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The women’s voices rise
and fall, repeating dozens of Hail Marys and Our Fathers during rosary
prayers at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church.
The monotone of the prayers
is broken only by special requests for peace among gangs, repentance for
sinners, health for the sick and food for the hungry. It is an oft-repeated
devotional for these six women, all middle-aged or older, who wear black
veils and click beads through weathered fingers as they pray in Spanish.
In Latin American farming
villages, nightly rosary services attract dozens of women. But here, in
a central Santa Ana enclave that is home to thousands of Hispanic immigrants,
the tradition barely survives.
Catholicism remains the dominant
religion, and, with a membership of 1,200 families, 107-year-old St. Joseph’s
is the largest church in the community. But other denominations are reaching
out to the newcomers. Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, Seventh-day Adventists,
Pentecostals and any number of evangelical churches have joined the battle
for souls, challenging Catholic dominance.
Luis Solano, a recruiter for
an evangelical congregation, knows he is at a disadvantage but is undaunted
by the odds. Carrying a black Bible under one arm and pushing his 3-year-old
daughter’s stroller with the other, Solano is a man on a mission. Only
a couple of hours until Tuesday night services, and still he has won no
converts to Templo Bethel Church on Minter Street, just a few steps from
St. Joseph’s.
“Most people don’t want to
bother with church,” says Solano, a restaurant cook who emigrated from
Mexico five years ago. “Even if you scream at the top of your lungs and
tell them they will fry in hell, they aren’t interested. ”
Most of those he seeks to
convert cling to beliefs that have been in their families for generations.
The immigrants’ cultural traditions are intrinsically linked to the Catholic
Church, and its influence is obvious in this urban neighborhood of 7,000
residents, many newly arrived from Mexico and other Latin American countries.
For many in this community,
God and religion — no matter what the denomination — provide refuge
from poverty, crime and disease. Their faith is a source of hope and solace
for their hard lives. Walk the streets just north of the Civic Center,
and you will see the signs of a deeply spiritual neighborhood.
Religious statues are stuck
on the dashboards of some parked cars, and small Christian fish symbols
adorn the bumpers of others. Pictures of Jesus and the Virgin of Guadalupe
— Mexico’s patron saint — can be found in almost every apartment. Crucifixes
hang above front doors to ward off evil, and guardian angel postcards
rest inside cribs to protect babies from the Evil Eye, a popular Hispanic
myth that strangers can wish harm upon children simply by looking at them.
Walk into Florina Montoya’s
home at the Courtyard Apartments on Spurgeon Street, and you will see
the signs of a deeply spiritual person. A framed picture of Jesus hangs
in the living room. A picture of the Virgin of Guadalupe is on a wall
next to one son’s crib, and a likeness of a guardian angel hangs over
the other.
“Jesus will reward those that
follow him and honor him always,” says Montoya, 35, a lifelong Catholic
and a member of St. Joseph’s, whose congregation is 65 percent Hispanic.
“What better way to honor
him than to decorate your apartment with his image? ” she asks. “I think
he watches more over those of us who do this.”
Despite such strong signs
of devotion, Solano says, some Catholic immigrants are dissatisfied with
the church. They are the most likely candidates for his pitch, immigrants
overwhelmed by the choices, possibilities and temptations of a new country.
Immigrants who think
American Catholicism is too lax, too willing to forgive. Immigrants, he
says, who seek a stricter faith.
Solano is only too happy to
show them where to find it — at Templo Bethel, a small but thriving Apostolic
Assembly congregation.
“Up to the time when we came
to the U.S., most of us lived in places where we didn’t have the temptations
of drugs, pornography, prostitution and homosexuality,” he says. “I offer
them a religion that will keep them from getting tempted by the many sins
available here.”
Solano, a soft-spoken man
whose voice gains an authoritative tone when he speaks about religion,
approaches a tall man in an oil-stained mechanic’s outfit. The man tries
to avoid eye contact, but Solano reaches out to shake his hand, and for
the next five minutes tries to entice him to a church service.
The Lord can make his wife
more caring and devoted, he tells the man. Jesus can keep his children
from joining gangs. And, he says, God will reward those who believe with
money and happiness. The man is not interested. He says he is too tired
and excuses himself.
“Another lost lamb,” Solano
whispers sadly. “I hope God enters his life soon, because if we can win
over the men, then the women and children will follow.”
As Tuesday night services
commence, the Rev. Jose Villegas reads the roll. About 60 of the church’s
80 members — all immigrants — have come tonight, and those who did not
are chastised.
“We hope they can devote some
time to the Lord soon,” Villegas says in Spanish, sounding displeased.
Solano sits in the third row with his wife, Leonor, 27, who is holding
their daughter Jessenia, 2 months. The pastor leads the congregation in
song: “To God give the glory. I feel his power. God has risen.”
Villegas, a former Catholic
who moved from Zacatecas, Mexico, to Santa Ana in 1963, said his church
is an instant family for new immigrants. He joined the Apostolic Assembly
churches 25 years ago, wishing to leave behind a life of sin — womanizing
and boozing — he says he found in his new country.
Today, he runs a church so
prosperous that it paid $300,000 cash last year for a white wooden building
with sky-blue trim and a tall, elegant steeple. The money came from congregation
members, who donate 10 percent of their monthly income to the church.
For more than a fourth of the families, that’s about $100.
“These people are struggling
to make it,” Villegas says. “But they realize that the more they give,
the more God will reward them.”
As the band’s rhythm speeds
up the audience become agitated. Couple and their children run to the
pulpit, which is decorated with a giant American flag next to a large
red cross, and drop to their knees. Some women shake frantically, as if
in convulsions. Some are crying. Others shriek.
“They are receiving the Holy
Spirit,” the pastor says. “Our church is much more alive than Catholicism.
They are moving away from God while we are moving towards him.”
Some churches, in their fervor
to recruit new members, help immigrants find jobs and pitch in with rent
money and free food. But more importantly, especially for many immigrants
without family or friends in the new country, the churches offer instant
bonds with a community of like-minded people.
St. Joseph’s pastor, the Rev.
Christopher Smith, does not worry about the dozen Protestant churches
that have sprunt up in the area in the past 10 years.
“They really take very few
of our parisioners,” he says. “Latinos are very loyal to the church because
we have a long history of togetherness in Latin America.”
While many other churches
worry about declining attendance and falling donations, St. Joseph’s is
thriving. The church has 1,200 enrolled families and an average of 2,500
people at Sunday Masses – three of which are in English and three in Spanish.
Smith has become a fixture in the neighborhood in his five years there.
The Spanish-speaking Anglo priest is loved and respected by his Hispanic
parishioners, who affectionately refer to him as “padresito.”
“People who live outside
the neighborhood don’t realize how wonderful it is here,” he says, pointing
to the rows of apartments that surround the church.
“There are a lot of good people
here. A lot of dedicated parents, hard-working students and kind-hearted
grandmothers, but you never hear about them in the newspapers or on television.”
Staff writer
Jeordan Legon immigrated from Cuba with his family in 1979. He lived for
most of last year in the Courtyard Apartments in the predominantly Hispanic
neighborhood near 15th and Spurgeon streets in Santa Ana.
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