Pioneers of Latino Ministry: Claretians and the Evolving World of Catholic America

Historian Kanter (Chicago Católico) details in this scrupulous survey how the Claretians, a congregation of Catholic missionaries, reshaped the contours of American Catholicism. The Claretians arrived in Texas from Spain in 1902, when Spanish-speaking Catholics were hardly recognized by the church, Kanter writes. Preaching in storefront chapels and railroad camps, the missionaries used their language skills and understanding of Latin American tradition to strengthen Latino Catholic communities and create important cultural resources, including the magazine U.S. Catholic. As they fanned out into cities, Claretian missionaries founded urban dioceses that served for new immigrants as bridges between “centralizing, Americanizing impulses and the desires of Mexican and Puerto Rican Catholics to nurture the culture of home.” With Latinos now comprising about half of the U.S. Catholic population, the Claretians are attracting an increasingly global membership (including from non-Spanish speaking countries in Asia and Africa), raising new opportunities and challenges. The author makes a solid case for the Claretians’ role in ushering in a new era of American Catholicism while remaining transparent about the movement’s problems, including its part in covering up clerical sexual abuse. The result is an insightful look at an underexplored corner of Catholic American history. (Oct.)