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PRACTICES AT WORK
Untying Wet Knots
Reflections on Effective Multicultural Ministry Bill Barman
Father Bill Barman, pastor of a multilingual and multiethnic parish in California, chronicles the challenges he faced and success he found when it came to unifying his parish community. He offers hopeful, practical suggestions for anyone with a similar task and mission.
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a pair of sneakers is hard to untie—even harder when they’re on your feet. As the pastor of a multigenerational, multicultural, and multilingual 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. a wet knot on
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c21 resources | spring 2020
I did not serve at the parish during most of its history and can comment only on the repercussions. 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. The 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. Eventually, their alienation and disempowerment found expression in picketing, which began before construction was completed and lasted for almost a decade. My first pastoral decision was to un-employ 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. Anyone seeking the Lord would be welcome. Access to parish facilities and involvement in Masses was open to all.
