Preparations begun for fifth national Hispanic 'encuentro'

Friday, Oct. 23, 2015

SALT LAKE CITY  — Since 1972 a Hispanic/Latino ministry known as ENAHVE has been taking place all over the United States. It is comprised of 17 national and regional Catholic organizations that serve the Hispanic community; members include Archbishop Gustavo García-Siller of San Antonio, several other bishops and priests and a large number of laypeople.

“The main objective of the process of the ENAHVE is to discern the way in which Hispanics/Latinos respond as Church,” said Maria Cruz Gray, director of Hispanic Ministry for the Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake City.

The group has had four national conventions, called “encuentros,” and is in the process of planning the fifth one, which is scheduled to take place in 2018.

The ministry held its first national “encuentro” (encounter) in 1972, which “allowed us to come out of the shadows and to express our needs, aspirations, and contributions as baptized persons living in the Church in the United States,” according to the website enahve.org. “In the II Encuentro (1977), we identified ourselves as a community of Hispanic Catholics that is diverse yet united in faith, history, culture, and language.  We also discerned a way of being a Church based in the ecclesiology of communion and a preferential option for the estranged and those who live in poverty. The III Encuentro (1985) allowed us to raise our voice to articulate a clear direction of the Church’s response to the Hispanic presence and our response as Church. This vision was recorded in the ‘Plan Pastoral Nacional del Ministerio Hispano’ (1988). The Encuentro 2000 allowed us to host and to share an experience of Encuentro with all of the cultures and races that make up the Church in the United States. And the V Encuentro Nacional Hispano de Pastoral will encourage us to continue our walk as God’s people, to raise our voice once more, and to discern our pastoral priorities and strategies that are most appropriate at the present time.”

“It has been a great learning experience,” said Gray, who has participated in ENAHVE since the beginning. 

The Diocese of Salt Lake City is part of Region XIII, which also includes the nine dioceses in Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Wyoming, said Gray , adding that all these dioceses work together and have meetings together.

Some weeks ago a small commission from Salt Lake City traveled to Albuquerque N.M. for a meeting to help prepare for the fifth encuentro. Currently, members of regional teams are being formed and trained; this step will be followed by the training of diocesan and parish teams.

The Diocese of Salt Lake City is the treasurer diocese for the Region XIII.