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March 13, 2002 Foundation Group to Explore Impact of New Immigration on U.S. Catholicism Los Angeles, CA ----- Members of Foundations and Donors Interested in Catholic Activities, Inc. (FADICA) will convene here June 7-8, 2002 for a symposium discussing the pastoral impact of the huge influx of foreign-born residents. The U.S. Census Bureau reports that one out of ten U.S. residents is foreign born. During the 1990’s, the nation’s foreign-born population increased four times as fast as did the native-born population. Among the largest of these groups are Hispanics and Asian-Pacific Islanders, many of whom are Catholic. According to the Catholic bishops of the United States, 80 percent of the Hispanic immigrants were raised in the Catholic faith. The Archdiocese of Los Angeles, for example, ranks just behind the Archdiocese of Mexico City in the number of Catholics of Mexican origin. According to FADICA’s president, Dr. Francis J. Butler, the foundations and donors comprising FADICA want to discuss how these new arrivals are welcomed into Catholic life in the United States and what pastoral challenges this new wave of immigration presents. The invitational symposium is entitled: Unity in Diversity: The Challenge of a Multi-Cultural Church. Experts appear to agree that Catholic immigration today is different from that of the 19th and early 20th centuries when populations were arriving largely from Europe. Today the assimilation of new immigrants into the dominant culture in the U.S is a much slower and more complicated process. Among those addressing the L.A. symposium will be Dr. Luis Lugo, Director of the Religion Program at the Pew Charitable Trusts, one of the largest private foundations in the U.S., Father Anthony McGuire, Director of the U.S. Bishops’ Committee for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Refugees, Sr. María Elena González, RSM, President of the Mexican American Cultural Center and Professor Anselm K. Min of Claremont College, an expert on Asian immigration. Also included will be Bishop John S. Cummins of the Diocese of Oakland, California who will address FADICA on the inculturation of priests now arriving from Africa and Asia who are filling in for the declining number of American priests. The arrival of new immigrant groups has placed enormous demands on dioceses and parishes to provide language proficient clergy and ministers, schools, catechetical programs and new leadership development efforts that take into account the church’s stepped-up multicultural composition. FADICA is a consortium of over forty-five private foundations that gather regularly to discuss major trends of importance to the Catholic faith. |