The Catholic Latino Youth & Parents Project

In September 2008, Ken Johnson-Mondragon and I began the work of investigating the challenges that Catholic Latino families are facing in their daily lives and what we as a Church can do to help.

We began our journey in Washington state and held our last session this month in Orlando, FL.  In between these two trips, we visited California, Ohio, New York and Texas.  To get a 360º view of the reality of Catholic Latinos, we met with Latino teens, parents of Latino teens and youth ministry leaders working with Latino youth.  A total of 135 individuals generously gave their time and openly shared their experiences with us.  I would like to thank all of the participants and the local coordinators for all of their help in making this project a success.

There's lots of work to be done now that we've gathered all of this information, one of which is sharing it with all of you. For the next few months, I will be posting my insights on some of the findings from the Catholic Latino Youth and Parents Project.  I welcome your comments on my reflections and on the challenges described by the project participants. Let us pray that together our voices will be heard and these challenges will soon be met so that Latinos families in the Catholic Church will continue to grow in faith, hope and love. Que asi sea...