Our Lady of Guadalupe Star of the New Evangelization: Vatican

December 13, 2012: Representatives of the Church from North and South America gathered for Mass in St Peter’s basilica on wednesday evening to celebrate the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe and the conclusion of a three day International Conference on the state of the Church in the Americas.
One of the overriding themes of the conference was inculturated evangelization, particularly in light of the growing Hispanic population north of the Mexican border. During talks and working groups, representatives of the churches in the US and Canada repeatedly spoke of the positive impact of immigration on the life of the Church in their local realities, while also calling for a more human understanding of problems connected to immigration.
An issue of concern for Church leaders is that the “wealth of faith” of many Hispanic immigrants is being absorbed into a secular culture. So much so, that by the third or fourth generation, faith is no longer relevant in their lives.
“The reality of the diversity of the Church in the American continent is a wonderful thing” said Cardinal Thomas Collins, Archbishop of Toronto, Canada.
“I think that the challenge is always when you have people from other countries bringing their own culture and the wealth of their faith, then you have the second generation or the third and fourth and there is the danger that they will be absorbed into a secular culture. Apart from being secular, it is also less rich. It is plastic; it is not something to celebrate. A lot of it is very, very superficial with a distorted anthropology and a distorted sense of the human person. So what a tragedy it is when people come with a very deep and fruitful culture and it gets watered down. But that need not happen. The various communities are working hard to be sure that they can enrich the culture of the local area before it dilutes their spiritual, intellectual and cultural wealth. That’s not an easy thing to do, it’s a constant challenge”, added the Archbishop.
He further said “I think it’s very true too that when a country or a community depends upon a religion based upon a culture, then it’s not a lasting thing. There have to be deeper roots. When a faith is largely cultural, then it will disappear when it is absorbed by another culture. We really only have a certain amount of time to develop the deep roots and hope that they can be strong enough to resist the secularized nature of their surrounding environment”.
The conference, was co-sponsored by the Pontifical Commission for Latin America and the Knights of Columbus, with assistance from the Institute for Guadalupan Studies in Mexico City.