Catholic Spanish Ministry In The Evansville Area

 Ministry to the Hispanic community in the Evansville area was begun as an outreach service of the Guadalupe Center when Fr. Eugene Heerdink and Msgr. Ken Knapp formed an advisory group of Hispanic Catholics at Christ the King Church in 2001. In January, 2002 the advisory board accepted an invitation from Fr. Henry Kuykendall and the Parish Pastoral Council to join Nativity as members with full privileges and responsibilities. During the past five years the community has been able to celebrate Mass and sacraments in their own language with the help of one Bishop and six wonderful priests: Bishop Gettelfinger continues to support the ministry and celebrate the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe with the community at nativity every year; Fr. Gene Heerdink, Msgr. Ken Knapp, Fr. Jim Endress, Fr. Jean Vogler, Fr. Sy Loerlein, and Fr. Claude Burns have celebrated Mass and heard confessions.

 In 2006 Fr. Henry learned how to read Spanish well enough to begin to celebrate Mass and sacraments himself. He continues the ministry with the help of Fr. Jim Endress, Fr. Noel from St. Meinrad who helps at Mass and runs retreats, the wisdom of Sr. Karen of the Guadalupe Center, the experience of Christina Rosario from Catholic Charities, the talents shared by many Hispanic leaders and the gifts shared by a wonderful woman from Venezuela, Pilar de Tirado, who coordinates every aspect of the ministry, does most of the work and has expanded the ministry in many wonderful ways that we never anticipated.

 Nativity parishioners share a marvelous facility built by members 44 years ago and with $200,000.00 donated by a wonderfully generous woman who chooses to be anonymous we have been able to go way beyond just providing A Sunday Mass. With the money from our donor and the hard work of Pilar and many Nativity and community volunteers we have been able to become the primary center for Hispanic outreach in the Evansville area, including both Vanderburgh and Warrick counties. During these four years we have provided: Sunday Mass, sacraments, traditional annual and age related celebrations, dances, parties, even fundraisers for the community as well as a place for local agencies and even politicians to reach out to the community for referrals and needed services.  

The following are just a few of the services we have provided during these past four years: Sunday Mass in Spanish for over 1,000 different adults and children from Mexico and all over South America – an average of 125-150 every Sunday; Baptisms (71); First Communion (37); Confirmation (4); Marriages (7); Anointing of the Sick (25-50 on the 1st Sunday of every month); Funerals (3); many hospital visits; religious education/Sunday school (100 – average of 25 yr.), every Sunday we have 10-15 in child care for ages 3 – 7 and 10-15 in Liturgy of the Word; 10 Presentations for 3 year olds and 6 quinceaneros for 15 year olds; 400 + have attended two health clinics run by the Vanderburgh Health Dept.; 25 + children have received dental care from St. Mary’s Hospital traveling dental clinic; the Evansville Police Dept. is preparing to run four workshops in 2007 to help Hispanic children and adults trust and use their services; Mayor of Evansville held a town hall meeting with all city departments at Nativity for over 100 Hispanics with 10 interpreters from Nativity; Mexican Consulate held a meeting for 400 Mexican workers to obtain ID’s; Ivy Tech ran a class to teach English; our own teachers taught English classes and more classes planned for next year; class for English speaking to learn Spanish available on Monday nights; UE is using Nativity as a site for their students to volunteer for community service; Mater Dei is going to send their youth studying Spanish to help and go to Sunday Mass in Spanish; many employers call us for workers and workers come to us when they first come to Evansville; Vanderburgh Courts refer Hispanics who get in trouble with alcohol or driving related offenses to Nativity for community service work; we are asked to provide translators for courts, hospitals doctors and our most unusual request was for a Spanish Lamaze class.

 During 2007 we have requested a grant from the Welborn Foundation to establish the Juan Diego Center with a professional, multi-cultural bi-lingual community advocate and pastoral associate at Nativity in partnership with HOLA, Guadalupe Center and local community agencies and groups. We will study the most effective ways to integrate and assimilate different immigrant groups with different cultures and languages into a church or parish; continue to provide many English classes, and expand our outreach and partnership with local agencies and groups as well as train the Hispanic community in both parish and community leadership skills and advocacy.