V Encuentro, a spiritually charged experience

Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, welcomed more than 3,200 people to the Fifth National Encuentro of Hispanic/Latino Ministry to Grapevine on Sept. 20 that was both “electrifying and spiritually charged,” said Jaime Reyna, diocesan director of the Office of Multicultural and Social Ministry and V Encuentro Coordinator.

In his opening remarks Cardinal DiNardo said, “Amidst this darkness, the Encuentro is a light that shines and illuminates the way forward. The enthusiasm, the passion, the love, and the joy of the Encuentro process is a means of grace, a gift to us as we rebuild the Church.”

"It was a lot bigger than I ever imagined it would be. It was a very festive environment also because everyone was generally–celebratory of their background, wherever they came from and were happy to come together as one body in the Church and offer their input for whatever section they were charged with. It was also encouraging to see so many young people. People from the Diocese of Brownsville said current young adults are being a bridge between cultures. They were calling us bridge people ‘gente puente.’” – Stephanie Gallegos, president of Young Catholic Adults (YCA) and parishioner at Ss. Cyril & Methodius

"One of the genuine concerns was youth and young adult ministry and how to engage youth to still remain active in the church and how does the church work with them. I’m exiting that generation, because I turned 35, but I was able to speak with them. They feel like sometimes they are turned away from adult organizations, because they are too young and they are told they don’t know what they're talking about or they don’t really have experience.”   – Deacon Santos Jones III, Campus Minister at Newman Catholic Student Center in Beeville

Eighteen delegates from the Diocese of Corpus Christi participated in the national conference “with a goal on how to mobilize more Hispanic/Latino Catholics to be full and active participants in the Church and how the Church can help bridge that communion,” Reyna said.

The ultimate goal of the V Encuentro is to continue the excellent work, which began in 1972 with the First Encuentro–to discern ways in which the Church in the United States can better respond to the Hispanic/Latino presence and strengthen the ways in which Hispanics/Latinos respond to the call to the New Evangelization as missionary disciples serving the entire Church. 

Archbishop Gustavo García-Siller, MSpS, Archbishop of San Antonio and chairman of the Committee on Cultural Diversity in the Church for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a statement on Oct. 1, writing, “The V Encuentro process, and especially the national gathering, will go down in history as a special moment of grace for the Church in the United States in these turbulent and difficult times. 

The delegates, “went wild when Pope Francis came on the big screen, also welcoming 3,000 lay leaders from every state, 130 bishops, one papal nuncio, many priests, deacons and religious in attendance. It took almost 30 seconds just to calm down to hear his message,” Reyna said. “The overall message from Pope Francis was that he was pleased to know that many were gathering to have a dialogue and to listen to the needs of all people, including our Spanish speaking brothers and sisters,” Reyna said. “It was beautiful.” 

In between speakers, there were group discussions, workshops and opportunities for people to share their ideas for strategic planning at the parish or diocesan level. Areas that were selected ahead of time for these sessions were: Campus Ministry, Care for Creation, Catholic Education, Communications and New Media, Ecclesial Movements, Ecumenism, Evangelization and Mission, Faith Formation and Catechesis, Family Ministry, Global Solidarity, Higher Education, Hispanics in Public and Professional Life, Human Development and Immigration.

In addition, other areas such as: Intercultural Competencies, Justice and Peace, Latinas in Church and Society, Leadership Development and Ministry Formation, Liturgy and Spirituality, Migrant Ministry, Ministry Among People with Disabilities and the Deaf Community, Ministry of Hispanic Young Adults (Young Adult Ministry), Ministry with Hispanic Adolescents (Youth Ministry), Ministry with the Incarcerated and Detained, Pro-Life Ministries, Scripture and Theology, Stewardship and Development and Vocations.

Stephanie Gallegos, president of Young Catholic Adults (YCA) in the Diocese of Corpus Christi, and members Leah and Lindy Nawrocki represented young adult delegates. They participated in small table discussions with Cardinal DiNardo about building up young adults in the Church. “I was so happy to be part of this,” Gallegos said. “I hope to learn so much from these talks and discussions and share it with our group.”

The days also consisted of moments of prayer, Mass and amazing lively music that was sung in English and Spanish. “It was beautiful to see so many people gathered together united for a common goal, to see how we can identify in our diocese and our parishes who is missing from the table,” Reyna said. “My goal is to see how to incorporate all that was presented back to the diocese and work with parishes and the Diocesan V Encuentro team to build up the Church and bring all God’s people to active participation in everything we do.” 

Bishop Michael Mulvey, who attended the conference with the Corpus Christi delegates said the conference had been an amazing experience. “We are all immigrants in the United States. The reality is that we can be ‘One Church.’ I would love to bring back the message of unity–working together, crossing parish boundaries and ministries, so we can feed each other. We don’t have to compete with each other–we can help each other,” Bishop Mulvey said. “Our success as a diocese, as a Catholic Church is to fulfill the prayer of Jesus, ‘Father, may they all be one.’ We do that or work towards that through mutual love and mutual respect and mutual understanding.”  

For more information, documents and videos, you can visit the V Encuentro website vencuentro.org or you can also visit the Diocese of Corpus Christi website Multicultural and Social Ministry for upcoming events and training.

Photos by Jaime Reyna for South Texas Catholic