Pastoral Plan for HisPanic Ministry / From Guests to Hosts Hispanic ...

Appendix D — Terminology Related to Hispanic Ministry / From Guests to Hostsgroups in the local church and parish communities withthe purpose of promoting mutual enrichment by honoringtheir customs, languages, religious traditions andexpressions of popular piety through sharing.Encuentros: National consultation processes convened bythe U.S. Bishops with the purpose of studying and reflectingon the status of Hispanic ministry in order toidentify priorities and pastoral action. The encuentroshave served to direct the pastoral process of Hispanicministry along common guidelines of action for approximatelythe last 35 years at the national level.Enculturation: A social process whereby an establishedculture teaches an individual the accepted norms andvalues of the culture or society in which the individuallives.Ethnic Group: A group whose members identify with eachother on the basis of a common history, background orancestry. Ethnic groups are usually united by commoncultural, behavioural, linguistic, or religious practices. Inthis sense, an ethnic group is also a cultural community.Guests: Newcomers or new arrivals to a parish or faith community.Typically, these are immigrants who have notyet established a sense of belonging to the parish and arenot yet involved in the parish structure. See hosts as thecounterpart to guests.Hispanic/Latino: The term “Hispanic” was used during the1970 Census and was adopted by the church leadershipof the time to help define a people with a common identity,vision, and mission. The term “Latino” has becomewidely used by church and community leaders, particularlyin urban areas. It is a self-identifying term that hasemerged from the community and is also embraced by19the Church.Hispanic ministry: It is the organized and ongoing responseof the Church to welcome and accompany Hispanics inencountering and following Jesus Christ, thus becomingactive participants in the life of the Church and itsevangelizing mission.Historical memory: A people’s collective understanding oftheir own culture, history, values and identity.Hosts: Parishioners who belong and participate fully in thelife and mission of a local parish or faith communtiy, andwho have been fully invested to share their gifts, especiallyin welcoming and empowering other newcomers.See guests as the counterpart to hosts.Illegal: See undocumented.Incorporation: Refers to becoming or being a member of theBody of Christ through baptism.Inculturation of the Gospel: Refers to the Church’s effortsto immerse the Word of God in the lives of particularcultures, thus affirming what is good in them and bringingcloser to Christ aspects that need transformation.Mestizaje: Term of Spanish origin to designate the mixturebetween European and Indigenous peoples. The termis the focus of current cultural and theological trendswhich address the historical, cultural and spiritual comingtogether of two disparate parent peoples to generatea new people, a new culture, and a new spirituality. LatinAmerican peoples are mestizo.Migra: A Spanish word Hispanic immigrants use to refer tothe “INS” (Immigration and Naturalization Services),which has been renamed to “ICE” (Immigration andCustoms Enforcement).Multicultural: A social reality in which distinctly differentcultural-ethnic groups co-exist with equal status. In apastoral setting it has typically been applied to culturalethnicgroups other than the mainstream group.Nationality: This term is used to identify a person’s orgroup’s country of origin, i.e. a “Mexican” is someonewho comes from Mexico, a Salvadoran is someone fromEl Salvador, and a “Canadian” is from Canada, etc.National parishes: During that late 1800s and early 1900s,the Church in the United States established nationalparishes as an effective ecclesial model to welcome immigrantsfrom the different European nations (Italy,Poland, Germany, Ireland, France, etc.) many of whomwere Catholic. This model provided each communitywith the ecclesial space they needed to live their faith,to pray and to worship, and to build community in the20context of their own language, culture and traditions.Newcomers: See guests.Our Lady of Guadalupe, Mother of the Americas: PopeJohn Paul II referred to Our Lady of Guadalupe as Motherof the Americas during the Synod for America. TheAppendix D45