I want to put in writing the course that we are charting.  There are two difficulties that one faces in this respect, one is skin color and another is the language barrier.  When it comes to skin color, we have to be honest that this issue can loom larger than we would like to admit.  It is normal to be more comfortable in settings where the people around us look like us.  Feeling this way does not make one a racist.   
 
Then there is language.  Having lived in Italy for four years, I know first-hand that no matter how much one works on learning a foreign language as an adult, one will always feel more at ease speaking and praying in one's own mother tongue.   Even with Mass in Latin, my mother can
remember regularly attending Masses with a Polish sermon well into the 1950s in Toldeo, Ohio with her older relatives.   When we do not offer Masses in the first language of adults, we should not be surprised when many Catholics who do not have English as their first language begin to join churches that offer services in their mother tongue or do not practice their faith at all.   This is especially true after Vatican II when Latin Masses have ceased to be the norm!  If we want to look at an explanation as to why Mass attendance decreased in Grant County from 2000-2017 by
almost 50%, one of the reasons is that we have been less than successful in welcoming Catholics coming from homes wherein Spanish is the first language.   Even so, the majority of our first
communions and baptisms in our parish cluster are now to families in which one or both adults in the home claim Spanish as their first, and sometimes only, functional language.  
 
I am not saying this is the way things should be.  I am saying that this is the reality that we face today.
 
Our goal is to welcome Spanish speakers and integrate their children into attending Mass in English as adults, not to create a parish within a parish wherein Spanish is the only
language spoken.   My experience is that the only way that this happens is getting parents in Church on Sundays.  After extensive consultation with the parish pastoral councils and other
parish leadership, we will take the next step forward in this process on May 12.  Those of you who have attended bi-lingual liturgies on holy days of obligation in the past six months already have a sense of what is coming.  The 12:30pm Mass on the first Sunday of the month will
integrate more English than it has in the past.  At the same time, the 12:30pm Masses on the
other Sundays of the month will integrate more elements of Spanish.  The language of music and readings will alternate from week to week, i.e., music, 1st reading, psalm, 2nd reading and
intercessions in one language, and the Gospel and the priest's parts in another.  Please take
advantage of the bilingual missalettes. Those who prefer Masses totally in English can expect to have at least three other options in Grant County every weekend in which Mass is exclusively in English.
 
I am happy to discuss our Hispanic outreach with anyone who has concerns.  Even if we disagree about tactics, we can all agree that it is a worthwhile goal to build a bridge that will help integrate Hispanics into an English-speaking parish culture as quickly as possible.