Posted under Christianity
Hispanic News reports:
The Roman Catholic Church has rejected Hispanics and Hispanics are now becoming the cornerstone of a new church breaking away from the Roman Catholic Church to join other churches.
Countless appeals have been made to the bishop resulting in no action by the bishop. It is because of this neglect, action is being considered to have Phoenix Hispanic Catholics break away from the Diocese of Phoenix and form a new church — The American Catholic Church.
Wikipedia on the new church:
The American Catholic Church in the United States (ACCUS) is a small Independent Catholic denomination originating from the Old Catholic Christian denomination. The ACCUS holds similar theological beliefs and practices to the Roman Catholic Church. However, like Orthodox churches, it is not in communion with the Roman Catholic Church or under Papal jurisdiction.
Continuing from the Hispanic News article:
To date, Hispanic News CEO, Jon Garrido, the American Civil Liberties Union, and Phoenix attorney Michael C. Manning have written the United States Justice Department to investigate allegations Sheriff Joe Arpaio is in violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
A Federal Grand Jury is currently investigating Joe Arpaio but it is the electorate who keeps Arpaio in office.
Joe Arpaio’s voting constituency is primarily American seniors migrated from the mid and upper mid west with conservative Republican values not sensitive to the plight of Hispanics residing in Arizona.
This is creating two different and distinct Catholic populations each at polar positions to the other giving birth to a clash of two civilizations within the Catholic Church.
There is some commonality between these two civilizations with the primary commonality — both groups are Catholic.
It is this opportunity to build one Catholic community from two that only can be achieved by the Bishop of Phoenix. Yet, Bishop Olmsted has chosen not to be visible since his installation as Bishop of the Diocese of Phoenix on December 20, 2003. This is nearly seven years of neglect of his flock.
Countless appeals have been made to the bishop resulting in no action by the bishop. It is because of this neglect, action is being considered to have Phoenix Hispanic Catholics break away from the Diocese of Phoenix and form a new church — The American Catholic Church.
As profound as this step is, the alternative is to do nothing and observe hundreds of thousands of Phoenix Hispanic Catholics turn away from the Roman Catholic Church in Phoenix and become Pentecostals. New Pentecostal churches are sprouting up practically on every neighborhood corner in the Phoenix area. There are now more than 1,000 Pentecostal churches in the Phoenix area. The Catholic Church in Phoenix is hemorrhaging and the Catholic Church can do nothing to prevent it.
Establishing the American Catholic Church as a beacon of social and civil rights from a church borrowing from the Catholic Church is the only viable alternative. The American Catholic Church being formulated will be a hybrid of the Roman Catholic Church with all of the sacraments specially Eucharist (Masses celebrated by former Catholic priests. There are many in the Phoenix area as well as in most major American cities.), dogma, traditions, the intercession of the Virgin of Guadalupe and the Charismatic movement being the foundation of the new American Catholic Church but the American Catholic Church will also include the Pentecostal movement of community, family, music, and advocacy for social and civil rights will become major threads woven into the fabric of the new American Catholic Church.
The shepherd of the new American Catholic Church will become a prime advocate for the rights of all Hispanics in the Phoenix area.
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The vast majority of Hispanic Protestants consider themselves to be evangelical or “born again” — that is, they report to have had a “personal conversion experience related to Jesus Christ,” Espinosa said.
Hispanics often substitute the term evangelical for Protestant, because many Hispanics feel Protestant is too closely associated with Anglo-American culture.
Pentecostals are the largest subset of Hispanic Protestants. Pentecostals believe the gifts of the Holy Spirit exist in the present time. Pentecostals believe their bodies can be inhabited by the Holy Spirit, which can involve speaking in tongues, miraculous healings and divinely inspired prophecies.
“Aggressive proselytizing, intense worship experience, healing, emphasis on conversion, transformation, and increased leadership opportunities in the ministry have all contributed to the trend of “Pentecostalization” of the Hispanic church,” Espinosa said. The emphasis on youth ministry and popular culture is another important draw to Hispanic Protestant churches.
I won’t pretend to understand Catholic politics. Schism, maybe?
The Western Confucian on 03 Feb 2010 at 5:00 am #
This new “church” is an offshoot of the so-called “Old Catholics” of the 1870s, who denied papal infallibility and have since morphed into a theologically ultra-liberal (and insignificant) Protestant denomination.
From the site, ACCUS’ “bishops” seem to be white liberals looking to fill their empty pews by sowing the seeds of racial discord within the Roman Catholic Church.
Kirt Higdon on 03 Feb 2010 at 3:32 pm #
There are all sorts of schismatic splinter groups and most of them are indeed insignificant. Defection of Latin Catholics to Protestant denominations both in the US and Latin America, however, is a problem for the Church and has been for some time now. It has nothing to do with Joe Arpaio.
Bede on 03 Feb 2010 at 3:43 pm #
This opposition might in part be due to the fact that there’s a European Pope. Once there’s an African or mestizo Pope – which could be soon – I assume it will fade away. At that point, you may see Europeans and European Americans breaking away.
Patroon on 03 Feb 2010 at 6:24 pm #
“From the site, ACCUS’ “bishops” seem to be white liberals looking to fill their empty pews by sowing the seeds of racial discord within the Roman Catholic Church.”
Exactly. Ignore Hispanic? How could they? They’re just the bishop won’t involve himself in local politics.
Litl Bits on 03 Feb 2010 at 6:44 pm #
I’m more than a little disappointed in this article – in that you seem to be supporting (or at least did not express lack of support) for the “hispanics”. The RCatholic Church has NOT abandoned hispanics. In fact in far too many cases, the churches violate law by holding shelters, day labor sites and unlimited aid to ILLEGALS. THAT is what this article did NOT point out….it is ILLEGALS who are being “held back”. they don’t like the laws here, they don’t think they have to obey them. they disagree with teh church views, they want their own..
Let them go back to Mexico – and wherever they came from. If you want to live int eh U.S. you should be willing to ASSIMILATE and become American…and NOT try to change this country into the same from which you came.
The only reason they don’t like Arpaio is because he UPHOLDS THE LAW! Boy that’s a bad thing, isn’t it? they VIOLATE our laws just by being here….and they don’t want to live under any of our laws if it inconveniences them….DEPORT THEM ALL!
America is for people who WANT TO BE AMERICANS! PERIOD!
RedPhillips on 03 Feb 2010 at 8:10 pm #
Litl Bits, I can assure you that you are misreading the intent of the author.
As a Protestant, it is hard for us to understand what schism from the Catholic Church means. We are always breaking off forming our own denominations, but for Catholics breaking from the Church is a very serious matter. This bunch of malcontents may go their own way, but I doubt seriously that Europeans will break away in the other direction.
I also think that the Pentecostalism that many Hispanics are gravitating to is the equivalent of the Pentecostalism seen in many Black churches and by some of the TBN types. Pentecostalism has never been in the mainstream of modern evangelicalism, but denominations such as the Assemblies of God and Church of God are as conservative socially as is the rest of evangelicalism. The Pentecostalism that is attracting these Hispanics probably has the same relationship to the Assemblies of God as Black Baptist Churches have to the Southern Baptist Convention. Meaning a similar underlying theology (maybe?) and distinctives, but a very different ethos.
David Lindsay on 03 Feb 2010 at 8:11 pm #
Far from Hispanics’ being the great hope of American Catholicism, Latin America has never been a very Catholic place, with slight if any Mass-going majorities, huge numbers of the unbaptized, rampant syncretism and surviving paganism, and a very heavy dependence on (historically European, these days usually North American) missionary priests. No wonder that the strongest opponents of the present levels of immigration, of any amnesty, and of the erosion of English in American life, are themselves traditional Catholics. For example, The Western Confucian.
Whether apart from Rome or in internal dissent from Rome, High Church movements have always become progressively less orthodox theologically, and thus (among much else) progressively less radical politically. Meanwhile, ultra-Augustinianism produced the Remonstrandt Brotherhood, the Socinian ‘New Licht’ within the Free Church of Scotland, the Non-Subscribing Presbyterian Church of Ireland, and Unitarianism among English Presbyterians and New England Congregationalists. Look at the once-Gallican, once-Jansenist Old Catholics, of which this new Hispanic-American body is an offshoot.
I must say that I rather enjoyed the comment suggesting that there might soon be a Pope from Latin America, and even that Europeans might then break away! It put me in mind of the apparently serious suggestions on a newsgroup to which I subscribed that John Paul II might be succeeded by an American. And that, remember, was in the Bush years. Bless…
Weaver on 03 Feb 2010 at 8:50 pm #
I think he means the author of Hispanic News, and yea in that Litl Bits’s right.
Bede on 04 Feb 2010 at 3:13 am #
David Lindsay,
Philip Jenkins has suggested that the next Pope will be non-Western (e.g. African, mestizo, etc.).
Attack the System » Blog Archive » Updated News Digest February 7, 2010 on 04 Feb 2010 at 1:59 pm #
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