Alejandro Aguilera-Titus (at left), lead staff for Hispanic/Latino Ministry at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, speaks during the 2024 Conference of the National Catholic Association of Diocesan Directors for Hispanic Ministry, which took place from Oct. 8–11. Next to him is Lorianne Aubut of the Diocese of Madison, Wisconsin, and Edwin Ferrera of the Archdiocese of Seattle. / Credit: Emily Chaffins

Miami, Fla., Oct 15, 2024 / 13:15 pm (CNA).

For attendees at this year’s conference of the National Catholic Association of Diocesan Directors for Hispanic Ministry (NCADDHM), effective Hispanic ministry has become part of the lifeblood of the Catholic Church. 

Just ask Father Brian McWeeney — the Archdiocese of New York’s director of Ethnic Apostolates — who witnessed this firsthand in New York. “When COVID was coming towards the end, the first churches that were filled were the mostly Hispanic churches,” he noted. 

The 2024 annual conference, which took place in Miami Oct. 8–11, was not McWeeney’s first. He said NCADDHM conferences rejuvenate him in his ministry to various ethnic groups, including Hispanics.

“This conference is especially important in conjunction with the Eucharistic Revival and the Synod [on Synodality],” he said, referring to the 16th General Ordinary Assembly of the Synod of Bishops occurring in Rome Oct. 2–27, 2024. “The synod is calling for communion, participation, and mission. This conference gives us a concrete way of communicating with each other about how to do this in our areas.” 

This year’s theme — “Pathways to Unity from a Synodal Experience” — was intended to “respond to the signs of the times,” as NCADDHM President Ignacio Rodríguez put it. Since synodality emphasizes conversation, Rodríguez said the conference is a place “to share resources, to [enable us to] hear from them firsthand, to help equip them with the right language — so when they go back to their communities, they can better respond to their reality.” 

Approximately 200 professionals from 65 dioceses converged in Miami for the conference, which ran with synodality in mind. Speakers could present in English or Spanish according to their preference. Organizers encouraged hotel guests to attend the conference Mass on Oct. 9; some guests staying at the hotel were seeking refuge from Hurricane Milton, which made landfall near Siesta Key, Sarasota County, that same day.

Speakers from throughout the nation discussed topics related to synodality and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB)’s updated 2023 National Pastoral Plan for Hispanic/Latino Ministry.

Speakers presented a wide range of topics, including ministering to young adults, people with disabilities, immigrants, people with same-sex attraction, and more.

During the “Synodality Through Discernment in the Light of the Gospel” panel on Oct. 9, Alejandro Aguilera-Titus pointed out Hispanic culture’s unique lens regarding the Catholic faith. In doing so, he cited one of the bishops’ statements about Hispanic culture found in the pastoral plan.  

“The beauty of our faith, our dynamic involvement in ecclesial movements, our authentic Marian devotion, our Catholic culture, our love for the family — those things have been said many times — but there is something else that they [the USCCB] told us for the first time,” said Aguilera-Titus, who is the lead staff for Hispanic/Latino ministry at the USCCB.

“They said that, by the mysterious ways of God, God has wanted you, the Hispanic/Latino people, to be missionaries to the Church of the United States,” Aguilera-Titus emphasized. 

In other words, although the pastoral plan is aimed at serving Hispanics in particular, the Church in the United States has discovered a paradoxical effect: These efforts to serve Hispanics have the potential to enhance the entire Church — to make it better attuned to Christ. 

“As we often do from the peripheries of the Church, we are transforming the Church,” Aguilera-Titus said, “because we see Jesus as the center. That makes it possible for us to be more disposed to creating a Church of communion within the cultural and human diversity of our brothers and sisters in this great nation of the United States.” 

Lorianne Aubut, the Diocese of Madison, Wisconsin, director of Hispanic ministry, presented her diocese’s story as an example of the national pastoral plan’s capabilities. She described how Bishop Donald J. Hying, the Hispanic ministry, and various other organizations across the diocese have collaborated to create a diocesan plan based on the USCCB national pastoral plan.  

“Our diocese’s pastoral plan was inspired by the story of Christ on the road to Emmaus, with encounter at the center of who we are,” Aubut said. In order to create their plan, they practiced both “spiritual discernment” and “practical discernment to create missionary disciples … and a strategic pastoral plan.” 

“Every meeting we had with our bishop we discerned in prayer, before the Mass, what was going to happen in that meeting, how we were going to transform our diocese through the movement of the Holy Spirit,” Aubut said.

To pinpoint their diocese’s needs, they asked for the community’s participation. “More than 900 people from our Hispanic diocese went to listening sessions with the bishop, and 60% of those 900 voiced their opinions and petitions,” she explained.  

Together, they identified that the community’s priority was marriage and family, so the diocese hired a coordinator for marriage and family to exclusively serve the Hispanic community. 

After a process of prayer and research, “the Holy Spirit showed us” that the strategic plan should integrate the areas of “marriage and family, youth, evangelization, catechesis, sacraments and liturgy, the accompaniment and care of the poor and the immigrant, and also the devotion and spirituality of Hispanics,” Aubut said.

For Father McWeeney, it is hearing stories like Aubut’s that makes attending the conference so moving.

“The conference gives hope for the Church,” he said. “We might get discouraged when we think we’re by ourselves. Here, there are so many hardworking people, and we get ideas about how to deal with our particular challenges.”