Cover
story Untold story New pastoral on Asian- and Pacific-Americans sheds light on
overlooked Catholics
By THOMAS C. FOX
The story is told of a young
Japanese Catholic who lived in Los Angeles in 1912. Wanting to confess his
sins, he wrote to his bishop in Hakodate, Japan, asking if it was possible to
confess by registered mail and be pardoned in the same way. The U.S.
churchs pastoral care to West Coast Japanese, it is said, originated with
this incident.
Receiving the letter, the bishop of Hakodate requested assistance.
The Maryknoll Catholic Foreign Mission Society responded, sending priests and
women religious to Los Angeles in 1915 where they established Japanese schools
and began to minister to Japanese immigrants.
The Los Angeles Maryknoll initiative marked a chapter in a much
wider story about Asian and Pacific Catholics in America. The story, weaving
through many nations, cultures, languages and beliefs, is one that has been
largely overlooked, even as it has reshaped what it means to be Catholic in
America today.
This is slowly changing now. After many years of prodding by Asian
Catholics throughout America, after years of study, months of consultations,
drafts and redrafting, the first pastoral letter on Asian and Pacific Catholic
Americans is about to see the light of day.
Later this month the Committee on Migration in the Office for the
Pastoral Care of Migrants and Refugees will submit to the U.S. bishops for
their approval a pastoral letter titled, Asian Pacific Presence: Harmony
in Faith.
The bishops are expected to approve the pastoral overwhelmingly,
offering at least symbolic recognition to the fastest growing ethnic
communities in America.
It is a document that raises important issues related to how the
U.S. Catholic leadership envisions the church as it becomes ever more
ethnically and racially diverse. The pastoral implicitly calls attention to
some of the most fundamental questions facing the U.S. church, said one bishop
staffer, who asked not to speak on the record until the pastoral reaches the
full body of bishops. He and others who work on migration matters for the
bishops have a solid sense of just how much the church in the United States has
changed in the past quarter century.
We have come to a new paradigm and we must awaken to it, he said,
asking, Will the Asian and Pacific Catholics be placed in yet another
side room with the Hispanics, African-Americans and Native Americans or will we
now, finally, accept a new paradigm and let everyone into the living room
together?
How the U.S. bishops respond to this question and others raised in
the proposed pastoral will have a major impact on the future of Catholicism in
America. The responses bishops give could even reshape the very configuration
of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops as well as its pastoral
directions in the years to come, according to U.S. bishops policy
planners.
A long history
Asian- and Pacific-American Catholics go back more than two
centuries in America. To get a sense of how the U.S. church got to this moment,
it helps to look at some highlights mentioned in the pastoral so far:
As early as 1763, a Filipino settlement was
established at St. Malo in the bayous of Louisiana. Known as
Manilamen, the settlers jumped ship to escape brutalities during
the galleon trade between the Philippines and Mexico.
In 1856, Bishop Joseph Sadoc Alemany, the first
archbishop of San Francisco, invited a Chinese priest to minister to Chinese
Catholic migrant laborers, some of whom worked on the U.S. transcontinental
railroad.
In 1884, the Paulist fathers took over the
administration of Old St. Marys Cathedral in San Francisco to begin a
mission to the Chinese that continues to the present day.
In the early 1920s, San Francisco Archbishop Edward
J. Hanna founded the Catholic Filipino Club in Stockton, Calif., to provide
hospitality to newcomers.
In the last half of the 20th century, Catholic
migrations continued to our shores. The largest involved hundreds of thousands
who left their homes in Southeast Asia in the wake of the Vietnam War, which
ended in 1975. Following the breakup of the Soviet Union, tens of thousands of
Catholics migrated to the United States. Still more came from Africa and from
the Baltic states in the 1990s, fleeing hunger and violence.
Like other immigrants, Asian and Pacific Islanders have felt their
share of racial discrimination. For example, as the pastoral points out, before
the 1950s, Asian immigrants were denied the right to become naturalized
citizens -- a right granted to all other U.S. immigrants. The Chinese Exclusion
Law of 1882, which remained in effect until 1943, barred additional Chinese
laborers from entering the country and prevented Chinese aliens from obtaining
American citizenship. A 1909 law denied citizenship to 50,000 persons from
Arabia because they were considered Asians. The Johnson-Reed Act of 1924, known
as the Japanese Exclusion Act, banned further immigration of
Japanese laborers. One of the more public acts of racial discrimination came in
the form of Executive Order 9066 of 1942, which forced Japanese immigrants,
including two-thirds who were American citizens, mainly from the West Coast,
into internment camps under the guise of national security.
Of course, much has changed in the lifetimes of U.S. Catholic
Asian- and Pacific-Americans who no longer face overt legal discrimination.
What they more likely face today is prejudice that stems from ignorance and
cultural misunderstanding, especially as their numbers grow.
The 2000 Census found that almost 12 million Asian-Americans now
live in America, reflecting a growth of 48 percent since 1990. Further, The
Asian- and Pacific-American population, the fastest-growing racial group in the
country, is expected to double by 2010.
The six largest Asian groups -- Chinese, Filipino, Asian-Indian,
Vietnamese, Korean and Japanese -- account for 87.5 percent of Asian-Americans.
Smaller Asian ethnic groups listed in the census include Bangladeshi,
Cambodian, Hmong, Indonesian, Laotian, Malaysian, Pakistani, Sri Lankan,
Taiwanese and Thai. Compared to the 12 million Asians, Pacific-Americans total
874,414, including native Hawaiians and American citizens from Guam, the
Northern Marianas and American Samoa. The group also includes people from the
Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, Palau, Tonga, and Western
Samoa.
More than two-thirds of the Asian- and Pacific-American population
lives in six states: California, Hawaii, Illinois, Texas, New Jersey and New
York.
Thirty dioceses have more than 100,000 Asian- and
Pacific-Americans in the cities they serve. Despite these numbers and the
significant expansion of the Asian and Pacific Catholic population, these
Catholics live mostly invisible lives within the larger church,
according to the pastoral.
Lack of Asian-American bishops
One factor contributing to the low profile, according to the
document, may be the lack of Asian-American bishops. Despite years of talk
about the lack of Asian-American bishops within their ranks, not one
Asian-American bishop has been appointed. This glaring absence means that at
the highest level of decision-making, Asian Catholic voices do not get heard.
Asian-American Catholics, not prone to complain aloud, quietly express
disappointment and frustration.
Today the Asian and Pacific communities in the United States
span several generations, the pastoral states. Yet Asian and
Pacific peoples have remained, until very recently, nearly invisible in the
church in the United States. Their absence in the episcopal
leadership may be a factor.
There is one exception. Among Asian and Pacific Catholics in
America are a significant number who belong to Eastern-rite churches, churches
that follow their own rites but express allegiance to Rome. Last July, the
first Eastern Syro-Malabar-rite bishop of India was appointed to lead the
estimated 120,000 U.S. followers.
The [papal] nuncio wrote to [the U.S.] bishops five years
ago asking for names, Oakland Bishop Cummins told NCR, referring
to the selection process for new bishops. Part of the problem, Cummins says, is
the relatively young age of many of the Asian-American priests.
It is widely believed that ethnic diplomacy has slowed the
process. Some observers think it would be inappropriate to appoint a Korean
bishop without appointing, say, a Filipino bishop or a Vietnamese bishop.
Cummins says any announcement would require more than one
appointee. Some Asians would like to see as many as a half dozen appointed at
the same time.
Cummins has been interested in Asian and Pacific Catholics living
in America for some time. His diocese, with 473,687 such Catholics, boasts the
fifth largest concentration among U.S. dioceses, following Los Angeles,
Honolulu, Brooklyn and San Jose. Cummins interest took him to Asia in
1979. He has been the U.S. episcopal liaison to the Federation of Asian
Bishops Conferences since 1982.
Cummins, who headed the Committee on Migration from 1995 to 1998,
has talked about the need for great Asian-American Catholic awareness among the
bishops for at least a decade. He now says he is gratified that a
pastoral recognizing the gifts of Asian- and Pacific-American Catholics is
finally coming to life.
I am high on this pastoral. It is a solid achievement,
he says.
Veronica Leasiolagi Barber, a native Samoan and Director for Asian
and Pacific American Affairs for the Seattle archdiocese, is equally excited,
saying the pastoral is overdue.
It is timely to recognize our presence in the United
States, she said, explaining that Asian- and Pacific-American Catholics
bring to the church needed communal values. We are into doing
things for others as community. This contrasts a bit the more individualistic
approach we see here.
Barber feels many Americans fail to recognize the size and
importance of Asian and Pacific Catholics in this country. This pastoral, she
hopes, will help.
I had one person say to me recently, We didnt
know that Asians are Catholics. We thought they were Buddhists,
she said.
Typical, she responds, adding she wanted to blurt back
a little-recognized fact that Asians carry in their back pocket: Jesus was an
Asian!
Part of the enthusiasm Asian and Pacific Catholics increasingly
feel about the church stems from the emphasis Pope John Paul II is giving to
the importance of cultural awareness. Part of the preparation for the
millennium Jubilee year of 2000 involved holding several regional synods during
which local bishops came to Rome to discuss their needs with Vatican officials.
These synods included one on Asia and another on Oceana, both held in 1998.
As a follow-up to the synod on Asia, the pope released a letter in
November 1999 aimed at encouraging the local churches while trying to assure
that they follow the Vatican emphasis on the proclamation of Jesus as universal
savior.
In his letter, titled Ecclesia in Asia, the pope penned
words that inspired the name and theme of the proposed pastoral. He wrote:
This being Asian is best discovered and affirmed not in
confrontation and opposition, but in the spirit of complementarity and harmony.
In this framework of complementarity and harmony, the church can communicate
the gospel in a way that is faithful both to her own tradition and to the Asian
soul.
In a way, U.S. bishops, by moving forward with the pastoral, face
a bit of the same question: How to best mix complementarity with harmony? Or
how to both preserve ethnic identity while responding to specific needs and at
the same time preserve the harmonic whole? Barber, who was part of the pastoral
planning team, says the bishops need to rethink their approach. The pastoral
makes a series of recommendations, including one that calls an
appropriate national structure to coordinate Asian and Pacific Catholic
matters.
The recommendation falls short of asking for a
secretariat, such as those that coordinate African-American and
Hispanic affairs.
The bishops created a Secretariat for African American Affairs in
1987 and it opened in 1988. The U.S. Catholic Hispanic Affairs secretariat was
officially created in 1972. The care of Asian- and Pacific-American Catholics
has come under Migration and Refugee Services. With each passing decade,
however, the notion of maintaining the care for Asian-American Catholics under
Migration and Refugees becomes more problematic.
No longer newcomers
What we in the Asian- and Pacific-American Catholic
communities are saying is that we are no longer newcomers, said Cecile
Motus, coordinator for ethnic ministries in the U.S. bishops Office for
the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Refugees. We are saying that many of us
have been here five and six generations and that our pastoral needs are beyond
the responsibility of the department of migrants and refugees.
Motus, who has worked on the pastoral -- and is proud of it --
adds that the answer for Asians and Pacific Catholics pastoral needs
might not rest in creating yet another secretariat.
We have given the bishops wiggle room, she said.
What is needed is a whole new national restructuring, one that reflects
the increasingly diverse multiethnic church we have become. This is a
view apparently shared by others in the Office of Pastoral Care of Migrants and
Refugees.
The pastoral incorporates some of the thinking of the Asian
bishops as it considers the ideas of dialogue and inculturation. Since the
early 1970s, the Asian bishops have developed the notion of the triple
dialogue, a dialogue with religions, cultures and the poor, as a major motif in
their pastoral approach. The proposed pastoral, for the first time in a
setting outside of Asia, draws on this approach.
The new pastoral follows in the wake of another, issued last
November by the U.S. bishops, and called, Welcoming the Stranger Among
Us: Unity in Diversity. That pastoral, also developed by the
bishops committee on migration, celebrates U.S. cultural
pluralism, what it calls the common heritage of all
Americans.
The presence of so many people of so many different cultures
and religions in so many different parts of the United States has challenged us
as a church to a profound conversion so that we can become truly a sacrament of
unity, the bishops wrote in the earlier pastoral. We reject the
anti-immigrant stance that has become popular in different parts of our
country, and the nativism, ethnocentricity and racism that continue to reassert
themselves in our communities.
We are challenged to get beyond ethnic communities living
side by side within our own parishes without any connection with each other. We
are challenged to become an evangelizing church open to interreligious dialogue
and willing to proclaim the gospel to those who wish to hear it.
While Unity in Diversity called upon Catholics to open
their minds and hearts to a changing church and nation, the new pastoral,
Harmony in Faith, specifically recognizes the gifts of Asian and
Pacific Catholics in America. Both come out of a broader theme the U.S. bishops
are pushing to make the church in America more inclusive and more welcoming to
all.
There are plans to translate the new pastoral into 11 Asian
languages. Further, a series of regional training programs are being planned.
Scheduled to begin later this month in New England, they are aimed at teaching
diocesan leaders the importance of welcoming all people into their midst.
The pastoral Harmony in Faith
recommends the following strategic actions: |
- That Asian and Pacific communities become more active
pastoral agents and evangelizers in parish and diocesan ministries.
- That Asian and Pacific Catholic leadership explore the
potential of Asian and Pacific pastoral institutes to offer continuing
education to clergy and other pastoral ministers.
- That Asian and Pacific Catholic leadership promote
coalitions between Asian and Pacific communities to build a strong advocacy
network.
- That Asian and Pacific church leaders explore with the
U.S. bishops an appropriate national structure for Asian and Pacific Catholics,
with the goal of giving them more recognition and a greater voice.
- That dioceses and parishes fully explore the potential
benefits of the threefold dialogue with religions, cultures and the poor among
Asian and Pacific communities by offering intercultural training programs and
by encouraging social action work.
- That dioceses and parishes, where appropriate, develop
mobile ministries to reach small and isolated Asian and Pacific Catholic
communities.
- That U.S. bishops maintain systematic communication
with the Federation of Asian Bishops Conferences and the Federation of
Catholic Bishops Conferences of Oceania.
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Thomas C. Fox is NCRs publisher. His e-mail
address is tfox@natcath.org
National Catholic Reporter, November 9,
2001
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