SWLC Study Week - Hosffman Ospino

The final keynote of the Study Week was given by Boston College professor
Hosffman Ospino, one of the foremost experts on the growth of the Hispanic presence in the US church and culture. He was a key member of the planning committee for the V Encuentro and serves on the national board of directors for the National Catholic Edu­cational Association.

Ospino’s keynote was titled “Sent to Accom­pany through Witness and Solidarity,” an address that was unblinking in its criticism of the Church and US culture, though optimistic that with hard work, both could be turned around.

He did this by listing three challenges facing the church and country at this time: segregation, polarization and resignation.

“There is racism in our Church,” Ospino said. “Everybody knows where the black parishes are.”

The racism is both linguistic and social, he added. In dioceses, parishes are designated as Hispanic, or Korean or Vietnamese, for example, and little effort is made to provide for the pastoral needs of those cultural communities outside those designated parishes.

Noting that Asian Catholics are the fastest growing population in the US Church, Ospino issued this warning: “If you are struggling with (learning) Spanish, try Vietnamese.”

Polarization is also a problem in the Church and the nation. “Traditional v. progressive, liberal v. con­servative – these categories are unchristian,” he said.

The danger comes as well from focusing on single issues. “Abortion is dividing us. We still haven’t grown out of that. We are a dysfunctional society and a dysfunctional Church.”

Finally, resignation as a response has also cast a pall upon the faithful. “Far too many Catholics are settling for the status quo,” he said. “We are resigned to being an aging Church.”

While Anglo leaders, including bishops, have lamented the closing of schools and parishes and the decline of vocations, secular culture has been drawing away the only area where the church has been growing. During the span of two genera­tions, “we have lost 60 million Latino and Latina Catholics.”

“We are a community in de­cline. We are paralyzed,” Ospino said.

The Church has within it the power to overcome these chal­lenges, however. “We need to live prophetic lives in prophetic worship.”

He listed five characteristics that point the Church in the right direction. First, “we are children of the same God regardless of our differences.”

Second, the Church is at its core egalitarian. All are equal through baptism, he said.

Third, through liturgy, we are forgiving. Reconciliation is always possible and completely necessary.

Fourth, we are all fed by the Eucharist. It satisfies our hunger and no one is lifted higher than another at the Lord’s table, Ospi­no said.

Fifth, it is the liturgy that brings us together.

“It is time to start living as prophetic children of the Lord,” he said.

Earlier in his address, Ospino noted that the Study Week, because of who it draws and the impact it has in the region and beyond, “continues to lead the way” nationally in ways to see lit­urgy driving the greater mission of the Church.
Whether partic­ipants come from local parishes or represent large urban dioceses, “the most impor­tant expertise is being baptized in Jesus Christ,” he said.

He cited the theme of the Study Week and noted three essential parts: being sent out into the world, the missionary nature of liturgy and the opportunity to do it all for the glory of God.

“Worship continues in our everyday lives. Worship never ends,” Ospino said. “As long as the Holy Spirit works in our everyday lives, worship never ends.”

Known for his ground-breaking work on charting the rise of His­panics in the American Church and as a key theological advi­sor for the V Encuentro, Ospino launched into a series of data points to set the stage:

- 45% of all Catholics today currently self-identify as His­panic.

- In dioceses in the Southwest, where the Church is rapidly grow­ing, that figure is between 60- 90%.

- Two-thirds of all Catholic Latinos and Latinas were born in this country.

“We are very young. The average age is 29,” he said, joking that he too might fall in that cat­egory, given his almost bald head. “Look at me. I haven’t even grown hair yet.”

He reviewed the V Encuentro pro­cess: Between 2016-18, 250,000 Catholics representing 2,000 parishes and 150 dioceses were in­volved in the build-up to a national meeting in 2019.

As part of that process, each person was challenged to ap­proach someone “on a periphery” to share their faith. “The 21st century demands new ways to do evangelization, to respond to the needs and challenges of the times,” Ospino said.

He praised the rise of new types of ministries during the last decade, including campus minis­tries and different forms of parish renewals. They combat a growing belief that God is absent from a sinful world, making only occa­sional breaks to perform a miracle or two. “That makes us very sus­pect of one another,” he said.

These ministry groups remind us that true Christianity offers a wholistic approach, “that God is not antagonistic, but in the world. God wants to be with us,” Ospino said. “God’s love for the world does not make sense without the world.”

Citing Evangelium Gaudium, Ospino noted Pope Francis’ en­dorsement of popular piety, in­cluding domestic shrines to saints and other practices. “He called this popular spirituality ‘the people’s mysticism.’”

Part of the problem is the decline in attendance at Mass, now listed as low as 25% of all Catholics, along with a decline in marriages and baptisms.

“What about the other 75% of Catholics? How are they sus­tained?” Ospino asked. “Accom­paniment begins there. It’s finding out how people experience God in their lives.”

Seen properly, Christian ac­companiment is how “God comes to be with us in history,” he said. “God journeys with us” despite our sins.

That reflects a traditional belief that “we exist as a pilgrim church,” a community that is on the way to the Kingdom, but not there yet.

“Christianity is defined by this eschatological dimension,” Ospi­no added. “This is a vision we have to reclaim.”

This is an accompaniment with a loving God that will stand with us along the way, he said, which makes the journey itself a reward. “If we believe in a God that only punishes, accompaniment will only be with fear.”

God’s accompaniment follows themes of life and justice: God sustains us as the source and sup­port for our lives and we count on participation in God’s mercy. “That’s why we worship; that’s why we celebrate.”

“Christian accompaniment is a commitment to acting as God acts in the world,” Ospino said.

Accompaniment also means breaking bread with fellow pil­grims, an act that is universal among cultures. “Every culture has this emphasis: the least you can do is break bread and share it with others.”

“Breaking bread is the essence of being Christian,” Ospino said.

That model can be applied by living the corporal and spiritual works of mercy, he added.

The reality in our Church today, however, is that it is a time of great challenge.
“We are a diverse Church, but we struggle with diversity signifi­cantly,” Ospino said. “What does it mean to break bread with an immigrant or refugee?
“How well do we break bread with a family of someone who has been deported? How well do we break bread with someone whose marriage did not work? How well do we break bread with someone who wants to come back into the community but struggles?”

“We cannot separate worship from the works of mercy,” Ospino said.