H-And You Know This Is Your Work

Hinojosa-We are at the University of the Incarnate Word and it’s July the 18th, 2008. This is

Gilberto Hinojosa and I’m interviewing Virgilio Elizondo for the, uh, Church and the Chicano

Movement project. Thank you for uh agreeing to meet with us and get your stories on tape. Uh why don’t we start with your experience-I know you’re very much involved with theology and the role of culture in faith, so let’s talk a little bit about, maybe this is, you may want to start wherever you want-

Elizondo-Laughs

H-but what about starting with the seminary training. Was there any of that you know that you know that movement with regard to faith and culture that you espouse-

E-Uh huh.

H-and you know this is your work.

E-Yeah.

H-Was there any of that evidence in the seminary, in the seminary training?

E-Well you might say yes and no. Uh, from the point of view of language, yes because

Archbishop Lucy was very insistent that no priest would be ordained for this archdiocese if the fellow was not fluent in Spanish, regardless of who he was, German, Czech, anything else, and he would actually send the seminarians during the summer time to work with the migrant workers up north, Crookston, I think, in Minnesota or something. Many of our seminarians had migrant experiences because that was kind of a sine qua non of the archdiocese. That’s why you have people older than myself and the priests from San Antonio that are perfectly bilingual and they were not-you know they were German, Czech, Polish and so forth. H-Uh huh.

E-And so in that sense yes, and we learned the proper songs in Spanish, a little book put out by the Oblates I remember very well. And so we occasionally sang songs in Spanish, uh, we certainly attended Guadalupe celebrations downtown, the whole seminary would go and attend.

So there were certain things, there were certain things. On the other hand, on the negative side, it was an era where segregation was still not being questioned. It was an era where the Latino was presupposed to be inferior. Um, and so you know one of the things, I’m going to jump ahead and say something about now, the first time that the Hispanic priests named PADRES, one of the things we had in common, you’ll remember how many of our colleagues had been dropped out of the seminary-

GHUh huh.

E-whether religious or diocesan, it was the common factor. And so they didn’t remember how-

H-In the sense that-

E-They couldn’t make the grade.

H-Or they didn’t feel welcome or something?

E-Both, they didn’t feel welcome, it was too different, and then you know they didn’t speak-they spoke English with an accent and sometimes they’d be ridiculed and made fun of and all that.

You know kids-seminarians are kindergarten kids, they can be cruel in their jokes.

H-Yeah. E-And a lot of times there were a lot of innuendos and all that, ‘hey, spick, how about this’ or so there was you know it was a mixed atmosphere.

H-Uh huh.

E-It was a mixed atmosphere. And I remember my own seminary days, many of our Mexico-

Mexicano contemporaries were you might say, pushed out-

H-Uh huh.

E-in one way or another. They were never told ‘because you’re Mexican you got to leave’.

H-Yeah.

E-I mean, not that reason, but you know one thing or another sometimes they would be ridiculed in class because the way they spoke, guys would keep asking ‘what are you trying to say? Oh, oh why don’t you pronounce it correctly?’ Then after a while you just shut and leave, you know?

And so in that sense-and you know, the issue of culture was nowhere in the church anywhere.

H-Uh huh.

E-So it wasn’t in San Antonio either.

H-Yeah.

E-It was-we had the same seminary manuals in San Antonio, Texas. You had the same textbooks for the same occasion. So in that sense, no, on the other hand on their was a sense of the need to be present in the Spanish speaking community, yes. H-The uh-this experience of being sent with the migrant workers, do what extent did that ferment some kind of concientización, if not for culture, for uh social justice. Lucy was a big proponent of social justice.

E-Yeah, right. Well I think certainly that because the other thing about Archbishop Lucy that for him, teaching the social doctrine of the church was equally important about teaching about the sacraments.

H-Uh huh.

E-And so-and he made that very explicit you know to celebrate the sacraments without getting involved in social justice is hypocrisy.

H-Uh huh.

E-And so in that sense he made all the seminarians very aware of the social teachings of the church that wasn’t a matter of choice, haha.

H-Uh huh.

E-If you were an orthodox Catholic, haha-

H-Yeah.

E-You would be involve in issues of-see that’s where essentially Lucy was very conservative.

H-Yeah.

E-But because he was very conservative he was very avant garde, haha

H-Yeah that’s true. E-Precisely because he was deeply rooted that this is the doctrine of the church, therefore you don’t question it.

H-Uh huh.

E-I mean the right for labor unions for example, he used to make a lot of enemies because he insisted any church contact had to have labor (union) workers. Well Texas is not a labor state haha-

H-Yeah.

E-and so a lot of people complained that that was-and he said ‘no you got to pay a just wage and get all the guarantees through the unions’. So Lucy was a very complex person in that sense.

H-Uh huh.

E-In a way he was the old bishop dictator of the past, but in a way out of that being the dictator, he pushed very avant garde cause is catechetics, in religious education, in reaching out to Latin

America. He was the first US bishop to reach out to Latin America.

H-Uh huh.

E-He organized an inter-American congress of catechetics in San Antonio, Texas in the 1940s-

H-Wow.

E-when he brought in bishops and cardinals from throughout Latin America. You know and I remember because I was a school kid and all the school kids went to the opening mass, and boy we were in awe to see all these cardinals and bishops on the stage of Municipal Auditorium. I was in fourth or fifth grade, I think. H-Yeah.

E-And so in that sense you know in that sense uh for example, many seminarians would be assigned to teach catechism in the summer schools that we used to have remember the-

H-Yeah.

E-in Spanish speaking parishes. So in that sense there was an-although the issues of culture were never directly addressed-

H-Uh huh.

E-and there was-there was an atmosphere to growing sensitivity.

H-Your own personal interest in theology and culture was that something you developed later, I guess, to some extent, or I’m not sure it goes to earlier, I mean your household and uh-

E-Eh well not really. No not really-not really I was somewhat interested in the church, that’s why

I became a priest eventually. But I wasn’t that particularly interested in theology as such you know haha.

H-Yeah, right.

E-I was interested in the priests, I didn’t know theology existed, haha.

H-That’s right, haha.

E-I knew the priest at mass and preached and did all kinds of stuff, you know. And so-but then theology and seminary was not very appealing. Theology-

H-Yeah that’s right. E-Theology in seminary you memorize the textbooks.

H-Yeah.

E-And so actually I didn’t develop a love for theology in the seminary.

H-Uh huh.

E-If anything, as my pastor even told me at that time, a very good Carmelite, Father Phil …he said ‘son, seminary is like purgatory, get it over with’.

Both Laugh

E-He said ‘but don’t take it too seriously’ haha.

H-So what was your first assignment that you-

E-Our Lady of Sorrows-

H-Uh huh.

E-here in San Antonio, Texas. I loved it, it was a parish that had some very old time Mexican families-

H-Uh huh.

E-that came already in the late 1800s to work in the cement factories.

H-Uh huh.

E-And so it was an older neighborhood of very old Latino families.

H-Is this the one on North St. Mary’s? E-Yes.

H-Yeah right.

E-They’d been here two or three generations already.

H-Uh huh.

E-And it was a poor area, but people with a lot of self awareness of dignity. It was beautiful, I loved it. I still-

H-Who was your pastor?

E-Father Arnold Anders.

H-Uh huh.

E-He’s retired now in Corpus Christi. A wonderful man-

H-Uh huh.

E-spoke Spanish perfectly.

H-Uh huh.

E-Was very concerned about reaching out to the Latino. Very, very concerned and had a great love for the Latinos.

H-How long were you there?

E-I was there just one year.

H-Uh huh. E-Then I went to Floresville where I started to learn Polish, haha.

H-Oh is that right? Haha.

E-I went to Floresville, where they had a big Polish speaking community, a big German speaking community and a Spanish speaking community. You know so that’s what my first time to live in the country.

H-Oh is that right? Haha.

E-It was great, I learned all about cow manures and different manures that were-

H-Laughs

E-better fertilizers and others. And I had to learn how to wear boots so I could protect them from rattlesnakes. And I started subscribing to the farm journals so I had something to talk about with the other so I could talk about front drive tractors and back drive tractors-

H-Laughs

E-and fort tractors and Deere, John Deer, I think it was called or something. Man I became an expert in that stuff. I could take a look at-

H-Did you have a ranch circuit in Floresville? Did they have-you know sometimes in south

Texas-

E-Well a couple of priests were ranchers, haha.

H-Yeah but-

E-Probably attended their parish in the spare time, haha. H-Is that right, haha.

E-And had their cattle-it was a wonderful experience, I-

H-How long were you in Floresville?

E-Two years, loved it drove in-in Stockdale. Stockdale, Texas.

H-Oh wow.

E-Yeah.

H-So how was the Stockdale experience?

E-Oh beautiful, I was the administrator of Stockdale-

H-Uh huh.

E-so I could do anything I wanted there, haha.

H-Oh yeah you-

E-So we had a great community. We had about a hundred families and you know it was interesting because there were-there was a community there was Polish and Mexican.

H-Uh huh.

E-But they got a long very well. There were several marriages, intermarriages and they-the segregation wasn’t present there, in that little town. It was more present in Floresville-

H-Yeah.

E-than in Stockdale. Stockdale is a very little community and people got a long together. H-Where’s Stockdale?

E-Yeah that’s a good question, haha.

H-Where is it?

E-Stockdale is, I guess it would be between Floresville and Nixon.

H-Oh ok, oh yeah ok, yeah.

H-The two big center-

E-That’s right. That’s right, mega centers of the universe.

H-Yeah, haha.

E-Yeah. Essentially, it was there that I really started to become aware that we simply didn’t have good pastoral materials for the Mexican people-

H-Uh huh.

E-Mexican American but at that time we were simply Mexicanos.

H-Right.

E-The term Mexican American is much more modern.

H-That’s right.

E-There we were simply Mexicano, or La Raza, or La Gente or things like that you know? H-Yeah.

E-But I started to become aware that we didn’t have materials.

H-Uh huh.

E-You know? So I didn’t really do anything about it there except you know I-remember our

Spanish-we had a good Spanish speaking mass and I remember working to develop the choir, I remember I organized the first Mañitas-

H-Uh huh.

E-and the pastor just said it wasn’t gonna work, it wasn’t gonna work you know. Then he couldn’t believe it when he gets up at four thirty in the morning on the twelfth and he sees almost this traffic jam which never happened in Floresville, haha.

H-Yeah haha.

E-Traffic jam with cars coming and the church was getting packed you know he ran in and he put on his monsignor robes there, haha.

H-Laughs

E-Because you know people responded.

H-Yeah.

E-People responded. And I remember, I started to do things you know for example, things that I drew from the cathedral money like El Pésame-

H-Uh huh. E-on Good Friday, and it was fascinating that a lot of the Polish, German people started asking the pastor ‘why don’t we have that kind of stuff?’

H-Hmm.

E-‘This is beautiful, how come we’re not having’-you know or ‘why isn’t for everyone?’ And that’s where I really came up with the insight, I didn’t quite verbalize it then but I-the way that I realize it now, but I started realizing that we really had something beautiful to offer the total

American Church that the church was missing.

H-Uh huh.

E-And it wasn’t because I was imposing it-

H-Uh huh.

E-it was because-it was present because they would tell Monsignor, the pastor monsignor, ‘those things are beautiful that we didn’t understand in Spanish but we came to it out of curiosity. We need to have things like that’ haha. You know I did the processions in the Guadalupe celebrations and the Pésame a la Virgen, Las Siete Palabras, and all those kinds of things.

H-Did he give you the uh-

E-Oh and in that sense he was very good. In that sense he didn’t understand it but he gave me the leeway to do it you know. And so that was good and then the actual, you might say it was my starting to national, international stuff came out of their-

H-Uh huh. E-because as the youngest priest in the diocese, I was assigned to the task-two or three tasks that no other priest wanted in the deanery, in the deanery.

E-And so one of the things that I was assigned to was that I had to teach the doctrinal part of the teacher training program that we had every year.

H-Uh huh.

E-You know we had one semester course in which they taught methods of teaching high school, methods of teaching elementary, and doctrine.

H-Where was this?

E-In Floresville, in Floresville.

H-For the catechism teachers?

E-Of the deanery, of the deanery, volunteers, CCD, the old CCD.

H-Oh ok, alright.

E-The old CCD program you know?

H-Oh ok.

E-One one semester course and you were an expert. So you know I came out you know I came out of Vatican II.

H-Uh huh. E-I mean I was in seminary when John Paul-when Pope John XIII was elected.

H-Uh huh.

E-And man we were on fire with Vatican II.

H-Yeah.

E-I knew those documents in and out you know? I could-so I was Mr. Vatican II in the deanery-

H-Uh huh.

E-and since the older priests never read those documents, I mean I could say anything I wanted to and they would say ‘ok’ because they knew I knew the stuff you know, haha?

H-Yeah.

E-So I had the authority of knowledge, haha.

H-Uh huh.

E-Anyway when we started this course, we normally started with about fifty, twenty students and ended up with about ten, and they’re from Baltimore. Well I did the first radical thing in

Catholicism, I asked the participants to bring their Bible with them.

H-Oh, wow.

E-Oh, wow. Totally unheard of.

H-Yeah, haha.

E-I mean they were so Protestant, especially towns that were very Protestant you know? H-Yeah.

E-‘Bible, how about the catechism’ I said ‘No you won’t be needing it’ haha you know? ‘Bring the Bible with you’ you know? So that-word started getting around you know ‘Bring the Bible with you’. So I started preparing a Bible series-

H-Uh huh.

E-you know a Bible series, a very simple Bible series and instead of decreasing, the class started increasing.

H-Uh huh.

E-So then the pastor got very nervous and he’d come in to sneak in on me and see what I was doing, but he never realized he was standing in front of a mirror where I could see him you know eavesdropping there.

H-Laughs

E-So anyway one time he calls me in and he would always call me Father, he never called me by my first name, ‘Father’ he says-oh because I was mimeographing notes, the old stencil, you get yourself a dirty-

H-Yeah.

E-I was there graphing notes and he passed by me and he says ‘You know uh you can’t do that without an Imprimatur because you’re putting out stuff from the Bible. According to Cardinal law you cannot do that’. Ah, I said ‘If anything I’m guilty of stealing from other authors. You know I’m just copying stuff’. And ‘No, no, no Father you got to’-so finally he just said ‘keep it down’, I put the stuff down, you know put it in order, put in a letter of what I was trying to do and I sent a letter to Archbishop Lucy with a package asking for his ok, his permission.

H-Yeah.

E-Well for about six, nine months I didn’t hear a word from Archbishop Lucy. Then I got the response. I get the letter, well in those days you were always afraid to open a letter from

Archbishop Lucy, I open the letter and it’s appointing me director of catechetics for the diocese.

E-Because he was so impressed with the work, haha, that he had this young priest who was taking Vatican II serious and all that that I got appointed to be director of catechetics. I was ordained three years at that time you know? And-

H-Do you remember what archbishop Lucy’s role was in the Vatican Council?

E-Uh, not too much, not too much, he tried to make a couple of interventions about catechetics, uh, but I-apart from attending, as far as I know, maybe in the hallways I don’t think he-I don’t think he made any major speeches that I know of.

H-Well did he himself feel transformed by it or was he too old for that?

E-Again, again, again, because of his own church bringing, ‘If this is what the church was saying, this is what I’m gonna do’.

E-Now I think he couldn’t understand, that’s what got him in trouble at the end, the thing he could not understand was the concept of collegiality. H-Right, right, haha.

E-You know and that’s what-unfortunately-and that’s what the one thing people will remember about him.

H-That’s right, that’s right.

E-You know which is sad because that could’ve been the very end already-

H-Yeah.

E-and he was a great man, he was a great man in many, many was a real prophetic visionary.

H-Right.

E-But the one thing he could not understand was collegiality.

H-Uh huh.

E-He was the bishop-you know-he had to final (say)-you know. And so priest associations, priest centers and all that and-

H-Do you think he read the package you sent him from Floresville was it?

E-He used to love the Bible.

H-Uh huh.

E-He always a had a great love for the Bible and he actually read, he would read McKinsey, he would read those guys-

H-Uh huh. E-and he actually had a great love for the Bible.

H-So you think he probably read it and was impressed by it and then-

E-Might’ve looked at it or something.

H-Yeah.

E-Whichever it was-and that was-and then see, shortly after that, that’s when the Medellin

Conference was held-

H-Uh huh.

E-and he was one of the American bishops invited because-and then because I spoke English and

Spanish he took me along almost-

H-You went to Medellin?

E-as his translator. Yeah. You know and so that was-

H-Did he have advisors in the chancellery that may have said ‘You know, uh, Father Elizondo is really interested in’-

E-No actually, no actually the way I go the appointment was very interesting. He had a fight with-because he was pretty hot tempered, he had a fight with this catechetics director.

H-Uh, huh.

E-And he decided to fire him on the spot you know? And it was summer time and all his advisors were on vacation.

H-Oh haha. E-So all the names that had been in the political machine-

H-Uh huh.

E-Charlie Grohman’s name had been in the political machine and John Yanta, I think, because this was-actually under Lucy this is probably the most important pastoral (office) of the diocese-

H-Uh huh.

E-because he was a big CCD man.

H-Right, right.

E-So under him this was an all important post. Well no the political machine already had several guys in line-

H-Uh huh.

E-but when they fired the guy, they were all going on vacation.

H-Yeah right, haha.

E-So all of a sudden he remembers this guy out there doing this kind of stuff-

H-The new stuff at Sunday mass, haha.

E-So I get the-so I get the appointment, everybody’s surprised ‘I wonder where this guy comes from?’ Haha.

H-Laughs

E-So that’s the way my you know my action awareness led to a lot of other things. H-Uh huh. Did that mean you’re moving back to San Antonio?

E-Oh yeah.

H-Yeah.

E-I moved back and I was chaplain to Mt. Sacred Heart Nuns, right behind the Oblates-

H-Right.

E-which I had my own apartment there that was very nice. The first time I had my own little apartment, beautiful. Uh, very simple but it was great living on my own you know?

H-Yeah.

E-Not living in a rectory. And so then I moved in the there and started working in the chancellery office-

H-Uh huh.

E-and immediately started at his request, immediately started the whole renewal of the catechism advisees.

H-Uh huh.

E-Moving really into the Biblical based catechatics, we started with the On Our Way series of

Mother Maria de la Cruz-

H-Uh huh.

E-published by Sadlier. And so immediately the attempt was to retool all the teachers of the diocese. H-Uh huh.

E-And we started doing workshops throughout the diocese. And I-

H-Oh, how exciting.

E-Oh, yeah, no it wasn’t just for the Spanish speaking-

H-Yeah.

E-this is for the whole diocese.

H-Yeah.

E-This was for the whole diocese that we started retooling people you know with the basic-it was the old charismatic approach.

H-Uh huh.

E-Of basically moving from the doctrinal cathechesis to the Biblical catechesis.

H-Uh huh.

E-And so it was exciting. He allowed me to hire a couple of nuns to help out and like I said we started doing workshops and that’s then and there’s a connection with Incarnate Word then because Incarnate Word used to run the three summer-no that one summer program.

H-The pastoral institute?

E-That’s-well this is before the pastoral institute.

H-I see. E-It was the one summer program on CCD training.

E-Affiliated through Catholic U and again it was two-two courses, I took it one summer myself, one in methodology for high school, one methodology for elementary, and on in doctrine.

H-Uh huh.

E-It was kind of a sophisticated version of, you know, what we’d do in the parish.

H-Yeah.

E-You know? So I did that my first year here, but then under Lucy’s ideas I said ‘Look we have to totally retool this’. And he said ‘Well do what you have to do’. So I came and talked to the college at that time, I don’t remember who was the president. I remember Superior General was

Mother Calixta Garvy. And I remember talking to the university, I think Sister Margret Patrice was dean at that time, she wasn’t president. I think she was a dean at that time. But basically, the basis of this is very beautiful, the college says the college will do whatever the archbishop wants.

H-Uh huh.

E-It says ‘If you organize it, we’ll back him’. And that’s how we developed the three year program which became the pastoral institute.

H-I see.

E-And we started inviting people that were kind of like leading experts from around the world.

That’s why the first couple of summers it jumped from having about fifteen, twenty students to having almost two hundred students. H-Uh huh.

E-And we still have alumni of those early years-

H-Right.

H-that are key positions in Australia, New Zealand, throughout the United States. This is one of the first programs in the country to totally retool the whole catechetical approach in the country.

Then later on a lot of others got started.

H-What kind of uh reception did you get in the diocese?

E-Wonderful.

H-Is that right?

E-Oh wonderful, yeah I even talk to priests, some of the older guys, like Father Michael

McMannis and no they loved it. Some of the Irish, like Father Michael Gorhman, even those guys came into the program, you know; oh they were fascinated with it. Oh we had, you know, like anything, we had some that oppose it because we’re gonna wake up and quote the real stuff, but we said ‘this is what the Church says, it’s real stuff’. We always-we always had very serious, uh, magisterial backing.

H-Uh huh.

E-We knew what the doctrines of the church were saying-

H-Yeah. E-and we said ‘this is exactly to what we are doing’ you know? And we brought in some of the best professors in the world.

H-How did the-how did the, in this context of a Biblically based catechesis-

E-Yeah.

H-uh it lends itself to then incorporating the role of culture?

E-Well that kind of began to emerge see, because at that moment there was nothing specific about culture.

H-Uh huh.

E-There was nothing specific about it, except with singing some Spanish songs occasionally and doing things like-

H-Yeah.

E-but apart from that, there was nothing specific. But at the same time as I was doing this I was becoming more and more aware we had nothing, nothing for especially the Spanish speaking

Mexicano.

H-Uh huh.

E-As I went around the diocese, I started becoming more and more aware how deep the segregation still existed.

H-Uh huh. E-You know, how we still had segregated churches and I started to hear stories that were unbelievable and so forth. So I started becoming very, very aware, uh, much more before. I had become aware of it Floresville because Floresville, I mean it was-the segregation was not obvious, but it was very deep.

H-Uh huh.

E-And once you go to the know the people you started hearing just incredible stories.

H-Uh huh.

E-You know? So anyway here I became much more aware of it and that’s why I went to Mexico

City, that’s where I met Monsignor Francisco Aguilera, who later on became one of my best friends, to try to get help.

H-Uh huh.

E-And he’s the first one that kind of listened to all my talking, and at the end he looks at me with his very straight forward look, he said, ‘Sabes que? No te voy a ayudar,‘I’m not going to help you’. ‘What?’ He said, ‘because you want me to do it for you. You got a new situation, you got to do it for yourselves’. He says ‘I’ll be glad to help you anyway I can, but not do it for you’.

H-Uh huh.

E-And he’s the first one that really pushed for the distinction between Mexican from Mexico and

Mexican American-

H-Uh huh.

E-because he said, ‘No you really have a different situation’. H-Uh huh.

E-He said ‘and it’s beautiful’, he was very positive. So that’s where we started our friendship and afterwards he-

H-I couldn’t bid-I mean uh let me interrupt for a minute-

E-Yeah.

H-because a good bit of catechesis was bringing stuff in from Mexico-

E-That’s right.

H-before that right?

E-That’s right, brining libritos and Buena Prensa and it still is today.

H-Yeah, and it ‘s good.

E-And it’s good.

H-I mean it has it’s place.

E-Absolutely, absolutely.

H-But it’s not-

E-It’s not sufficient, it’s got it’s place but it’s not-for example just to jump way ahead, today a lot of bishops are bringing in priests from Latin America because they speak Spanish.

H-Yeah. E-A lot of times, unfortunately, it turns out to be a disaster because they don’t understand the local situation. Not because they’re bad guys.

H-Yeah.

E-So anyway, but going back to that particular period then, this was about 1967 or so-

H-Uh huh.

E-because Medellin was ’68, so this would’ve been between ’67 and ’70, the period I’m talking about right now. So actually, with Aguilera then we started to work with him and then in 19-lets see, in 1967 I was appointed director of catechetics in ’65, in ’67 through a series of things that are very interesting, I was invited to go to the national study week commission of catecetics in the Philippines, in Manila.

H-Uh huh.

E-Which by the way my first time traveling outside the US and I bought a Round the World ticket, and in those days you could buy a Round the World ticket for twelve hundred dollars and you could make as many stops as you wanted to as long as you didn’t go backwards, you go this way, that way, that way, that way, and since flights are not as common as they are today, a lot of times you had to wait a couple of days for the connection.

H-Yeah.

E-But the airlines would pay your hotels and meals while you wait for the connections.

E-So I worked it very carefully to miss connections and all that- H-Laughs

E-and I went through Europe, I went through the Holy Land, I went to Beirut, Beirut is one of the most beautiful cities you can imagine, I went to Baghdad, I went to Karachi, I-I mean I took about six weeks to do the trip-

H-Uh huh.

E-you know? So, anyway, up there I met a lot of the people. Out there I met Maria de la Cruz, which was one of the great pioneers of catechetics around the world you know? She was a fascinating person.

H-What was the name again?

E-Maria de la Cruz Ames.

H-Ames, ok.

E-Yeah, she’s a mission-uh Helper of the Holy Souls in Purgatory, originally from Mexico, worked in the United States all her life-

H-Uh huh.

E-and so-and a beautiful, beautiful person. She was probably the most important person in catechetics in the United States, and it was world wide because her catechetical materials were translated into something like eighteen different languages.

H-Uh huh. E-Anyway, I met her, I met Father Hoffinger, John Hoffinger, Father Neberra, Father Calle who would become good friends and I would bring to teach at Incarnate Word later on and later on at

MACC. And so that was kind of the start. Then at Puebla, Puebla I met many of the people who are now some of the greats in the world. I met Gustavo Gutierrez, I met Orlando DuBoff, I met este Orlando Muñiz uh they called him …Blend-

H-Tell me a little bit about Medellin and lets talk again about the conference in the Philippines.

E-Well the conference-the conference in the Philippines was very good because that was kind of the first time in a way, the first time that I started really to become very, very intrigued and fascinated by the profound role culture makes in shaping the way you perceive things, the way you see things, the way you understand things.

H-What happened at that that conference?-

E-Well-

H-that gave you that insight?

E-Well precisely at that conference we had many, many people who are from countries that had been quote ‘missionary countries’ but now are no longer the missionaries talking, now it was the

Africans speaking, it was the Indians speaking. In fact, I remember the most fascinating person of the conference, I remember him very well, we became very close friends was Father Amador

Pabadas, he was from Bangalore, India.

H-Uh huh.

E-And he was the founder of the All India Center of Culture, Bible, and Liturgy. And he had still my day-to this day I think he had the most profound stuff in enculturation. H-Uh huh.

E-You know? And I really started to-because see the Asians and the Africans were posed, and the Indians, were posed the question of ‘do we have to become European to become Christian?’

H-Uh huh.

E-That question was not being posed at that time in Latin America.

H-Yeah.

E-In Latin America, the question was poverty, economic poverty-

H-Yeah.

E-because it was so massive. There, there was poverty but the deeper question for Catholicism was ‘how can Catholicism become native to the people’?

H-Yeah.

E-Because so far, missionaries have tried to bring a model of the church and impose it rather than-and so one of the things that, because of the participation, I’m gonna go back to Vatican II now, because the partition-Vatican II was the first council that had actual participation from native, from native Africans, Asians, Indians, Latin Americans, not missionaries bishops of those countries.

H-Yeah.

E-And so it was for the first time the issue of culture is introduced as a theological issue-

H-Ah. E-at Vatican II. And it’s the first time that official church documents address the issue of culture.

H-Uh huh.

E-And one of the very, very fascinating aspects is in the decree on mission where it makes a very important distinction. It says that the local church sends the missionary-

H-Uh huh.

E-but the missionary doesn’t go to take the church, the missionary goes to take the Gospel, and to the degree that the local people accept the responsibility for Gospel, a new church is born.

E-It’s totally different from the old concept of the missionary taking the mission.

H-Yeah the church.

E-That’s right, uh huh. And so the whole concept that the word of God begets churches.

H-Uh huh.

E-And in the concept of birth you will have something of both.

H-Uh huh.

E-It’s not just pending position, but a little more a synthesis. Uh and so this concept then that- and therefore that hold the traditions of the people, their heritage, their music, the art, uh the ways of expression, all that is part of their reality, and Gospel comes not to destroy, but to ennoble.

H-Uh huh. E-And the Gospel itself is enriched by its intermingling with this. So this concept became very-I had already cited it at Vatican II, it never hit me that strong, you know, like something-you read something and you know it’s their but all of a sudden your eyes are open to much more? Well this is why really, I mean, just some of the talks, I remember Father Amador Pabada in particular, just phenomenal, Father Neberra spoke about conversion, well not conversion to

European Christanity-

H-Uh huh.

E-but conversion to Christ and how do you take a Japanese person who’s totally different from- and so anyway this type of in depth presentation just blew my mind.

H-You have actually written about that conference, haven’t you?

E-Oh yes.

H-I remember your writings, I think I remember-

E-Yeah a lot of my writings have stuff on it, yeah, right.

H-You mention that conference.

E-A lot of my writings-the best summary of my writings appeared in a book edited by Professor

Tim Matovina.

H-Yes, right.

E-Yeah, it’s called the Writings of Virgilio Elizondo and Friends.

H-Right. E-And he collected many of my writings.

H-But the mention of Medellin is in that-

E-Yeah.

H-as well as in others.

E-Because see there there was part of the-

H-For the Philippines.

E-part of the sight stuff of the Philippines, those of us who were Latin Americans met one evening to begin planning the catechetical input for Medellin.

E-So there was actually a connection between there and Medellin. And so there-because we actually planned you know what the catechetical input to Medellin was. And most of our stuff went right to Medellin, into the official documents.

H-Who called the conference in the Philippines?

E-Father Hoffinger, Johannes Hoffinger who had done several before.

H-Uh huh.

E-This was already the third or the fourth. He had done one in Africa, one in ….in Gemany, uh and he was a great pioneer of the charismatic renewal.

H-And that’s-technically that’s what it was about. E-Uh-

H-What was the heading of the conference?

E-The conference was Influential Study Recommission Catechetics-

H-Ah I see.

E-Mission catechetics.

H-Mission catechetics.

E-And so-how does the catechesis become-

H-Uh huh.

E-indigenous and not alien to a people.

H-Yeah.

E-So it was a whole question of culture was basic there. And there were several others, we had several Filipinos and all but the one that stands out the most in my mind, we had Archbishop

Lordusame who later became Cardinal Lordusame, he was there, he was also from India. Uh the

Indians were very profound and the Asians, the Asians they want to be Christians, they don’t want to be Europeans.

H-Yeah.

E-And so that way-you know, that way they’re questioning Christianity. So from them I really sparked a lot of ideas and then those ideas already, then Medellin, and then my good friend

Francisco Aguilera, who one time took me to a place that I had visited before already but you know just as tourists, I never made that much of an impression, but going with Francisco, everything took on a new meaning-

H-Uh huh.

E-because he loved his Mexican history, I mean, he just loved it, he was muy Mexicano, hast alas cachas, you know? So one time he took me to Tlatelolco, to the Plaza de las Tres Culturas, you’ve been there I’m sure.

H-Yes, yes.

E-And there’s a beautiful monument, right in the center of the plaza and that was the place where the final battle took place between Cuauhtemoc and Cortez.

H-Uh huh.

E-Well I’d been there before but it never made the impact and all of a sudden here I’m standing over the old Aztec ruins, there’s the first colonial church surrounded by multi modern buildings.

That’s what you call the Plaza de las Tres Culturas *name of plaza 32:53* and I’m sorry my hands are going so far out, maybe haha-anyway, este, there’s an inscription there that’s very, very powerful and again I had read it before pero se me había pasado

H-Yeah

E-this time and it says, ‘On this site, on the sad night of August 13th, 1521 valiantly defended by

Cuauhtemoc, heroically taken by Cortez. It was neither a defeat or a victory but the painful birth of the Mestizo people which is Mexico today’. Now that became for me a core moment in my life, my thinking. To transfer from the categories of conquest to the categories of birth. H-Uh huh.

E-That in a way we as Mexicanos and today as Mexico Americanos because I’ve said that we need a similar inscription at the Alamo, haha.

H-Ah ha.

E-You know, that we need a similar inscription at the Alamo today to see that it was neither a defeat nor victory but the birth of something new.

H-Uh huh.

E-And so in a sense, we who are here today, we are both conquistadores and conquistados, we are both oppressors and oppressed-

H-Uh huh.

E-we are both victims and victimizers-

H-Uh huh.

E-we are-that’s who we are, we are both. But we’re something new, we’re survivors, we’re here.

So that plaza really gave me a completely new set way of looking at reality. I mean that experience is one of the most pivotal experiences of my own way of thinking, to think of things in terms of birth rather than terms of opposition you know?

H-This was before or after-

E-It was after Medellin, it was after Medellin yeah.

H-In between Medellin and the conference in the Philippines? E-Well that was one year. Philippines was ’67, Medellin was ’68.

H-I see.

E-Medellin was always in ‘68

H-Uh huh.

E-And then by that time I was so fascinated by what was going on in the Philippines that that’s when I asked permission to go spend a whole year over there and study at the East Asian Pastoral

Institute-

H-Uh huh.

E-which I did. Lets see, oh back here in the States, during the same time Civil Rights was beginning very strong-

H-Uh huh.

E-uh Cesar Chavez was beginning-

H-Uh huh.

E-the Chicano Movement was beginning, all of these movements were beginning back here in the States and that’s when, in a way, some of us who are native Mexican American uh started to say ‘hey we got to get our thing together’.

H-Uh huh. E-You know we were starting to become aware for example that the diocese of San Antonio at that time was diocese of something like five hundred priests, I don’t think there were more than five native born Mexican American priests.

H-Uh huh.

E-Quintana was one, I think Romero was still alive, an old man, Quintana, then Raymond

Garcia-

H-Uh huh.

E-and I think it jumped to me I think. No Gilbert Cruz, was he from this diocese?

H-Yeah, right.

E-Gilbert, and Henry Casso. But Henry in the beginning wasn’t Mexican haha. Henry in the beginning would insist he was Italian.

H-Oh yeah?

E-Then all of a sudden the bug got to him, all of a sudden he became super Mexican.

H-Laughs

E-But I remember the first time I met Henry, he was just ordained and I had just decided to go to the seminary and I was so happy to meet a Mexican American priest and so I told him so and he answered me in an insulting way. He says ‘Young man, when have you ever seen a Spanish name spelled with two s’s? I’m Italian’. ‘Oh fine, si quieres ser Italiano. Lo que tu quieras.

Pinche pendenjo. Lo que tu quieras ser. H-Laughs

E-that’s up to you know’ haha. Then, he became super Mexican, haha.

H-That’s right.

E-But anyway you know-

H-Ralph Ruiz was always-

E-Oh Ralph Ruiz was always super Mexicano.

H-Yeah.

E-Ralph Ruiz was always-

H-Where does he stand-

E-He was ordained after me.

H-Oh I see.

E-I was ordained in ’63.

H-Uh huh.

E-Henry must’ve been ordained about ’57 or ’58 I think.

H-Uh huh.

E-And then Ralph came a couple of years after me, I think.

H-When you were going through this, um, uh cultural you know this whole idea of culture and theology- E-Yeah.

H-that you know conceptually-

E-Uh huh.

H-you were beginning to formulate this.

E-Uh huh.

H-Um, how did that, uh-and you were-I’m sure you were talking about this stuff with your fellow priests and so on, here in San Antonio.

E-Uh huh.

H-Uh how did that go over when-

E-Well we more-at that time we were more involved as far as the conversation, we were more involved in more practical issues.

H-Uh huh.

E-We were more concerned of the fact of getting more vocations of our own. We were more concerned with kind of what was going on in seminaries. We were more concerned with the fact that we didn’t have a single Mexican American bishop.

H-Uh huh.

E-So we were more concerned at that time as a group, as a group, it wasn’t so much theological issues as practical issues.

H-Uh huh. E-I mean those were the issues that were upfront.

H-Uh huh.

E-You know? It wasn’t the issues of theology and so forth. Uh, it wasn’t really until we had the you know the first PADRES retreat and I don’t remember the date, I’m sure-I’m not good at dates as you’ve found already.

H-Yeah that-we can always find that out.

E-Um but it was-we had the first PADRES retreat in Santa Fe, Nuevo Mexico, we went up there to the old seminary. And I wanted to bring Father Neberra in because he was the one who most fascinated me with the whole aspect of faith and culture.

H-Uh huh.

E-But he couldn’t come so we got another good friend who is very much into Bible, you probably remember meeting him, Father John Linskens.

H-Uh huh.

E-We got him to come over and Father John had done a lot of work in the cultural translation of the scriptures.

H-Uh huh.

E-You know how to translate it not just-because he said that many time literal translations can betray the meaning.

H-Uh huh. E-You know because the word can have a totally different meaning in a different language. And so uh we got him to bring the retreat and he was the first one that really kind of shook us up into the fact that we had to go deeper into things.

H-Uh huh.

E-You know that we had to go deeper into things and that’s where the idea came up of eventually starting something that became the Mexican American Cultural Center.

H-Uh huh.

E-We didn’t have a name for it at that time, but that we needed-there were so few of us and we had no place where we could reflect deeper into the questions we were asking. There was no place where we-we had no experts. Also in our own diocese and religious congregations were the sole minority.

H-Uh huh.

E-Some were just one some were-so that’s where the idea came, we need to have a center where we can concentrate the little we have and begin to speak for ourselves. Up until now, everybody else has named us.

H-Uh huh.

E-We got to begin to name ourselves.

H-Yeah. E-We got to be able to start saying ‘hey this is who we are’. Everybody said ‘Well, your religious expressions are syncretist’ or ‘Oh, you’re loosing the true Catholic faith’ or I said ‘Wait a minute, why didn’t you ask us?’

H-Uh huh.

E-You know and that’s when-and it was John Linskens that put these ideas into our mind.

H-Is this a good place to stop-

E-Yeah.

H-we need to change our-

E-Yeah, is it going ok?

H-Yeah it’s going fine.

E-Yeah.

H-Is uh that white cloth-