www.the-tidings.com/2007/071307/hispanic.htm -
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Published on: 7/13/2007
Last Visited: 8/30/2007
Ronaldo Cruz: Long-time Hispanic affairs official retires
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When Ronaldo Cruz first began working for the church, he thought of himself as a Chicano activist.He was involved with the farmworker and sanctuary movements and was running a social services agency that primarily served Mexican-Americans in Tucson, Ariz.
"I thought I was going to become the next Che Guevara," the revolutionary, he joked about his younger self.
He never expected those interests and his lifelong involvement as a Catholic would lead to a 35-year career in the church -- a combination of ministry and work which is ending at least temporarily as he leaves his job of 16 years as executive director of Hispanic affairs for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.He was assistant director for several years before that.
In an interview with Catholic News Service shortly before he took early retirement offered as part of a USCCB reorganization, Cruz described the path that brought him from a Tucson barrio to running a national office for Hispanic ministry, including such highlights as representing the U.S. church as one of the few laymen to participate in the 1997 Synod of Bishops for America.
Cruz was born and raised in a poor family in a tightly knit Latino neighborhood of Tucson.He became the first member of his family to graduate from college, taught social studies at a Catholic high school in the 1970s and had settled into a career with Nosotros, a social services agency.
In the early 1980s, a call from then-Bishop Francis J. Green inviting him to be director of the Tucson Diocese's Hispanic ministry office changed his professional direction.
"I said, 'Bishop, no one has ever asked me what the church meant to me and to the Chicano movement.We just want to be accepted as who we are, as people of color, to be able to build where we want to live, to speak Spanish if we want to and to have the jobs we want to have,'" Cruz recalled."Very, very few of us had the opportunity to do that."
The diocesan office proved to be a place where he could work toward those goals as well as deepen his own faith and his understanding of the church.
As he moved on to regional work for what was then called the Campaign for Human Development, the U.S. bishops' anti-poverty program, and then to the bishops' Hispanic affairs secretariat in 1988, Cruz continued to have definite objectives for the church's efforts toward its Hispanic population.
In those early days, Hispanic ministry was shaped by the experiences of leaders who still felt the sting of generations of prejudice and second-class status their families encountered in the U.S. church, he explained.
"We came with anger from the experience of 150 years," Cruz said."There was a lot of baggage and a lack of confidence and self-esteem."
While one goal of Hispanic ministry was to shape the church into a place that is welcoming, part of accomplishing that meant recognizing that "we had created some of the problems," he said.
With his background in community organizing and grass-roots political activism, Cruz worked to bring a more collaborative approach to Hispanic ministry, as opposed to the "let's-do-this-our-way" pattern that had been common.
"If I have a legacy to leave, that's one thing that we did," he said.
Over the last few decades, Hispanic ministry programs have prepared thousands of leaders for work in all levels of the church.While a main goal of Hispanic ministry has been to provide services and education to enable Hispanics to have their own place in the church, another has been to help the rest of the Catholic community to accept the pastors, school principals, liturgists, lectors and all other types of ministers who may not be of their ethnic and cultural background, he said.
Besides representing the U.S. church at the 1997 synod, Cruz is especially proud of another major event of his tenure: Encuentro 2000, a national ministries gathering.After three previous Encuentros for Hispanics, it was controversial among some Latino leaders "who accused us of selling out," he said, because it included the diverse cultures of the church.
Some said they had fought efforts to integrate ethnic groups into the church because they feared they would be ignored within the larger church.An Encuentro that welcomed all ethnic and cultural groups was seen by some people as a step backward to further homogenization and loss of cultural identity.
But Cruz said he's optimistic that bringing the church's diverse faces together will prove to have been the right choice.
"I think and pray that Encuentro 2000 will someday be seen as a historical occasion that changed directions for the church -- showing that the body of Christ can exist among male, female, Latino, white, Asian, black.And that this can take place in parishes and dioceses," he said."Encuentro helped people to free themselves from limits imposed upon us by our socialization."
Seven years after Encuentro 2000, Cruz said he sees changing attitudes among Hispanic ministers that he attributes to that experience.
"People are starting to think of themselves as ministers for all Catholics, not just for Hispanics," he said.
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With nearly half the U.S. church consisting of "minorities," said Cruz, "if we don't make people feel at home -- which is something business knows how to do -- we will lose them.The church has to stick to its principles, values and doctrines, but a one-size-fits-all message doesn't get that across to everyone."
Though Cruz is retiring from the USCCB, he doesn't expect to stop working.He said he would perhaps take a couple of months off, but he's weighing several interesting job options.
Whatever career direction he takes next, Cruz said he'll remain involved in the goals and work of Hispanic ministry.
"There's no way to stop doing what I do," he said.
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