Sat 24 Oct 2009
Father Rafael Rodriguez on Catholics and Latin America
Posted by Bert Kreitlow under Uncategorized[9] Comments
Rev. Rafael Rodriguez is pastor at St. Patrick Catholic Church in Whitewater and a native of Venezuela. After obtaining a law degree in Venezuela, Rev. Rodriguez came to Milwaukee to become a priest. After his ordination he first served as associate pastor in West Bend, Wisc. before coming to Whitewater
In a presentation Oct. 21 at UW–Whitewater, Rev. Rodriguez discussed the importance in Latin America and the Catholic Church of the reforms carried out in the 1960s. The reforms were initiated by the Vatican II Conference presided over in Rome by Pope John XXIII and Pope Paul VI from 1962 to 1965. Figuratively, the idea of Vatican II was to “open the doors and windows of the church to let in fresh air”. A number of reforms sought to make religious life more accessible through such things as sermons in the language of the church’s location rather than in Latin, and welcoming more work by lay members.
In Latin America at a conference of bishops in Medellin, Colombia in 1968 the ideas of Vatican II inspired church members to focus Latin America’s Catholic Church on social problems of poverty and oppression. This was an innovation in Catholicism offered by Latin Americans that came to be called Liberation Theology. lOne outcome of this was that ay members took the initiative in a burgeoning of what are called Christian Base Communities in poor areas.
With the arrival of Pope John Paul II in 1978 the emphasis of the church shifted to liberating the world, especially those Catholics in his native Poland, from communism. Conversely, the Papacy discouraged Liberation Theology and social activism that often resembled, or openly embraced, Marxism.
Then, and now, Rev. Rodriguez said, the church exists within political movements and struggles. He cited the case of Honduras, where the current Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga supported the ouster of left-leaning President Manuel Zelaya this past summer.
October 26th, 2009 at 2:05 pm
Father Rafael Rodriguez is the pastor of St. Patrick’s Church in Whitewater. He is from Venezuela and is number six out of nine children in his family. Father Rafael Rodriguez did not always want to be a priest, in fact he became an attorney but later realized his vocation was to the church. He was invited to the United States by the archdiocese of MIlwaukee in 1999 and was ordained in May of 2004.
Father Rafael Rodriguez talked about the president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, and how Fidel Castro was a leading example for Chavez. He also showed a World Bank slide that showed the number of baptized Catholics in countries. To my surprise, Brazil was number one, followed by Mexico and then the United States.
The first conference in Medellin (1968) was very controversial. One of the main points discussed was the families do not find concrete possibilities of education for their children.
There are cases of annulments in the Catholic Church, in which those people may marry again in the church. The first country that legalized divorce was Venezuela and in recent years Chile and Argentina have also made divorce legal.
In 1962-65 the Second Vatican Council was ruled by Pope John the twenty- third which had many big changes to come into the church. In 1962- 1965 the Eucharist was given in Latin and the gifts to the laity and more participation in the church was starting.
My question was were their a lot of other people being ordained that were from Latin America? Father Rafael Rodriguez said no that he graduated with one other guy that was from England. HE did say that Spanish masses are more prevalent in the Church today and he does a spanish mass at St. Patrick’s every Sunday.
Father Rafael Rodriguez’s presentation related back to Jim Winship’s presentation because they both talked about how families cannot always afford to send their children to school so they have to pool money from the parents as well as siblings. He also stated that they do send money back to try and help out the family in Venezuela from the United States.
Overall, Father Rafael Rodriguez’s presentation was very informative, and even though I am Catholic I did learn some very interesting things about Catholicism in Latin America.
October 26th, 2009 at 4:03 pm
The presentation by Father Rodriquez was excellent. He especially did a great job describing the role of the church in Latin American countries. There has always been a greater connection between the church and state in Latin American countries. Churches receive funds from the government to help run them as members of the congregation often do not have enough money to help run the church like we do in the U.S. After the Second General Conference of Latin American Bishops in Medillín, Colombia, in 1968, there was a shift in the ideals of the church. There, the bishops decided the church could no longer ignore the climate of collective anguish existing in the Latin American Community. The idea of the church helping the poor and changing the hearts of people to also become more compassionate, are the goals of liberation theology. After the conference, it became the trend for more priests to participate in the social movements of the country. All of this demonstrates the connection existing in Latin American countries between the church, state, and community.
Father Rodriguez also shared with us his experience working in the U.S. at St. Patrick Church in Whitewater, WI. He was asked to come to southeast Wisconsin because of its large community of Latino Catholics. The U.S. has the third largest number of Catholics in the world. This number is mainly due to the amount of immigrants coming from Latin American countries and is continuing to grow. It is important to understand the history of Catholicism in Latin America because its influence is being seen in the U.S. more and more every year. It will be interesting to see if one day the church and state become connected once again here in the U.S. because of that tradition in the Latin America.
October 27th, 2009 at 11:22 am
Father Rafael Rodriguez did a great job describing the importance of the Catholic church in Latin America. One fact that surprised me was that there is a very significant connection between church and state. The church even receives aid from the state to pay some of their bills, since most of the congregation cannot afford to help support it.
I was also surprised when Father Rodriguez said that divorces were illegal in most of the Latin American countries until recently. Venezuela was the first to legalize divorce and a few other countries are following their example. Instead of a divorce, many people will get an annulment. This will allow them to be married in the Catholic church again when they are ready. I believe Father Rodriguez said he receives about three hundred cases each year.
Father Rodriguez also told us about his experience in the United States. He was asked to come to Wisconsin by the archdiocese of Milwaukee in 1999. He was later ordained in May 2004. Now he is the priest at St. Patrick’s church in Whitewater.
I believe his presentation applies to our class because we are learning about the Catholic church and its importance in Latin America. Because mostly everyone in Latin America is Catholic, it has a very significant role. It was great to hear from someone with such a great connection with both Latin America and the Catholic church.
October 28th, 2009 at 1:55 am
Father Rafael Rodriguez is from Venezuela. Instead of formulating a well-thought out paragraph of information that I gathered from him being here; I am bullet-pointing hard information from his presentation and then write my personal reaction to his presentation.
• He was an attorney for seven years, and then he became a priest.
• The Archdiocese of Milwaukee invited him to Wisconsin in 1999.
• He spent five years in the priesthood before he became an ordained minister.
• There was only one other Hispanic priest training to become an ordained minister in his class in Milwaukee.
• The countries with the most Catholics are: Brazil—79 percent of their population, Mexico—86 percent of their population, United States—22 percent of their population. Venezuela is in 12th with 88 percent of their population.
• The Catholics in the United States are growing because of immigration from Latin America.
• The middle class is shrinking in Latin America. Professionals and technicians are leaving in a mass exodus to more developed countries.
• Small businessmen and industrialists are being pressed by more powerful interests and many large Latin American industrialists are gradually coming to be dependent on international business enterprises.
• The existing infrastructure is much the same for an astronomically booming population.
• Amongst communities, Brazil has the most organized Catholic system in the world.
• The Church is vocal against Hugo Chavez and his human rights abuses.
I asked Father Rodriguez if he finds a lot of different religious denominations in Latin America such as Judaism or Islamism and the general sentiment towards them. He said that there is Judaism in Argentina and most people are open to new religions. There have been some attacks against Jews but it is mostly political. From listening to him talk, I had a general question that I want to bring up in class. It has nothing to do with religion but something that has been resonating in my mind for a few weeks. Do former colonial powers have an obligation to their colonized countries to provide industrialized support? Basically, since Spain and Portuguese colonized Latin America, raped the land, killed the inhabitants; are they obligated to open manufacturing facilities in Latin America and “share” the wealth?
October 28th, 2009 at 10:18 am
Father Rafael Rodriguez is a pastor at St. Patrick’s Church here in Whitewater. Father Rodriguez was born in Venezuela and has always traveled between the United States and Venezuela due to having family in both countries. Coming from a large family he is the 6th out of nine children. Father Rodriguez was not always a Priest however, for almost eight years of his life he was an attorney but felt that his purpose in life was somewhere else the Catholic Church. In 1999 he was invited into the United States by the Archbishop of Milwaukee to reach out to the Latino population, 85% of them with origins from Mexico/Central America, with the challenge of how to bring the people together. I asked Father Rodriguez that since in the United States has he had an opportunity to go back to Venezuela as a guest speaker in a church there and how was it different. He said that he has had a few opportunities to go back for family occasions but no matter where he goes the Catholic Church is the same mass but in a different language and no matter where he is they make you feel like you are at home. In class we learned about how one out of every two Catholics in the world live in Latin America, Brazil being the largest Latin American country. Father Rodriguez mentioned how Brazil was the most organized Catholic social movements in the world, the first Conference of Latin American Bishops was held in Rio, Brazil in 1955 (this conference was more about faith) and Brazil was the largest number of individual’s baptized in the Catholic Church. We also learned how powerful the Catholic Church has been throughout Latin America in wealth and the caste system. Father Rodriguez discussed the mission of the church and the how the Medellin of 1968 was a landmark conference of Archbishops in Latin America which gave the church power to give copies of birth certificates, baptisms and weddings. The churches even have their own Tribunal Court that grant annulments to people who want a divorce but still want to practice in the Catholic Church. I was surprised that Venezuela was the first country to become secular from the Catholic Church and to legalize divorce because not many Latin American countries allow for a divorce. The context today has not changed much to the Latin American social context in 1968 where churches in Latin America receive their funding from the government to keep them going. Families still don’t have possibilities for education because education is very limited and children have to leave school at a young age to work and make money for their families, women still lack the equality of men and the middle class is shrinking and the larger industries are pressuring smaller business and industries. This reminded me of when Professor Jim Winship came to speak about the challenges of education in the youth of El Salvador. The church wants to achieve a liberation theology; they believe they have to change people’s hearts and not the structures.
November 2nd, 2009 at 5:39 pm
The presentation by Father Rafael Rodriguez was actually really intriguing and interesting to me. He started out telling a little bit about himself and that got me to pay attention because it put him on a more personal level. He had been in the priesthood for five years and his hometown is Venezuela. He is now a Pastor at St. Patrick Church in Whitewater, WI. He came to the United States in 1999 because he was invited by the Arch Diesis of Milwaukee to be a pastor because the Hispanic population was growing and they thought he would be the man for the job.
I had stated to him that the most interesting part of Latin American culture was soccer and he commented that it is actually taught in Catholic schools and was brought to America by Catholics. Another interesting fact that he had presented in his PowerPoint was the percentage of the population that were Catholic for certain countries. I was surprised to see that the U.S. only had a 22.62% population of Catholics. I most enjoyed hearing about the history of the Catholic Church and all of the steps it took to get it to where it is today. The stories about the Vatican Councils and the big changes they evoked created almost a visual timeline for me to follow.
November 13th, 2009 at 2:09 pm
Father Rafael Rodriguez, Pastor of St. Patrick Church located right here in Whitewater, came to talk in our class Oct 21 about his transition for his home country Venezuela to Milwaukee then Whitewater. Father Rodriguez was invited to come to Milwaukee from Venezuela by the archdiocese of Milwaukee in 1999. Later he was ordained in May 2004. Father Rodriguez is the sixth child of nine. He actually wasn’t always a priest, before he was a lawyer until he realized his true passion in the priesthood.
Father Rodriguez described the differences in Catholicism Latin American and Catholicism here in the states. Compared to The United States, South American seems to be remaining stead fast. In many countries in South America divorce is still considered illegal. Venezuela took the lead in legalizing divorces just recently, and now a few countries are following.
Father Rodriguez also briefly described the growing population of Latino Catholics in America. The United States Catholic population has only been growing lately and that is simply because of the growing population of Latinos coming to America. Father Rodriguez gave us the facts of there are one million Latino Catholics currently in the state of Illinois. Also currently the top three countries with the highest population of Catholics are Brazil, Mexico, and the United States.
I personally asked the question to Father Rodriguez “What was the hardest challenge you had to overcome by coming from Venezuela to the US?” Father Rodriguez answered “definitely the language difference between the separate countries.” Father Rodriguez is a Priest at St. Patrick Church of Whitewater and he said “when I became the father of the church I didn’t lose any members of the church, they accepted and welcomed me and the way I talk.”
I had the question of how family members feel when one of their relatives moves to the United States to seek out a better career. Mexico has a very poor economy currently and it is very hard for individuals to find jobs, even harder to find jobs they enjoy. So many people from Latin America move to the US to seek out a better career. Although I am sure many family members get very upset when love ones move to the US, in Father Rodriguez case, he is still very close with family and friends at his home.
December 7th, 2009 at 6:06 pm
Well first of all, I go to St. Pats when I was here at Whitewater. I like mass there especially the college mass on sunday nights at 7. It helps me to reflect on how my week was and to fix anything. I thought it was cool that he came in and talked to us about the Catholic church life and his life as a Catholic.
He was saying that 43.6% people in the world are Latin American. Brazil has the most Catholics which I was suprised. He talked about Christopher Columbus and Queen Isabella because those two people were Catholics. He also showed us a picture of Virgin of Guadalupe which is a beautiful painting of her being a Catholic.
An interesting fact that I learned was that US is the lowest amount of Catholics which is 63,188,00 but that comes out to be 22.63%. Another one was that 198/191 countries are Catholic within the United Nations. Brazil has the highest amount of Catholics which is 147,386,00. But Paraguay has the highest percentage which is 91.56% of Catholics.
Then he talked about his life being a Catholic. He has been a preist for 5 years so far. He is from Venezuela, South America. He is the 6th child out of 9 in his family. He brought in his nephew Carlos because he is catholic and wanted him to come to hear his speech. Rafael also talked about being an attorney for 7-8 years. His major was philosphy and a minor in theology.
Rafael Rodriduez came to the United States in 1999 and was ordained into the priesthood in May of 2004. Finally, I thought this fact was pretty interesting: if you go every day to church it is said that you are only 30% Catholic.
December 7th, 2009 at 6:08 pm
Also I was going to ask him how long have you been a preist and what year did you come into the United States. He answered both questions.