Latino 91视频 Fellow named to Time鈥檚 100 Innovator list p. When Father Virgilio Elizondo was growing up in the west-side barrio of San Antonio, Texas, the son of Mexican immigrants, he found the church to be a refuge. 鈥淭he parish was the only institution in the city where we felt fully at home,鈥� he recalls, 鈥渇ully free to express ourselves in our own language, our singing, our festivities, our worship.鈥� As rector of his city鈥檚 historic San Fernando Cathedral for 12 years, Elizondo became a leader in bringing Mexican religious customs and traditions into the Catholic service. His annual Christmas posada, for example, re-enacts the pilgrimage of Mary and Joseph, with the couple trekking through the neighborhood and being turned away at city hall, the courthouse and hotels before finding shelter in the cathedral. Elizondo also launched an internationally televised, bilingual Mass from his church.p. Still, Elizondo struggled with the church鈥檚 paternal attitude toward Mexican Americans and vowed to go beyond simply elevating cultural traditions in church services. He wanted to develop a theology within the context of the living faith of his childhood neighbors, a faith that spoke of the mestizo experience 鈥� the mixture of Spanish and Indian blood common to people born of the Spanish conquest of Mexico. Why, he pondered, was there such emphasis in the Gospels on Jesus鈥� origins in Galilee, a land little mentioned in the Old Testament? It came to him that Jesus was essentially a mestizo, raised in Nazareth, outside the mainstream of Israelite life. 鈥淧eople are hurt when they are not welcome. To me, that is the sin of the world,鈥� Elizondo says. 鈥淛esus became the rejected other, and only out of that position was he able to reject rejection.鈥漰. Elizondo鈥檚 mestizaje theology has found resonance beyond the Mexican-American community. 鈥淓very generation tends to build an image of Jesus in response to its deepest quest,鈥� he says. "When they are writing about Jesus, they are really writing about themselves.p. Wednesday, December 20, 2000
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