and abuse to the most elemental rights of man. We can still verify many inhumane situations, all within a society which preaches respect for the human being.

We Hispanics must take the lead in the rebirth of a new American society, truly tolerant and fraternal. We should be proactive protagonists in the emergence of a new society which will finally discover the integrated and harmonious values of the whole American Continent.
Such a society that discovers the true value of American Union --that is “Pan-Americanisn” will become a Society that is richer as a result of the diversity of nations, with its diverse ethnicities, histories, languages and cultures but also become united in one territory. We become a society with the same aim to be happy, with the common goal to be prosperous people, more humane and humanized, with fewer borders and divisions and more solidarity.

For the Hispanic community to be able to reach adulthood in this society, it needs to engage in a deep reflection of its history. The celebration of HISPANIC HERITAGE MONTH should not pass as a simple “fiesta”; but should be a call for a serious commitment from all Hispanics with the aim of constructing a true, great and noble “hispanicity” in the life and development of this Nation. If we do this, we will no longer be drifting at the mercy of those who do not accept us, who exploit us, or in the worse case scenario, want us to be without identity or completely assimilated to the culture of this great Nation that still needs to discover the beauty of Hispanics.

How great it is that HISPANIC HERITAGE MONTH exists! For while there is much we have accomplished there is still much more left to be done!!

To my Friend Cardinal Sean O’Malley On the Twenty-Fifth Anniversary of His Episcopal Ordination

On August 2nd of 1984, Cardinal Sean O’Malley was named Coadjutor Bishop of Saint Thomas in the Virgin Islands.

I am thankful to God and to the Church for the gift of life and for the blessing that the priestly and Episcopal ministry of Cardinal Sean O’Malley is for all. I desire that these words not be a simple and cold chronology and account of biographical facts; but that, above all, they be a

testimony of the life of Sean O’Malley given by a friend who has been blessed with his friendship over the last four decades.

My close relationship with Cardinal O’Malley goes back to the early 70’s, when he had the position of Director of the Hispanic Apostolate in the Washington, D.C. Archdiocese whose pastor at the time was, the well remembered William Cardinal Baum.
Since then the pastoral work of the priest, later on Bishop Sean O’Malley, has never slowed down in his aim to open evangelical spaces of compassion and mercy in the Catholic Church in the United States. This always with the poorest among the poor in mind: The immigrants and, among them, with special care, attention and dedication, the men and women arrived from the Latin-American countries.

His evangelical and pastoral desire was that immigrants –and I repeat— especially Hispanic immigrants, would find in the Catholic Church a mother that would welcome, protect, defend and represent them in North American soil. At the same time, that the Hispanic Catholic immigrants could be recognized and could identify themselves as children and members, in equality of condition, of the Catholic Church which journeys in the United States. Father Sean O’Malley gave his best efforts founding the Hispanic Catholic Center in Washington, D.C., with its Headquarters in an ancient building where I remember his intervention organizing and trying to secure the basic services and better living conditions for the residents, who in its majority were very poor immigrants.

With this same spirit, authentically missionary and evangelical, I remember Father O’Malley coming closer to the domestic workers --most of them from Central-America— who worked in the accredited embassies before the White House and the OAS in Washington; or worked in the most diverse national and international organizations established in the city. He would come near to assist them and accompany them in the promotion and attainment of human dignity as they found their proper places in society as worthy laborers.

The living conditions of those domestic workers: mistreated and subject to conditions and practices of slavery, gave the opportunity to Father Sean O’Malley, with the help of Hispanic nuns, to organize and claim the right and needed protection for those women in the face of the exploitation, the abuse, and the injustice of their employers.

These original incursions into the world of the Hispanic immigrants allowed Father O’Malley to discover innumerable situations, conditions, circumstances and realities which, because of its inhumanity were, and still are today, completely incompatible with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Anointed by the spirit of the founder of his religious community, the poverello de Asís; and moved by the same compassion as the one from Nazareth, who is moved to pity by those who live like sheep without a shepherd, Father O’Malley laboured, and still toils today, so that immigrants can know –and be better integrated to-- the lifestyle of the society in the United States and the way in which what we can call its “system” functions.

In an almost anecdotal way, I am trying to underline here two true and prominent characteristics in the life of the man and the Christian Sean O’Malley:

• His capacity for compassion and mercy which –like the Teacher of Nazareth-- have always moved him to act and resolve the urgent needs of his brothers or sisters in Christ, and
• His evangelical and Franciscan option to live in poverty and pastoral dedication to the poorest, smaller, marginalized and rejected by society.

It seems to me that these two characteristics --compassion and poverty-- define and sufficiently explain what has been the vital and existential trajectory of this man, this friend, this brother, this priest, and this Bishop for whom we today cheer and give thanks to God for his abundant life.

In order to give direction to the Hispanic immigrants in the process of adaptation and integration to the life and Church in the United States –and in general-- to the North American society, Father Sean O’Malley established in the Washington Archdiocese, a radio program and a written communication tool El Pregonero (The Proclaimer). These foundations, which would later extend to the Virgin Islands, etc. show us the permanent and growing interest of Father O’Malley for the communication media as instruments for Evangelization. He then became the first Archbishop in the United States, who maintains communication with his flock through a personal internet “blog”.

The difficult and agitated situation lived by the peoples of Latin America during the 70’s and 80’s: revolts, coup d’état, revolutions, etc. was followed by the special interest of Father O’Malley who, in his preaching and celebrations with the Hispanics in the Archdiocese of Washington, did not neglect to mention the abuses to the human rights which, at that time, were happening in the southern part of the American continent. This brought mistrust on the side of the Latin American governments and organisms against the person and pastoral work of Father O’Malley.

During these “hot years” in Central America (Sandinista government, civil war in El Salvador, etc.), Father O’Malley travels to Central America and establishes relationships with leaders such as Cardinal Obando y Bravo, in Nicaragua; Rivera y Damas in El Salvador; and Oscar Rodriguez in Honduras, and created a program of Pastoral cooperation with specific churches in Latin America, looking to get more and better attention to the problems and required need for solutions for the immigrants originating in those nations.

Cardinal William Baum is succeeded by the good and unforgettable Cardinal James Hickey who, just as his predecessor, encourages the pastoral and missionary work of Father O’Malley, and recommended him --twenty-five years ago-- for the office of Bishop to the Holy See.
In the year 1974, Father O’Malley takes part in the First Regional Pastoral Encounter of Hispanics for the North East Region of the United States, which is formed by thirty-six Dioceses. During that occasion, and in the presence of Cardinals Baum of Washington, Kroll of Philadelphia, Cooke of New York; Medeiros of Boston, Aponte Martinez of Puerto Rico (invited as an observer) and the Apostolic Delegate of the Holy See Archbishop Jadot, Father O’Malley proposes the creation of a Regional Office for Hispanic Catholics, with its central offices in New York. This Pastoral Center opens its doors in 1976, offices and pastoral center which I founded and directed for more than twenty-five years. Beginning with the above mentioned encounter, Father Sean O’Malley was elected as President of the Board of Directors of the North-East Regional Office, while at the same time, President of the Directors Association for the Diocesan Apostolate to Hispanics in the North-East Region of the United States.

Under the Leadership of Father O’Malley, in his positions in the Hispanic Apostolate, is established a permanent line of cooperation between the different dioceses in Latin America and the Hispanic Apostolate Offices in the North-East. All with an important interchange of agents for evangelization (priests and nuns), programs for intercultural formation, abundant production of materials for the cathequesis, liturgy and the evangelization and missionary work among Hispanics. Also from this time are the creation of the School of Languages with the cooperation of the Diocese of Brooklyn and the publication of the first official lectionary in Spanish for liturgical use in the United States. Also, the first sociological studies on the Hispanic integration to the Church in the United States took effect, directed by Father Joseph Fitzpatrick, S.J., and a national study by Father Roberto Gonzalez, today Archbishop in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

To the pastoral and priestly work of Cardinal O’Malley we must add his virtues and intellectual accomplishments. In this area, allow me to point out his doctorate in the Portuguese and Spanish languages from the Catholic University of Washington. This doctorate was accomplished through the acquired and profound knowledge of the great works of the most prominent artist in the world of the arts and the literature in Latin America.

From the Christian authenticity of Cardinal O’Malley, of his intellectual and spiritual richness, of his friendship, his generous and fruitful ministerial, and episcopal work, have benefited, been blessed, and can give grateful testimony the recipients of his pastoral work in the Diocese which he, through the years, have headed: Virgin Islands, Fall River, Palm Beach, and Boston.
In essence Cardinal O’Malley is a true Christian humanist, of great intellect and a great love for the Church. A definitive characteristic of the Cardinal is his great love and loyalty for his friends, among whom I consider myself grateful and blessed.

Ad multos annos Cardinal O’Malley!! May God continue blessing us with the certainty of your friendship, with the joy of your presence, with the generosity of your humanity, with the light of your wisdom, and the mercy and presence of God in our midst, manifested in your Priesthood!

Through Various Paths…

This June 29, 2009, with the celebration of the solemnity of the Apostles Peter and Paul, ends the named PAULINE YEAR, called for by Pope Benedict XVI. Its aim was to deepen our knowledge of the life and works of the man, the convert, the Christian, the theologian and the writer, the missionary Saul/Paul of Tarsus.

Christians owe an immense gratitude to the life and works of these two pillars of Christianity who illumined with their being and example the first dawn of the Church; and who marked, with their style and vision, the diverse but always Christian work of evangelization. Those were the first paths where the preaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ would follow, starting in Jerusalem and making it to all the ends of the earth.

PAUL, in his insistence to tell the world about the Good News of the Gospel which marked his own life as a saving happening, opens the first doors to the work of evangelization in the known world, and for that is more than worthy to receive the title of Apostle to the Gentiles. In contrast with Peter, Paul brings out the Christian experience from its regular Jewish vetero-testamentary mold, and dedicates himself to the adventure of making known the Good News, which for his own life, was the happening of the coming of the Christ.

If something is clear and evident in the life, preaching, writings and journeys of Paul, it is his deep experience of the absolute gratuitousness of faith. According to Paul, it is Christ who takes the initiative of making the encounter and the new Christian religious experience completely “free.” That is why all reflection about faith, in the preaching and writings of Paul, is of personal nature, experiential, free and for the salvation/happiness of all men. This is in contrast to what later (and up to this day) were and are certain types of theology, excessively rational and ethereal.

In our day, and especially in our social and cultural context, it is very meaningful what could be called the “Pauline multi-culturalism”; in other words, the capacity which Paul had to know well, to live, and to reconcile with the prevailing and preponderant cultures of his day: the Semitic or Jewish, the veterotestamentary, the Hellenistic and the roman cultures. This capacity is evident and best shown in his preaching and in his writings, but most of all in his apostolic and missionary fervor.

Paul understood well that the point of the “catholicity” or “universality” of the Church indeed includes the real possibility that all men and women, recognizing each other as brothers and sisters --children of the same Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ—will construct the world as a single table around the only Bread of Life, who is Christ.

This catholicity/universality of the Church, because of its nature, doesn’t know of discriminations, of differences, of stratifications, of frontiers, of barriers, of color, of lifestyles, or of social levels or conditions etc. Today, this catholicity is of outmost importance for the Catholic Church itself, in relation to other Christian churches and in relation to the culture of the United States itself, where so many men and women –for the betterment of the Nation— come seeking better living conditions while originating in the four corners of the earth.

Therefore, this note on catholicity/universality, essential for the Christian life when lived according to Peter’s or Paul’s ideals contains, in itself, the seed and the fruits of an authentic ecumenism which fulfills the wish of Christ himself: That all be as one.”

PETER, on the other hand, head of the Ecclesial Community, starting during those days of fishing and walking the roads of Galilee with Jesus and the other eleven, was ahead in announcing the life transforming act of the first Christians through confessing the crucified as living and resurrected. He is the head of the first Christian communities, as we can see in the neotestamentary testimonies; and he teaches us –among other things—that the responsibility and authority of the heads of the Christian communities are directly related with their capacity of: recognizing their own sin, sincerely repenting, authentic conversion, true love, and the power gotten through service and complete surrender to Christ and his Gospel, up to giving their own lives for their communities.

The Eucharistic Preface in the Solemnity in which we give tribute to the memory and sanctity of Peter and Paul, in fact, sings well to the unity in the diversity which should compose the Church of Jesus Christ:

“Peter, the first in confessing the faith,
Paul, the distinguished teacher who interpret it,
Peter, founder of the primitive Church with the rest of Israel,
Paul, who extended it to all peoples.
Through different paths
both put together the only Church of Christ
and to both, who were crowned by martyrdom
your people celebrate today with the same veneration.”

Today we can say that the work and lives of PETER AND PAUL summarize well the promise, the yearning for renovation and the recovery of the authentic being, vision and mission of the Church of Jesus Christ as expressed in the Ecumenical Council Vatican II: “That the Church be evangelical inside and prophetic to the outside, that is to the world.”

Our Joy, Our Hope!

Two thousand years ago, the first Christians, a group of men and women who followed and accompanied Jesus of Nazareth throughout his public ministry, happily confessed that the Crucified, “the one killed by hanging him on a cross,” had changed their lives. He had taken them out of an old human condition and transformed them into new men and women: with new mentality, a new way of being and acting in the world. From that point on they believed, confessed, proclaimed and celebrated that Jesus was alive; that the Christ was resurrected; that the last word from God “the Father” about his Son’s life was not death; that the resurrection of Jesus meant triumph of life over death, triumph of good over the manifestation and experience of evil in the world. These facts bring to human history the view of a new horizon and a possibility to see the hope that does not die.

Transformed by the once dead whom they now confess is alive, they can so confess precisely because of the change which he brought to their lives. The first Christians go out to the world to share and to preach with words and actions the good news of the Resurrection. At the same time they consign in writing their confessions of faith, together with historical facts which occurred in their small, new, fraternal and Eucharistic community of believers.

All this shows that the Resurrection is, more than a doctrinal body, the foundation of Christianity. It is a new life experience of transformed life, abundant life; and a manifestation against evil, sin and death. The resurrection which we celebrate is a conviction which is manifested and sustained with a new lifestyle. Through it, Christians devote themselves and hope for the construction of a better world; that is to say, a more divine world in its profound humanity.

Through Christ’s Resurrection, Christiany as well as each Christian, rises to propose a more equitable world: more just, more solidarious, more visible, more fraternal, more human. They would be against all manifestation of evil, against all inhuman and dehumanizing experiences, against all aggression to human and humanity, against anything which damages the image and likeness of God in his creatures.

The Resurrection, therefore, is a confession of faith. It is the liturgical feast, but --above all-- it is the personal and ecclesial commitment to be in and for the world daily; a space/time of hope among hopelessness; a sign of joy among sadness; a space of mercy among so many forms of selfishness, division and violence; an opportunity for peace in the middle of war, pain and death. This is the evangelistic task of the Church. In it resides the reason to be and to exist of the Christian Community, and gives it its identity and its mission in the world.

Never before has it been more opportune, never more convenient, but also never more compromising to have the celebration of the Resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ --our celebration with him and in him-- in a world in crisis, in a society urged with men and with new and transformed structures. Never before has there been the present urgency to live and to share what it means to confess that Christ lives!

“Easter” (Greek: Pascha) comes from the Hebrew word which means “to pass”: “to pass” through the Red Sea, “to pass” from death to life, from sin to grace, from life without Christ to a life in Him; from hate to love, from indifference to a solidary commitment; from a world without God to a world constructed for humanization which is deification

May these days of “Passover” celebration mean the renovation of our most important Christian commitment in a personal and ecclesial manner: to be (for a world in crisis) a sign of the new and abundant life which Christ offers to us. Happy Easter! Blessed Pascha!

HOLY WEEK “He who gives his life . . .”

Holy Week is the most important week for Christians. In it, especially in the “Paschal Triduum”, Christians celebrate and commemorate in synthesis the happenings in the life of Jesus of Nazareth. Those three days are the pillars in which our Christian faith is founded: his passion, his death and his resurrection. As the Apostle Paul says: “If Christ wasn’t raised to life, our message is worthless, and so is our faith.” (1 Co. 15.14)

The portal to Holy Week is Palm Sunday: the commemoration of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem. The dramatic reading of the passion and death of Jesus becomes a foretaste of the days we celebrate after the “Paschal Triduum.” The passion, the conviction of an innocent and his death endorse a lifestyle that He himself lives and preaches as a synonym of happiness --to give one’s live for the ones we love without thinking of ourselves, because: “If you try to save your life, you will loose it. But if you give it up for the Gospel, you will surely find it.” The resurrection, through which God-Father validates all in the life and work of Jesus of Nazareth as “the way, the truth and the life” is what God wants and suggests, in Jesus, for every man and woman of goodwill.

All of Jesus’ life, especially in the Catholic liturgy of Holy Week, is presented as a model of humaneness, as the first vocation to which should aspire all who recognize themselves as creatures and children of God-Father in Jesus Christ; since “the mystery which is man becomes clear in the word made flesh: Jesus Christ”. (GS22)

Therefore, today as yesterday, the hope, the pain, the sufferings and the evil which all humans experience in the daily task of being man or woman, become clear --especially during Holy Week and specifically on Holy Thursday and Holy Friday-- through the pain and suffering of the one from Nazareth who, confidently, puts his life and destiny in the hands of the Father (“…not my will, but thine be done”). At the same time the Paschal Vigil lightens our thirst for infinitude, our hope, our longing for the transcendental, our dreams for a full life, our projections of the future which does not end in the here and now of temporal history.

Because the Resurrection --a confession of faith about the triumph of life over death in Jesus-- is a confession that in the final and definitive destiny of man’s life, is victorious over death, hope triumphs over hopelessness, and the kindness and mercy of God triumphs over evil. This confession of faith urges and commits us to build through our acts and our words, and through our attitudes and behavior an abundant life in the here and now of our existence.

Holy Week depicts, like no other liturgical period, the paradox and mystery of human life in the specific life of Jesus of Nazareth; and through it the paradox of the Christian mystery –which is power from weakness and salvation from the insanity of the wooden cross. Because we, as Paul says, preach of Christ crucified, which is a scandal for the world, but is for us “power and strength.”

May we, from this Holy Week, (while commemorating what Jesus went through and what happened to him two thousand years ago), draw power and strength to lighten up our personal and communitarian story; and open our hopes to the celebration of the liturgical Pascua and the final Pascua which we await and are constructing in the now but not yet of our present story.

So that the Fresh Air of the Gospel Come In . . .

This year we commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the incredible convocation made by Pope John XXIII for the celebration of the Ecumenical Council in the Catholic Church, which is known as “Vatican II.” During the twenty centuries of its existence, the Catholic Church has only held twenty plus Councils. The last one, the Ecumenical Council Vatican II, was called for with a very clear purpose: to motivate and bring to conscience an “up-dating” (aggiornamiento) of the Church in the World. The outcome was the renewed work which such purpose required of the being, of the purpose and of the mission of the Church. In other words, it motivated a renewed lifestyle for all of God’s people (hierarchy and laity), and a change in liturgy and in the pastoral and evangelistic work of the Church in the world.

This purpose implied a serious and profound self-examination of the faithfulness and indefectibility of the Church to the Gospel and its Founder; a sincere repentance when facing the past mistakes; and the need for the abandonment of old practices and models –practices and models which are more in accord with the “perfect societies” of the World than with the Community of believers in Christ. Beyond all that, it also implied a sincere wish for conversion and a spiritual and material renovation by God’s people, who go to all four corners of the world, and all levels of the structures which make up the ecclesiastic Catholic Institution in the world.

We do not ignore that during twenty centuries of history and of the Catholic Institution, the Church has been exposed to the contamination which entails a service to the world ideologies and philosophies more than to the Gospel of Jesus of Nazareth. To serve more the money than God; more the Old than the New Testament; more the Canon than the Gospel principles; and more the power and pomp of the world than the needs of the poor to whose service the Church is privileged and particularly destined to serve. Therefore, the Second Vatican Council represented, in its moment, a unique opportunity for the Church to adapt itself to the new era, to the new urgencies, to the new challenges which today’s world presents for its work of evangelization.

From the first day of its announcement (January 25, 1959) until the day of its closing (December 8, 1965), Vatican II proved to be the most important event of the Church in its 450 years of history. The majority of the previous Councils caused ruptures and divisions within the Church. This was the only Council which, without provoking division or serious dissentions (except for the small group of lefevristas who rejected the innovative proposals of the Council; and, on the other hand, the representatives of intellectual currents who looked for an acceleration of the radical teachings and doctrinal interpretations of Vatican II) motivated and started great and important transformations within the Church itself, in true consonance with the contemporary world. The Second Vatican Council, without harming the established basis of the faith, and in historical continuity with the Teachings of the Church --which are based in the Holy Scriptures and in Church Tradition-- recovered important themes that had been put aside during the last centuries, themes such as: the collegiality of the Bishops, the priesthood of all who have been baptized, the theology of the local church, and the centrality and importance of the Holy Scriptures and the Eucharist in what the Church is and does.

The Second Vatican Council distanced itself from the dogmatic methods and language of other Ecumenical Councils --like the Council of Trent and the First Vatican Council--and abstained from pronouncing condemnation. It was all the result of the renovation movements which took place in the 20th Century in the fields of biblical study, patristic understanding, medieval studies, liturgical theology, and ecumenical conversations. Besides that, Vatican II was the result of the meeting and dialog of new philosophical and scientific trends; of the restating of new relations between the Church and the world; and of the new role which the laity is to play in the work of evangelization of the Church.

Like all realities of the World and of the Church, the changes and renovations proposed by the Second Vatican Council also touched the Hispanic Catholic World in the United States. Because of it, in 1972, the Hispanic Catholics met and called for the First National Pastoral Encounter; with the Second taking place in 1977 and a Third Encounter in 1985 --all in Washington D.C. These encounters were praiseworthy since they seeked to find the communion, the participation and the integration of the Spanish speaking community to the Catholic Church in the United States.
The Second Vatican Council meant a new Pentecost for the Church and, in the last 50 years, the Catholic Church has experienced incredible changes within the community of believers, and in the historical course of the world. Without doubt, the result of the Council, as much in the hierarchy as in the laity, was the unique experience of enrichment and vitality in the story of Catholicism.

Today’s Pontificate of Benedict XVI directs Catholicism to re-discover a personal and new inner life through closeness to the Scriptures; and to seek a dialog and coming together with the other Churches in the Christian world. Nevertheless, in this fifty year commemoration it would be good to ask ourselves if the Church of today (which includes all of us) continues to be faithful to the renewing spirit of the “good” Pope John XXIII, when he called for Vatican II. In other words, are we being faithful to the responsibility which we have, as a Church, to respond and make known, at all times and circumstance, the urgencies of mankind and of the world, in the light of the Gospel, without getting anchored in the assurance and comfort which the known past gives? Moreover, we should ask ourselves if today’s Church continues to have its doors and windows open so that through them, and for the benefit of all humanity, the always new and fresh air of the Gospel of Jesus Christ can circulate.

“Woe is me if I do not preach the Gospel!”

Saul (Hebrew name), Paul (Roman family name) are the names by which we know the great apostle and foundation of the Catholicity. The little we know about Paul of Tarsus comes to us through two sources: his own letters, and the book of Acts of the Apostles. The exact date of his birth is not known but --according to some of the most important Pauline theologians, like Joseph A. Fitzmyer-- it is reasonable to place his birth in the first decade of the Christian era.

Paul was born in the Hellenistic city of Tarsus and, from birth, enjoyed the privileges of a Roman citizen. Because of this, we can say that in his mind all three cultures of the time fit brilliantly: the Semitic-Jewish of his parents (Hebrew, Jewish, Pharisee); the Hellenistic (dominant culture); and the Roman (the culture of the Empire in which the apostle lived). This triple vision of the world, this triple cultural dimension constantly shows in his writings; and allows the apostle great versatility to adapt himself to each distinct audience, to preach adequately, and to try to reach all people of the known world by preaching the Good News of Jesus Christ.

This cosmopolitan personality, this cultural versatility in Paul explains more than enough the title which we give him with honor: “The Apostle to the Gentiles.” Thanks to this cultural opening in his character, and this “globalized” vision of the world, Paul would become the most important missionary and preacher in the beginnings of the Church. Also, thanks to his work of evangelization we can say, without doubt, that the Good News of Jesus Christ came out of the local roads and paths of Galilee to reach, up until today, every man and woman of good will born in the four corners of the earth.

What pushed Paul to unconditionally dedicate himself to this mission from the moment of his conversion until the end of his life? What was the motor to his apostolic work? What gave him “strength” and motivation? The certainty of having found in the Gospel the happiness that every man and woman seeks and longs for, and --in its Theology-- the person of Jesus Christ himself. From the moment when he had that personal encounter with Jesus, whom he persecuted by persecuting the Christians, a fact told by the symbolism used in biblical texts, Paul dedicated himself completely to tell that marvelous works were done in him by Christ. Paul understood these marvelous “works” as part of the work of the “Crucified Christ”: to bring salvation to mankind. A salvation/happiness which, according to him, will reach all throughout the world without distinction of race, condition, nationality, age, etc.

Therefore, the fundamental affirmation of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ is born in Paul from an indescribable and very personal experience: The crucified Christ changed his life, and if he changed his life sheathing it with a new mentality, it is because the Crucified “Lives”! This confession by Paul of his fundamental faith in the “gospel” is not born from intellectual works, but from a daily experience guaranteed and reconfirmed by the testimony of the first believers; those first Christians (men and women, martyrs of the first hours of Christianity) whom Paul vehemently persecuted, impelled and in perfect alignment with the enthusiasm of his previous pharisaic convictions.

Because, if anything is clear in Paul’s personality, it is his authenticity: first, he lived authentically as the “most” Pharisee of all Pharisees; and –after his encounter with Christ-- he lived authentically as a “Christian.”

Many aspects of Paul’s life need to be rescued so that our present historical and ecclesial perspective can be enlightened. Among others:

· His cosmopolitan vision of man and of the world; his openness and embrace of all cultures and all men and women recognizing them as brothers and sisters in Christ (this completely opposite to the “petrine” vision which pretended to imprison the Gospel within the boarders of Israel); and even today, his vision goes against the xenophobic, discriminatory, and divisionist vision which, disguised by “globalism”, allows the accumulation of riches in the hands of a few while the price is payed by marginalization, impoverishment and misery of a great majority.

· His missionary fervor for the work of spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

· His great generosity in the work of saving/making all peoples happy with the Good News of

Jesus Christ, even with great personal sacrifices (persecution and imprisonment not told).

· His Christian beliefs came from experience not from notion.

· His preaching and later theological reflections (put into writing in his letters) come out of the daily experiences of feeling himself loved/happy, thanks to the daily intervention of the “Crucified/Resurrected” in his life.

· To have been able to establish among the biblical theological terms (vetero and neo testamentary), words to designate God’s saving works such as salvation, redemption, expiation, liberation, justification etc. which describe the basic wish of all people: to be happy in Christ. Because for Paul, the life-in-Christ has one clear function: The “Christ-happening” was to make us happy, in other words, to save us, to give us eternal life, abundant life; that life which Paul himself found on the road to Damascus.

May these lines encourage us to know and to imitate the Apostle Paul, in a more authentic manner, for the mission which we all have as baptized believers: to live and to preach with words and actions, the Gospel of Jesus Christ which is (as it was for Paul) our power, our strength, our salvation; our happiness, our eternal life, and the plenitude of our existence and of human history.