Friday, May 17, 2013

Is Your Newman or Catholic Center at College Too White Too Anglo ?

Ninoska Moratin who is a second year Catholic College Missionary with FOCUS has a post up called Why are there just white people at the Newman Center?!

I thought this was intriguing because it seems this is still a issue from the time I was at College. In Louisiana where I went to college  it did seem the Newman Catholic centers  ( besides those at the traditional black colleges of course ) were very white Anglo . Despite the fact that  Louisiana had a good percentage of black  Catholic percentage . Compounding thing was the fact that there were a high number of Vietnamese Catholics that you saw using the place to study on occasion but never got involved in the main activities. This despite having a Vietnamese Priest as one of the campus minister

Of course the reason this was so were complex. For instance as to the Vietnamese they were still a fairly recent immigrant group and were still a tad clannish Many still had some quite vivid recollections of their escape from their native homeland and the dramatic relocation here.. I am not sure if this is has changed or not .

Anyway it was sort of seen as a problem then and no one had easy workable solution to this than perhaps let time work it out.

The issue here is of course not black or Latino Catholics , but also Asian and in many places African immigrants or children of these immigrants.

Anyway I think Miss Moratin offers some good practical points.

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