By Karen Girard, Special to your Catholic Herald

WEST BEND — In an attempt to raise education levels, reduce poverty and increase healthcare within the growing Hispanic community, Washington County is the site of the Casa Guadalupe Education Center.

Casa Guadalupe is a countywide initiative, said executive director Mary Lynn Bennett, with a mission “to build and support the spiritual, social, economic, and education levels of low-income, native-born and non-English-speaking Latino families and individuals who reside in communities across southeastern Wisconsin, facilitating their integration into American society.”

Bennett owns Bilingual Skills Services LLC, a company that facilitates communication between English-speaking employers and Spanish-speaking employees. She’s traveled to the Southwest many times, she said, and has seen first hand the difficulties that region experiences with immigrants, and how polarizing immigration issues become for communities.

“I’m hoping to avoid some of the things happening in California,” said Bennett, who added that education is the key to enabling immigrants to become assimilated into their new community.

Hispanic outreach began in 1995

Bennett began a Hispanic Outreach program at her home parish of St. Frances Cabrini in 1995. Four years later, the parish program expanded to include community agencies such as healthcare and law enforcement.

In 2004, the Milwaukee Archdiocese appointed newly-ordained Fr. Rafael Rodriguez associate pastor at St. Frances Cabrini, in part because he speaks English and Spanish, enabling him to also minister to the growing Hispanic population throughout the county.

With these expanding boundaries, said Bennett, the parish’s Hispanic Outreach has become absorbed by county’s Casa Guadalupe project, and includes a more extensive array of services than could be provided by one group working alone.

Fr. Rodriguez came to Milwaukee from Venezuela, the result of an effort to bring bilingual priests into southeastern Wisconsin. Since St. Frances Cabrini’s five-year plan included expanding its Hispanic ministry, the parish welcomed Fr. Rodriguez, who is in the U.S. on a religious worker’s visa.

In summer of 2004, Fr. Rodriguez had gone on retreat to the shrine of Mother Cabrini in Colorado. He said the shrine sisters encouraged him to visit the Centro San Juan Diego, a Latino community center designed to serve Hispanic Catholics in the Denver Archdiocese, which has experienced tremendous growth in the Hispanic population. He did, and brought back to Wisconsin the center’s model of ministry.

Casa Guadalupe reflects faith, family

Casa Guadalupe, said Fr. Rodriguez, is comprised of two divisions: Fe (Spanish word for “faith”), the pastoral division, and Familia (“family”), the family services division.

A major focus of the pastoral division is providing sacramental celebrations for Spanish-speaking Catholics, said Fr. Rodriguez. It also offers solid formation in the Catholic faith for Hispanics, and works to increase involvement of Hispanics in pastoral leadership. The pastoral division serves the English-speaking community, too, by providing guidance regarding Hispanic ministry, and education about the culture and traditions of Latin American immigrants.

Fr. Rodriguez celebrates Mass in Spanish every Sunday in West Bend and Hartford. An afternoon Mass rotates between St. Frances Cabrini and St. Mary/Immaculate Conception, and evening Mass is offered every Sunday at Hartford’s St. Kilian. Anywhere from 60 to 120 people attend these Masses, according to Fr. Rodriguez.

He said it’s difficult to determine the size of the Hispanic population in the area. The official census is inaccurate, he believes, because many Hispanics were not counted.

“We’re trying to determine how many are here by looking at baptismal records,” he said. “Also, by word of mouth. (It was through) doing home visits we found out that many (Hispanics) live in Barton, so we do one Mass a month now at St Mary’s.”

Family services division offers practical help

The family services division of Casa Guadalupe focuses upon education, economic development and legal assistance

It is served by three advisory committees, according to Bennett: an education committee, with input from University of Wisconsin-Washington County, Moraine Park Technical College, and local school districts; a community at large committee, “these are people like business owners, those in medical services, social services, real estate, insurance — those who interact with the Latino community in some way,” said Bennett; and a Latino committee made up of business people, working people, and others, “a good cross section,” said Bennett.

“The uniqueness (of this model) is that we will be creating a network between Latinos and Caucasians that will help Latinos assimilate and enrich the community,” she said.

The project’s name, “Casa Guadalupe,” has special significance. The literal English translation for “casa” is house, said Fr. Rodriguez.

“It actually means home, a safe place, a place where family gathers,” he said.

“Guadalupe” acknowledges the mission Mary gave to St. Juan Diego in her apparition to him: that the church care for the powerless and vulnerable.

Casa Guadalupe does not have a building, said Fr. Rodriguez, but that is not preventing them from going forward.

“We’re open to the movement of the Spirit,” he said.

Casa Guadalupe hopes to bring the vision Pope John Paul II expressed in his 1993 statement for World Migration Day to reality in Washington County.

In that statement, the pope wrote, “In the Church no one is a stranger, and the Church is not foreign to anyone, anywhere.”

From the beginning of his assignment at St. Frances Cabrini, said Fr. Rodriguez, the parish has been working to bring the Hispanic and the English-speaking Catholic communities together.

Bilingual celebrations unite community

Bilingual celebrations during Christmas, the Paschal Triduum, and the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, allow the communities to worship together.

“We have great feedback from parishioners about (these) bilingual, multicultural celebrations,” wrote Fr. Rodriguez in a follow-up e-mail interview. “Our experience tells us that bilingual Masses should not be offered every Sunday. Latinos are at different stages in their process of integration into the American society, so we should be able to serve them where they are at: monolingual, bilinguals, first, second or third generations.

This makes this ministry very interesting and challenging for us ministers.”

The education Casa Guadalupe provides goes in two directions: to guide Hispanics through American culture, and to invite non-Hispanics to participate in traditional Hispanic cultural celebrations.

“Every All Souls Day (Día de los Muertos) we display an altar for the dead, according to the Mexican tradition, for a week in the church’s narthex, with coffee and refreshments after daily Mass,” explained Fr. Rodriguez.

Additionally, he said, they offer activities in which both communities can share their culture, including a soccer tournament with Hispanics and non-Hispanics playing together.

These activities are not something tacked onto Casa Guadalupe, but are an integral part of the project, designed to foster communion between the two groups, making them “strangers no longer” to one another.

“Casa Guadalupe will play a key role in this process,” Fr. Rodriguez said, “(and) education is fundamental.”

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