These are the results of the Archdiocese of Wellington's just-released two-year review of its ethnic communities.

"The Review was a response to the recommendation from the 2017 Synod," says Maya Bernardo, the Archdiocese's Launch Out Programme Formator and Manager.

The two-year Review, hampered by Covid and lockdowns, was conducted under the Office of the Vicar General, Monsignor Gerard Burns. It targeted Catholic migrants and ethnicities apart from European and Maori.

The Review sourced demographic data from the Government, from a survey, and included interviews and discussions.

Results show the Archdiocese's parishes are diverse and growing in diversity. About 25-30 percent of parishioners are neither Maori nor Pakeha.

The Review found 76 percent of migrant Catholics are under 60; 85 percent feel actively involved in their parishes; 69 percent were born overseas; 90 percent live with families. Most young Catholics are from migrant families.

The Review heard immigrant Catholics have different theological perspectives and views of church history.

"My understanding of the Church, as I now experience in the Archdiocese of Wellington, is synodal by nature. How then do we bring people together?" Bernado asks.

Immigrant families tend to live differently, too.

Bernardo says the 90 percent of Catholic migrants who live with family is significant. The way they live suggests their faith life is shared and expressed as a collective. It's different from the individualistic western-world view.

Knowing who immigrants live with can guide us in the way we encourage and facilitate participation, Bernardo says.

The Review found many young people are moving to other Christian churches or the secular world within families; they find it hard to connect and be nourished by the liturgies and feel left out in the ministries.

What does it say about the future of our parishes, their effectiveness in reaching out to the young and what it is that keeps the young away? asks Bernardo.

The way parishes prepare migrant communities for parish and diocesan leadership is important, the Review discovered.

The Review also raises a question about how Parish Pastoral Councils reflect the diversity in Church pews.

"Encouraging participation is not a one-strategy; one-size-fits-all.

"It also means challenging behaviours that denigrate someone's race and including migrant voices in shaping the parish.

"How we can encourage participation and grow leadership among the migrant communities? What can we do to understand each other better?"

Migrants straddle different worlds, Bernardo says.

"New Zealand does not understand our suffering," participants told the Review.

They reported feeling misunderstood, lonely and disconnected from the mainstream Catholic community. Language barriers can be a big issue. Translation can be difficult.

Parishes need to consider ways to grow as a community aware of each other's presence and those still in the peripheries.

More is not necessarily 'the merrier' but could be ‘the messier'. This is the way the Church has always been: intrinsically diverse.

Finding a way through Review statistics and commentaries is not easy, Bernardo says.

"The Review only reveals an unfinished business, leaving perhaps more questions than answers ...[but it] hopefully helps us ask better questions.

Source

• Launch Out Letters - Launch Out Formation Programme‘s newsletter and journal for lay leaders and ministers

As the pastor of a multigenerational, multicultural, and multilingual (Spanish, Vietnamese, and English) parish, I at times feel responsible for untying a lot of wet knots.

Farm workers from Central Mexico founded the parish where I serve, La Purisima Church in Orange, California, in 1923.

They gathered under a pepper tree for Mass until they saved enough money for a wooden mission church.

The parish built a new church in 1958 and another in 2005.

Normally new construction signals a healthy community coming together.

However, the Hispanic community came to believe that the parish was discriminating against their community and started picketing on the sidewalk before the new church opened in 2005.

Protests continued through 2014.

I did not serve at the parish during most of its history and can comment only on the repercussions.

However, I don't believe enough people considered the effect the new large worship space, driven by donations from mostly white parishioners, could have on others.

For example, a large new sanctuary meant fewer Sunday liturgies. But who gets the favoured morning or best vigil times?

Neglect leads to public protest

The new Mass schedule offered 10 liturgies in English, one in Vietnamese, and one in Spanish.

This created a sense of loss and alienation for the Latino community, who founded the church and yet felt they were not welcome.

The new church, they felt, neglected to value them as agents of their own pastoral needs or religious practices.

The energy of the parish focused on the new building and not on the pastoral life of the Latino community.

Eventually, their alienation and disempowerment found expression in picketing, which began before construction was completed and lasted for almost a decade.

Over the next nine years, the parish went through three different diocesan pastors until, in early December 2014, Bishop Kevin Vann asked me to pastor La Purisima.

I accepted the assignment with the mutual understanding that the manifest unhappiness of the Hispanic community had not arisen overnight and could not be cured instantaneously.

It would take some time to untie this knot.

Armed guards

My first pastoral decision was to unemploy the armed guard hired to "keep the peace."

I also began the typical task of putting names to faces and meeting my staff, who shared in the task of ministering to this diverse community of 4,000 parishioners.

My next decision was to declare a pastoral amnesty and a new beginning for everyone in the parish.

The war was over between the different language groups and everyone had won.

There would no longer be any in groups or out groups or welcomed or unwelcomed people.

Anyone seeking the Lord would be welcome.

Access to parish facilities and involvement in Masses was open to all.

Meanwhile, I refused to assign blame for the conflicts, instead focusing on parishioners' experiences.

Three weeks later, just as I thought things were settling down, 30 families picketing in front of the church surprised me.

Armed with a thermos of coffee, some paper cups, and a trembling heart, I headed out to the sidewalk. Surprised and startled, they eventually took me up on the coffee, but hesitated on my offer to speak with them in my office regarding their concerns. Continue reading