Moises Sandoval's On the Move

Moises Sandoval's On the Move is an attempt to write a very basic history of the Hispanic church in the United States. Sandoval writes from the perspective of the poor and oppressed, and also works hard to encompass the full diversity of the Hispanic church (ix-xi). (It is debatable how well he succeeds in this endeavor, since Central and South Americans receive scant treatment compared to Mexicans.) Not surprisingly, the book ends up being more than just a history: it is also a call for reform. Sandoval shows that Hispanics have been and continue to be neglected by the US Roman Catholic Church, despite the fact that demographically speaking, they are the Church's future (163-68).

By far the most interesting aspect of Sandoval's history was the history of racism against Hispanics in the United States. I had no idea of the extent and brutality of that history, which is comparable in some respects to the history of racism against African Americans. The number of Mexicans lynched in the Southwest in the late nineteenth century, for example, was greater than the number of blacks lynched in the old South (38-39). And the lynchings were only the most visible and ostentatious forms of violence. Huge numbers of Mexicans were massacred along the border, including by the misremembered Texas Rangers (65-66). Although the the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848 made Hispanics the legal equals of whites, the treaty was largely ignored. Whites treated Hispanics with contempt, killed them quite freely, and exploited them economically (37-40). It is very sad that this aspect of our nation’s racist history has been so widely forgotten.

Unfortunately, systemic Anglo racism affected the church as well as the state. Hispanics were deposed and systematically excluded from the Catholic priesthood, and the Hispanic church was viewed by the hierarchy as superstitious and impure. Ministry to Hispanics was strictly secondary to ministry to Anglos. And when Anglos did take notice of Hispanics, it was often because their piety was seen as an embarrassment to Catholicism. When the civil rights movimiento emerged in the 1960's, its main focus was the right of Hispanic workers to unionize (121-27). But there was also a strong current in the movimiento that sought to change the Church. Not only were there still almost no Hispanic clergy in the Church, but the Church had also recently integrated many of its parishes and demanded that Hispanics abandon their language and culture. Vatican II and the emergence of liberation theology helped pave the way for Hispanics to challenge the Church on these issues.

Many of the issues the movimiento faced vis-a-vis the Catholic Church were generated by the Church's efforts to be perceived as "American" in a heavily white Protestant culture. Catholic leaders hoped that the Church could be an agent in pushing the Hispanic population to assimilate. Ironically, these efforts actually hurt the Church in the long run, because the more that Hispanics assimilated, the less likely they were to join the priesthood. Thus the Church's historic push toward assimilation contributed substantially to the present shortage of priests (77-82).

Although things have improved to some degree today, the effects of the events of this period are still felt in the Hispanic church in the form of a severe shortage of Hispanic priests and limited fund allocation to Hispanic parishes (164, 166). The Church has become more supportive of Hispanic piety, but continues to have an Anglo bias (95, 164-66). Considering the extremely low fertility rates of the white population and the Catholic Church's recent decline in its historic white New England centers, it appears that Hispanics are the US Church's future. Presumably things will improve as the Church figures out which side of its bread is buttered.